A Poem for Staff Pose

"Some of us have covered our hearts with our shoulders or have locked our pelvis in layers of loss—" from Staff Pose by Corie Feiner

Credit: Rebecca Nebert

Around the time I set out to write a poem for staff pose, I was journaling a lot on wanting to be stronger. Not just physically, but mentally. I had often thought of myself as lost, even when I had everything I needed — food, shelter, friends, family… and I was lost, but not in the way that I had thought.

This unsettling feeling that I associated with being lost was from my refusal to travel on the uncharted terrain of my innermost self and the task before me required me to embrace every part of me I had disowned, discarded and ignored.

I realized that this journey required a strength beyond my muscles. It would require a strong spine, a solid core, and a physical and metaphorical staff that could hold me when I wanted to falter and fall.

I trust now that I have never been alone on this or any other journey. And I that am not alone now. And neither are you.

May you take this poem into your yoga practice and let it sink in deeper than sitting up straight. May it remind you to connect, really connect, to all that is.

And that our lives are so small and so vast at the same time.

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Staff Pose

By Corie Feiner


Not all of us can sit as straight 
as a staff. 

Some of us are more like question marks
or snakes writhing on the floor. 

Some of us have covered our hearts 
with our shoulders or have locked
our pelvis in layers of loss—

But when we do sit up straight, 
or dare to try, we reclaim the wisdom
of the walking stick that guided us 

through unmapped mountains to the 
peaks and plateaus where we could see things
for what they are. 

We hold our legs steady in front of us 
like a well-worn road upon which 
we have travelled so many times 

and begin our journey to reconnect 
our tailbones to the ground and hold them 
all the way to the sky. 



Sanskrit Name: Dandasana 

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Audio for Paid Subscribers

For my dear paid subscribers, you can listen to me reading Staff Pose here.

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Oh, and if you have never tried staff pose you can read more about it here or watch this video—