What does a Basket & a Yoga Sangha have in Common?

Sangha is the Sanskrit word meaning community…

When I think of community I think about what I share in common, collectively with a group of other beings… What brings us together and keeps us together is like a richly woven basket that contains and is composed of our shared values, motivations and care for each member and for the whole. Two words stand out as significant- common and unity… since as a community we are threaded together by our common ethics and linked through the unifying humility of the wisdom and compassion offered us by the yoga teachings.
In spite of the variety in the pieces, our outer differences in age, gender or life experience, as a yoga community we are connected through our inner, shared love for yoga and for the sacred sanctuary that is created through a shared intention to be more aware and awake to our relationship to ourself, to others and to life.
Each member is an integral piece of the collective Sangha, like a beautiful basket; it’s inherent beauty is in the integration of the individual with the whole and from the essential support and strength of the container as a dynamic and functioning structure from which each member can draw from... I am so grateful for my yoga Sangha and how it enriches my life!

Poet & Yogini Danna Faulds offers this view on Sangha~

Sangha

Teach me what I cannot learn alone.
Let us share what we know, and what
we cannot fathom. Speak to me of
mysteries, and let us never lie to one another.

May our fierce and tender longing
fuel the fire in our souls. When we
stand side by side, let us dare to focus
our desire on the truth. May we be
reminders, each for the other, that
the path of transformation passes
through the flames.

To take one step is courageous;
to stay on the path day after day,
choosing the unknown, and facing
yet another fear, that is nothing short of grace.

—Poem by Danna Faulds