A Poem for Extended Child's Pose

"My sit bones kissing the soles of my feet, I reach my fingers until they touch the soft hair of some forgotten child still sitting silently in her room..." - from Extended Child's Pose, Corie Feiner

I give myself hugs often…

and in the spirit of radical self-mothering, self-love and self-directed evolution, I hug parts of me, regularly, that I had unknowingly disowned, discarded, or cast out.

Like the scared little girl with wild hair and tear-stained eyes that was still hiding in my childhood room, door locked, stuck in freeze.

I had not realized that a core part of me had stayed there, but was often confused by my overblown reactions to loud sounds, yelling or even certain expressions of alarm. How I would go numb and not know how to bring myself back from exile…

until 2020 when so many of us woke up, and the tools of how to heal from trauma were shared more widely. I began my commitment to my self-healing journey with the underlying belief that we are all healable and to stay the course no matter what.

What does this have to do with my poem, “Extended Child’s Pose”?

This poem explores the metaphor of extending myself back into childhood and bringing myself forward into wholeness. Whether or not Extended Child’s Pose is in your practice, I hope that after you read this poem, you will feel a deeper sense of connection with this humble movement and are encouraged to move your body in a healthy way and take in the feeling of unconditional self-love.

I encourage you to read this poem out loud to yourself so that you can hear yourself say these words.

Extended Child’s Pose

By Corie Feiner   


I kneel to the floor, touch my tiny 
toes together and stretch the ache of my arms 
until I feel my shoulders sing 

a song that sounds like peace and prayer—
instead of pain. My sit bones kissing 
the soles of my feet, I reach 

my fingers until they touch the soft hair 
of some forgotten child still sitting silently
in her room and tell her sweetly, 
Dear One, it’s time to come out 

and play. Then I swear to her that here, 
on this mat with my heart melting 
to the earth, that she is safe. 

I fill the skin of my back with a breath 
so big that it allows me to surrender 
and sink and open and close and hold
and be held and trust, again
that I am whole. 



Sanskrit name: Utthita Balasana

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Paid subscribers can listen here to me reading an audio recording of my poem for “Extended Child’s Pose” here.

Listen to "Extended Child's Pose" {for paid subscribers}

If you want to learn more about Extended Child’s Pose…

you can watch this informative instructional video by Substack Writer and yoga instructor

Janine Agoglia

here.

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Extended Child’s Pose is from my series, A Poem for Every Pose.

Every poem can be integrated into yoga practices and shared with anyone who practices yoga, loves yoga, or just wants to feel inspired. Yoga teachers who read these poems in their classes and on retreats often read the poems before, during, or after classes to create the feeling of embodied “poetry in motion” and to enhance the experience of the class.

I encourage you to read through my other poems to see which ones call you. If you are a yoga teacher and want a free pdf of this poem, please DM me. I will be offering this service until the completion and publication of what will be an artistic reference-style yoga poetry book of all 108 poems. (Extended Child’s Pose is poem 94!)

Thank you, as always, for your time and presence. Please leave a comment as one of the most wonderful things about this platform is how we connect and have conscious conversations with each other. I always respond.

With gratitude,

Corie