My son Sean is a fan of actor, comedian and activist Russell Brand, a vocal participant, in his own unique way, in the attempts to bring about major changes on the planet. My wife Kate’s favorite teacher is a delightful Jamaican by the name of Mooji, who reminds me a lot of Swami Dayananda, my late Vedanta teacher and spiritual guide. So here is a gift from my family to yours: a video exchange between Russell and Mooji, and if you have yet to run across Mooji, you are in for an Awakening !
Also, my son Sean and I are setting up our own YouTube channel with all sorts of posts. More will be coming on that, but as a teaser, here is a YouTube video film maker and dear friend Charlie Birns produced of a dialogue (more a monologue!) we had last month.
Notes from Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s fall series of classes on the spine:
These are a few observations from my own practice. Each student will have their own unique set of experiences.
Class 1: releasing holding patterns in the spine by mobilizing the pubic symphysis and its two joints. Right and left pelvis bones, continuations of the legs, meet in a large piece of cartilage and each pelvic bone can move independently from the other around this. When you initiate movement of the pelvis and legs from here, at the front of the body, clearly differentiating right and left, the sacral area becomes free of needing to stabilize itself through tension and the hip joints also have more freedom. But, as I have found, although these are not large movements like at the hip joint, the two sides are likely to be radically different. Explore this in as many ways as you can imagine. Allow all movements to be as effortless and free as possible, as the cellular intelligence reveals itself as the root of embodiment.
One of my many discoveries was that with my damaged hip, one of the pieces of my inhibited movement at the pubic joint was a locked up pectineus muscle. As a life long external rotater, I have always been trying to open and release the ‘pectineal gate’, primarily by going into deep forward flexion, but never quite finding the depths of freedom. This is a small and hard to access muscle for me and I realized that in order to mobilize the pubic bones and deepen the action, as Bonnie demonstrated in the class, I had to explore this activation in a variety of other movements. By moving from the two joints (right and left, just like two hip joints) of the pubic bone the post surgical opening is coming more easily and I may actually regain my lost lotus. Maybe.
BTW, CV-2 sits at the top of the pubic notch. Mobilizing the front body is analogous to awakening the points and flow along the Conception Vessel, relieving strain from the yang, governing Vessel, back body/spine.
Class 1 continued: Mobilizing the side body through anantasana and variations. Side body links front and back and also takes away strain accumulation from only using the back body to initiate movement. Side body in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) is the Gall Bladder meridian and is also
engaged by the girdling vessel (Dai Mai). Rotations come from here, the only horizontally flowing vessel.
Stay Awake, and clear and grounded in the coming weeks. Hold the space of clarity, discernment, light and love for all.
Support small businesses, get out the vote, keep practicing.
Whatever happens, we will make it through these very challenging times.