It’s about more than the toothbrush

Asana means pose or posture — another translation is “steady seat.” We mess around in class with these shapes mainly because we want to stay healthy and fit, and elastic and strong, for as long as possible.

The point of asana is not to perfect the poses — that’s impossible anyway, because all bodies are situated just a little differently and will not look the same on “completion” of the shape.

The point is to move more energy through the body, more precisely and with longer-lasting effects. So you can do asana anywhere, really, when you are typing, walking or getting up in the morning. Any movement evolves into asana when you become aware of the movement, when you are so deeply engrossed that you can watch your body both relax and form into the movement (reaching for the toothbrush) instead of thinking of something else (I’m hungry) as it happens.

To be sure, yoga class is a good way to start. As teachers, our job is to guide you into heightened awareness of yourself, and the body you have that takes up space. From there, you can become as aware as you want, anywhere, in such a way that you start to release patterns of tension (e.g., thinking, “Omg, I have a lot to do today” as you scrub you body with soap in the shower) and open to a new state of relaxed alertness. It’s pretty sweet when you “arrive” at that place.

What is grounding?

For our purposes, grounding is an overall or localized experience of the thinking mind rendered lighter. In other words, the thoughts that fuel our day in general or any experience, specifically, become less “heavy” and overwhelming because the body has energetically plugged into the ground. Like a plug into a socket, a person becomes instantly aware of the relaxation response associated with living in relationship to gravity when she “grounds.” Grounding, in other words, is the baseline psycho-emotional experience of awareness. As thinking recedes, awareness rises, anything rising is coming up from below. In this case, the rising is awareness from the support of the earth.

Students of energy must practice feeling this actual, embodied experience in order to lay the groundwork (there’s no better word) for the release of dormant, acute, or recurring emotions associated with thoughts and stories that have too long dominated their consciousness. Without grounding work, the release of emotions cannot work. Emotions will move in second chakra (i.e., emotional/movement) work, but if they do not know the way out of the body, they will then circulate, confused, and continue causing as much pain and dis-ease (if not more) as when they lived in their unreleased state.

-excerpted from Kim Weeks’s notes for the Hands-On Energy Seminar.

ooh i’m so tired!

This is one of the things I hear during the Fall a lot. More so than Winter, even though during those colder months there is less light to go around.

This makes me think of yoga. I can say without a doubt that at 37, I feel younger and more alive than I did at 23 — then I was busy working on Wall Street, running to the gym, and then running home to go out, or to go home and hang out in front of the TV. I felt exhausted all the time, and even training for a marathon didn’t seem to help.

Over time, I’ve learned that my body needs certain shapes, and certain relaxation tools, to keep it running smoothly, energetically, and happily. These shapes and relaxation tools come directly from yoga: They have aligned my skeleton, muscles, and nervous system (i.e., how I think and feel) in such a way that I conserve energy when it feels good and makes sense, and I expend it when it feels good and makes sense.

Running a small business at 9 months pregnant, I still work as many hours as I ever clocked at JPMorgan or Merrill Lynch, but the difference is that my skeleton and nervous system aren’t working as hard to hold me up, move me from place to place, and let go as they settle me down to sleep at night. Even 40 lbs heavier than I was in January, the only thing bothering me occasionally are my knees, and that’s because they are still adjusting to the weight they are temporarily bearing from above.

During the Fall, when it becomes obvious that your body is going into hibernation, it’s a very good idea to stick with a yoga practice in order to observe how your body is holding you up. Learn how to conserve energy, learn how it moves through your body — be interested in where you are efficient and where you aren’t, and explore your body from there. These are essential “wellness” tools for any body wanting to feel more alive, and less encumbered.

What is energy?

This, from one of my energy apprentices on her recent test:

What is energy?  That is an interesting question, one that I have thought about over the three years that I have been doing energy work, but one which I don’t think that I ever really have an answer.  In Anodea Judith’s Eastern Body, Western Mind, she describes energy as “the evolutionary life force within each person. In my patch of the legal world, “energy” is a commodity, such as oil, natural gas and electricity that is bought and sold.  What is similar between the two types of energy that I just mentioned is that they are the inputs that are necessary to drive machineries, whether it is the human body or a gigantic power plant.  In other words, energy is what “makes things work.”

they saw her

So of the people in my life, the only people who predicted correctly that I’m having a girl were the Energy Apprentices I’m training. Of course I don’t think this is a coincidence; based on my experience as an Energy Healer, I believe you can see or feel the sex of a baby almost as accurately as an ultrasound can. It just takes a lot of training and stillness, probably akin to same kind of training it took to figure out how to build an ultrasound that can see the sex of a baby.

the yang and the yin of it.

i heard here three or four times today a quote by an unidentified woman, telling the NPR Reporter that for the downwardly spiraling economy,

there are no silver bullets here…The best the Fed can do is throw pillows down to soften the landing.”

fugghedaboudit

last night i was at an anniversary party and had a few glasses of champagne. the mood was celebratory (local business = success!), the music consistently danceable (de la soul and prince!), and the people watching and food delicious.

i slept well, but not well enough, of course, to get up and do my pranayama practice, which is a goal for tuesdays. instead i slept in and wished i could sleep more. my body was recovering from that bit of alcohol, technically a poison that the body has to work harder to remove in order to return to “normal.”

a learning for a yogini aiming to be consistent in her practice above all else, when she still loves champagne and a good dance party.

right round baby right round

lately i’ve been thinking about karma, which evolved from a Sanskrit word whose pronunciation matches that of caerimonia, or ceremony, ritual.

On this side of the dateline, we tend to define karma as the apostle Paul did: “Man reaps what he sows.” “What goes around, comes around.”

I’ve always had trouble with the term “karma yoga” as defining good acts, because then you aren’t you still attached to getting only goodness in return? it seems to me you can do anything and still be practicing karma yoga. What if you’re ok with doing something neutral or negative, and with being prepared to experience that same thing some point in the future?

Asking for negative acts to come back to you might even been like saying “bring it” to the universe.

Lately, I am examining karma by being aware of an emotional state I am uncomfortable with, for example, depression, sorrow, anger, or frustration. I drive almost every day, and I often feel “cut off” by someone rushing to their job, home, a bar, their dying grandmother.  My heart jumps as the other driver speeds past me and into my lane, my breathing changes, and at least 50% of the time, I find myself reacting in anger. this anger comes from the fear of experiencing an accident.

as i experience this sensation, i imagine that i have done that exact thing to someone before. when i wedge in this stop sign on the road of my own reaction, a mental shift occurs:

1) My negative emotion changes or goes away.

2) I see immediately the universe’s answer to a previous demand from me entitled, “bring it”.

9 times out of 10, i can recall an instance in which i have acted toward someone in exact the way that i am currently uncomfortable with.

navel gazing

so i thought today of an interpretation of this.

the energetic bodies of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd chakras live in and alongside the tailbone and legs; abdomen; and solar plexus, respectively. their physical properties are those of earth, water, and fire–or earth, oceans/waters, and the sun.

think of using your inner eye and looking down at your own sun, water, and earth–as from the sky–and determining how your own inner planet is doing at that moment. how hot the sun, how turbulent or calm and rhythmic the waters, how stable the ground.

hello, truth!

the great bill moyers was interviewed on Npr’s fresh air today, and he recalled a conversation he’d had with joseph campbell, the popular scholar of mythology, said this:

if you want to change the world, you change the metaphor.