Features / Poets’ Corner – Vishwam Gurudas Heckert
Carol Jamieson’s latest guest in her occasional column is American yoga teacher Vishwam Gurudas Heckert who lives near Walls.
VISHWAM has many abilities and uses them with a genuine desire to make a difference.
Through his yoga teaching he has helped many to manage their pain and physical problems. I discovered he loves to write quite recently and am pleased to display in Poets’ Corner a very recent poem of his.
Held poses an interesting perspective on planet Earth both as a cosseted space where we can live in peace but at the same time are free to venture forth and experience life in all its drama and adventure.
Here Vishwam recalls how he came to yoga as well as how he came to be here all the way from Idaho.
“In his childhood, my partner Paul lived in Shetland for a few years and loved it. We moved to Shetland four years ago and too fell in love with these islands. We’re very lucky to live near Walls where there is a wonderful sense of community.
“In my youth I found myself disabled from a combination of physical and emotional problems. A kind physiotherapist suggested yoga, and I was very interested to notice that as I did more and more yoga, not only did I physically feel much better, but my writing became more poetic and flowing.
“I also found myself being much more creative with how I wove together threads from different disciplines and traditions. “I’m now a yoga teacher, trainer and heart minister with Heart Of Living Yoga as well as a volunteer in the charity work. The organisation supports underprivileged children and their families in the UK, Sri Lanka, Brazil, and India.
“I also have the privilege of working as a Learning Support Worker at Happyhansel Primary School where the kids teach me a lot about living.
“During Covid, we enjoyed online group heart meditations with my teacher, Padma Devi, and found myself spontaneously writing poetry afterwards. I shared some of these and was encouraged to keep writing in this way. After a while, a friend and I started offering heart meditation and creative writing groups online. Those groups are still going strong today.
“This poem, Held, was written at an in-person heart meditation hosted by Haripriya Scott at the Heart Celebration Day retreat on the Falkland Estate in Fife in August.
“I was a bit shy about sharing it, but I’ve read it to a few friends whose opinion I trust and they encouraged me.”
Held
Some say the Earth is flat while
others see a little blue marble
floating in space. I wonder
if perhaps she is a vast living bowl
that holds us all equally contained
and free.
Like a pond holds water where lilies bloom
and the nest holds hatchlings til they fly,
the Earth holds the roots of mountains and trees, of you and me.
We might learn from our Mother
Earth not only the joy of being
held
but that the Heart, too, is a great container
holding all that is precious, all that needs
tenderness
all that is.
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