Awakening the Soul

Posted on December 31, 2016 by admin

Awakening the Soul: A Yoga Intensive in Rochester, NY, December 2016

Key Topics Covered:

What is the Soul?
Wheel of Awareness Meditation
6 Questions to prepare for death
How to find your soul/role in an insane world
Embodied Sacred Practice:
1.Finding the heart and orienting to the seven sacred directions
2.The Sphere, the Tube and 3 Dimensional embodiment.
3. Navel Intelligence and Embryology
4. Kidney 1 and the deep front line,
5. Using the inner back heel to release the tail energy
6. Articulating all the bones of the upper limbs
7. Hanging dog alignment
8. Viloma to balance prana and apana
9. Introduction to Active Dreaming
Resources in the field of Awakening

What is the Soul?
In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the Sankhya terms Purusha and Prakriti are used to point to the masculine and feminine faces of Divinity in our human experience; the masculine as unchanging, unbounded, formless and timeless is Purusha; the feminine as the changing, impermanent world of forms, from atoms to galaxies, thoughts to dreams, where learning and growth take place is Prakriti. In India you will also see these personalized as Shiva and Shakti. Other cultures have used Soul and Spirit to point to the same two faces. In some Soul is unchanging wholeness and Spirit is the vehicle of growth. I am using Soul as the feminine aspect, representing our inner Divinity as an awakening growing, maturing, curious, emerging self guiding expression of life.

From this perspective, soul is very personal. Our own soul journey is absolutely unique and we must honor that uniqueness. At our deepest level is a powerful urge to express ourselves in a way never seen before in creation, and we are the only ones who can know and live this life. And, soul is also universal. Soul is a deep reflection of wholeness that is inextricably bound with all other souls, all of creation. Soul knows its connection to all existence and wants to celebrate to inspire others to discover their own uniqueness. This is known as authenticity.

All beginners imitate as a way to develop skills, but maturity brings out the uniqueness of the soul that no longer needs to imitate. Let your yoga practice and teaching be authentically your own. That is being true to your self, your soul. There will be struggles, confusion, loneliness and despair on your soul journey, but in that darkness is where the deep healing and boundless creativity can be discovered. The soul is at home in darkness as it knows the inner light of spirit is ever present, and as you radiate your own love and compassion into the cosmic field, all beings will be touched and moved. We strengthen the collective field and it strengthens us.

Dan Siegel’s Wheel of Awareness meditation sets the tone for all of our soul explorations and helps accelerate the cultivation of viveka, the ability to both discriminate between, and integrate, the ever changing phenomena of Prakriti and the unbounded, unchanging presence/Awareness of Purusha. These two fundamental expressions of non-dual wholeness each require continuous cultivation and refinement, thus allowing us to grow spiritually and participate fully in the Great Awakening emerging on Mother Earth.

One crucial skill, ‘resting in Awareness’, aka Stillness or Silence, awakens Purusha and requires discovering one or many of the portals to the ever-present infinite. The heart center is one, as is the pause between breaths, the space between two sounds, and there is always the ‘Cosmic WOW’! The Wheel of Awareness meditation is a great place to cultivate this skill. The cultivation of “Stillness” builds the deep stability and inner strength needed to withstand the inner storms, turmoil, complications and pain of the mind/body as it learns to live and love in this crazy world.

The second involves diving into the the world of change. The outer world, including Mother Nature and other humans, offers continuous challenges, The inner world of our thoughts, beliefs, memories and confusion, is even more challenging. Both inner and outer, in their moment to moment unfolding, actually follow simple rules. These are taught to children in the story of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and to adult yogis through the gunas, or qualities of energy/Prakriti. All of creation is constantly seeking balance between what appear to be opposite tendencies.

Rather than seeing these opposites as contradictory, or in conflict, we can learn to live with contradiction by finding the link that creates a unity from two. Hot and cold are opposites, but life hovers in an amazing dance of balance between both. Same with hard and soft, fast and slow, inner and outer. The balance is always changing, and certainly varies from person to person. there is no formula to balance. It must be lived moment to moment on the razor’s edge of aliveness. We will visit this in Viloma Pranayama below where inhalation and exhalation, expanding and condensing seek balance.

In this meditation exploration, we use the wheel as a visual and spatial metaphor of the mind. Around the rim of the wheel are located the various information streams that feed the brain, which can be divided into four basic categories. 1. Exteroception includes the five outer senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch: 2. Interoception: noticing the inner environment includes: kinesthesia which feeds information from the muscles, bones and joints about location and movement: proprioception, where we feel the motility or inner movements from the organs and fluids, driven by breathing, the heart beat, peristalsis and the cranio-sacral rhythms: emotional perception includes the recognition of our emotional energies percolating up from the cells and organs and the perception of the cognitive (word based) energies including the ‘monkey mind’. 3. Relational Field: here we pick up on the exchange of energies between two, and among groups of people. This is a complex and fascination area studied in interpersonal neurobiology. 4. The Imaginal Realm where dreams and active imagination operate. These sources stream to the hub along the ‘spokes’ and we use the hub to locate ‘awareness’. (Warning! All metaphors are limited. Useful but limited. Awareness is not confined by space or time.)

From the ‘hub’ of awareness, we direct our attention out the various ‘spokes/information streams’ to observe what is arising. We may notice the the process of ‘attention’ has a mind of its own and may jump from one spoke to another. Our discipline, (abhyasa), is to help stabilize attention, by bringing it to a specific spoke (dharana), keeping it there with some mindful effort (dhyana), and eventually having this become effortless (samadhi). Also we can cultivate a flexible attention that we can use efficiently as we take in the world without being ‘distracted’ by random sensations or thoughts. (I have personally found the ‘soundscape’ a very rich field for practice. Close your eyes and notice the coming and going of the sounds that surround you. Notice the silence between sounds, and then the silence undisturbed by whatever sound is arising.)

In the ‘wheel of awareness’, we go back and forth, from the ‘hub of awareness’ to the various modalities out on the rim. What is most helpful is to really rest in the hub in between trips to the rim. Here awareness rest in itself. Awareness, not needing any information/objects of attention to sustain it, is still, open, unbounded by space and time. Patanjali calls this drashtuh svarupe’ the seer resting it its own inherent nature, and uses this to describe the result of yoga. (PYS, I-3). Eckhart Tolle use the term ‘Now’. Atman, Brahman, Presence, Primordial Being are some other ‘pointing’ words. You can also use your open heart as the silent center.

By resting in awareness, we learn to not be so reactive to what arises, so we begin to tease apart the many layers of reactivity that comprise the ‘vrttis’ Patanjali describes in the Samadhi Pada. We see the ephemeral nature of thoughts, beliefs, ideas, sensations and slowly disentangle our ‘self-sense’ from this transient world.

In a somatic based practice like hatha yoga, the information streams coming from the body/mind are cultivated, studied and refined. We learn to feel our way through the body and allow the wisdom of the body to reveal itself moment to moment. Most yoga students begin with the mind telling the body what to do because they have never been taught how to feel, how to listen to the body. As teachers we need to help the students develop the confidence to trust what they feel and to not be afraid of sensations that are less than pleasant. Those sensations are our teachers.

Centering in the Heart (click here to see Torroidal Heart Field Meditation)

6 questions to ask oneself in preparation for death: Part 1

When death comes knock knock knocking at your door, there will be questions that need to be answered in order to determine where, what and how your soul will continue on its cosmic journey. They must be answered honestly, as death cannot be fooled. Take you time to look deeply into your heart for your answers, and then write them down. (These questions come from Robert Moss and his work with Active Dreaming and Shamanic Journeying to the other side.)

1. As you look back over your life, what do you most regret not having done?

2. As you look back over your life, what is the moment you most regret when your courage failed you?

3. What do you most regret doing, or not doing, that caused pain and suffering to someone else?

4. Are you willing to let go of the pain and harm others have caused you?

5. Can you truly, deeply forgive yourself?

6. Despite everything else, are you willing to let go of the small self and surrender into something much larger, what we can call unconditional love?

Now, if you have been given a reprieve from death, return to the questions and come up with action plans to remediate any that need it. What can you, what will you do to let go of the regret you carry from not doing something? How can you summon the courage to face a challenge yet to come, (like dying, perhaps)? How can you make amends and/or seek forgiveness for any harm you have done? Can you forgive all the others who have caused harm to you? Can you forgive yourself? Ask you heart to help with this and the next one. Can you let go of everything and trust that you will be safe? Spend the rest of your life working to keep releasing anything in the way of your freedom.

The Role of the Soul in an Insane World

The shock of the Obama-Trump transition will continue to ripple through the planet for many years. And, as dark as it may seem, those of us in America still have it better than most of the world. The question for all of us is ‘what can I do to continue to participate in the healing and spiritual growth, both personally and collectively’? Whining and wallowing in woe drains energy and serves no useful purpose. On the individual level, find one or more issues you are passionate about and roles you can play to help work on them. Small is as important as big, maybe even more so. Pour your best energy into accomplishing something that moves life forward; towards more love, more compassion, more understanding of the issues, more safety, more delight, more awe. No more wasting energy. No more regrets.

On a collective level, recognize and tap into the larger field. In meditation, feel the power of all who are meditating with you around the planet at that moment in time. In action, feel the group strength of all the others who share a vision of healing and love and use that to empower your own actions. Feed the field with your own clarity of intention and action. No one can do this alone. It is a collective emergence we are nurturing, and simultaneously being nurtured by.

On the shamanic levels, connect with and draw strength from other levels of reality. In the upper realms find your guardian angels and any other teacher or wisdom carriers who resonate with you. Invite them in through your dreams and active imagination. In the lower levels, discover your power animals, mineral and plant allies, and any other aspect of Mother Earth that feeds you. Your soul inhabits these realms already, so this is more of an awakening and remembering.

Remember you are human; highly imperfect and a work in progress. Cultivate, as Pema Chodron advises, discomfort resilience. Awakening from self delusion can be uncomfortable if not painful, and often personally so, but it is also liberating and bursting with creative juice. Be compassionate to yourself.

Embodied Spiritual Practice:

1. click to explore: The Seven Sacred Directions

2. Spheres and Tubes:

Feel the sphere transforming into a torus with the emergence of a hollow tube passing along your core line, opening crown and root chakras. Spheres and tubes are fractals of nature. Find them in you body, in your field of perception, in your imagination. In sacred geometry, the circle represents the feminine and the line the masculine. In three dimensions, they become the sphere and tube.

3. Embryology 101:
1. Explore navel with imaginal umbilicus and placenta. Trace the energy and feel the fields and flow extending in and out, forward and backward.
2. Find and explore the first emergence of the mesoderm as the fascial plane in the body dividing front from back.
3. Feel the fluidity of your being before the bones emerge. Be oceanic. Be kelp-like, dissolve boundaries and merge with the cosmic ocean. Feel the tides and currents.

4. Kidney 1 and the Deep Front Line

The acupuncture point on the soles of the feet, yong quan or ‘Kidney 1’, the ‘bubbling spring’ is an amazing place to bring attention/feeling/action. This is the major energetic grounding point in the body and you can feel its power immediately in standing and moving when you are there. As an athlete you are taught to ‘be on your toes’ and not ‘back on your heels’. On your toes is more accurately described by ground through ‘kidney 1’ and let your heels feel alive but light. Try moving this way and notice that you can move effortlessly in any direction, and change direction easily as well. This is the root point of tadasana.

‘The Deep Front Line’, one of Tom Myer’s profound insights into the fascial continuities of the human body presented in his book ‘Anatomy Trains’, is helpful to both visualize and feel how the feet connect through the core of the body, to the organs, diaphragm and skull. When the DFL wakes up perceptually, our experience of the whole series of standing poses is transformed.

5. Using the inner back heel in standing poses to open tail/muladhara.

Here Amy McCoy has K1 engaged, the DFL open and is extending through her inner heel to open the core energy from the muladhara and out through her crown chakra. There is no rebound as the foot is in the air so there is freedom to keep extending forever. With the back leg grounded, as in trikonasana, the floor gives a rebound. The trick is to still expend through the floor and out into the world without slipping. Notice how Iyengar uses the horse to extend through both front and back inner heels. With this support, trikonasana becomes a very powerful chakra opener.

6. Articulating the Bones of the Upper Limbs

Refining the Articulation of the Arms: Here we play with the dvandvas, the opposite actions to further differentiate the various bones of the hands, arms and shoulders. This will help refine both action and perception throughout the area. There are many steps, but the basic action remains the same all the way through.

To start, find the tips of the fingers, the bones furthest away from the body, as they press the wall. Keep them pressing the wall as all the other bones including torso release away from the wall. From this double action, feel the first set of joints joints opening as perception, as space. Next, add the next set of phalanges. From the second joints, extend into the wall, and release all other bones away from the wall. Feel the spaces opening. 3: Third set of phalanges now join all phalanges to press the wall, all others away. 4. Add metacarpals. 5. Add first row of carpals. 6. Add second row of carpals. 7. Add radius, but not ulna! Radius and all other bones of hand to wall, ulna and all others away. 8. Add ulna, open elbow. 9. Add humerus, open shoulder joint. 10. Add scapula to open AC joint. 11. Add collar bone to open sterno-clavicular joint. 12 Add sternum to awaken ribs. 13. Add ribs to find lungs and heart. This whole process will take 10 minutes or more, especially in the beginning, when it is all new. And that is just one side! After some practice, you will be able to open all the gates more quickly.

Before you do you second side, take time to feel how different the two sides are. Notice quality as well as quantity of sensation/perception and insight. Again, before you do your second side, try dog pose and follow the connections throughout the body.

7. Hanging Dog Alignment

Belts and a partner, or a rope wall, can help refine our sense of opposite action and balance. Notice how the rope creates an energy vector that mimics your imaginary tail. This grounding energy now lifts you up away from your shoulders, so now, instead of hanging out there you can very subtly lift and lengthen away from the ropes.

8. Viloma to balance prana and apana

Pranayama: Viloma I and II
Viloma breathing involves a creating a series of pauses during the flow of inhalation and exhalation, like walking up and down stairs. Viloma I is (roughly): inhale-inhale-pause-inhale-inhale-pause-inhale-inhale -pause- normal exhalation -pause- next cycle.Viloma II is (roughly): normal inhalation, pause-exhale-exhale-pause-exhale-exhale-pause-exhale-exhale- pause – next cycle. If you are a natural inhaler, Viloma I will feel easy and Viloma II more challenging. If you are a natural exhaler, vice versa. It seems to be 50 – 50 in the yoga population.

Of the 5 Prana vayus, prana and apana come first. Prana is the expanding of inhalation, engaging the ribs, intercostals and shortening the diaphragm to increase the volume of the chest cavity. Apana is the squeezing/condensing of exhalation, using the abdominal muscles to lengthen the diaphragm and expel the air. Because the chest has a constant negative pressure and the abdominal region a constant positive pressure (both relative to the outside world), years of living can create the very common collapsed chest and distended belly. Thus the belly tends to expand on inhalation (not the chest) and the chest to squeeze in and down on exhalation. This cycle is self perpetuating. We can use viloma to recharge the expanding chest energy and the squeezing of the belly energy. ( remember that the heart energy is Always expanding, independent of the breath.)

Now we can see that in Viloma we find the ‘seed of the opposite’ in the cycles. We will find apana in the pranic inhalation by maintaining and further engaging a slight squeezing of the belly. In the apanic exhalation, we will keep the chest expanding, recharging during the pauses, so the belly can squeeze more fully. Later in the asanas, we will explore how the samana vayu acts to help integrate prana and apana.

Practice 1: If you are a beginner, you may feel the the pauses to reverse direction a bit. no problem In viloma I, inhale-inhale-slight exhalation-inhale-inhale-slight exhalation etc. During the pauses you are recharging the belly squeeze which may expel some air. As you become more experienced, the squeezing of the belly in the pause opens the chest more and stretches the diaphragm and intercostals without expelling any air. You are just changing the shape of the container.

Viloma II is: exhale-exhale-slight inhalation-exhale-exhale-slight inhalation etc. I call this ‘Looping’ Viloma as the energy loops at each pause. For a beginner, you may feel some air coming in on the loop/pause. No problem. During the pause expand the chest so that the squeezing belly is doing the out breath. This will stretch the diaphragm. The average person never strethces the diaphragm, and it gets tighter and tighter with age. Viloma can reverse that.

Practice 2: If the previous practice is comfortable, use the pauses to begin to perceptually differentiate ribs and diaphragm. Inhalation is used to expand the ribs/chest/intercostals, exhalation to tone abdominal wall and stretch and lengthen the diaphragm. Viloma I: inhale-inhale-inhale-keep chest expanding as you squeeze the belly in from the sides and peel the edges of the diaphragm in away from the ribs; inhale – inhale- repeat -etc. Viloma II: exhale-exhale-exhale-expand the chest out-keeping the diaphragm squeezing inward – exhale-exhale etc.

Practice 3: When the ribs and diaphragm are in harmony, the pauses of Viloma are an opportunity to rest in deep stillness, neither inhaling nor exhaling. This is preparation for the longer kumbhakas or retentions in ujjayi pranayama.

9. Introduction to Active Dreaming
In savasana, when alignment and support are taken care of, relax everything – everywhere, as best possible and imagine yourself in a place where you can experience a deep sense of peace, safety, inner healing and continuing spiritual growth. Start simply and use all of your senses to create this imaginal world. What do you see here? A garden with flowers, a lake, the ocean, angels? What are the sounds? Birds, running water, soothing music? What do you smell? What do you feel through your skin, through your organs and fluids, in your bones? Work on this over time, every day, for the rest of your life. It will change and evolve. Invite your teachers/guides to join you. Rest there, heal there, study there.

The inner imaginal realm is a vast infinite space, open for exploration and discovery. We begin by grounding the nervous system in safety and light, and asking for support and guidance. The next steps will involve having a great gatekeeper. As yoga students, Ganeshaji is the perfect teammate to have on our inner journeys as he is the remover of obstacles and a tremendous defender.
Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha!

Further Resources in the Field of Awakening

Sounds True: amazing collection of audio and video recordings from many facets of the awakening. great teachers and guides you can have with you as you drive, or study at home. www.soundstrue.com

Shift Network: www.theshiftnetwork.com/ Wonderful source of on-line courses and events centered of the great awakening. The shamanic dreaming and dying courses I am taking are hosted here.

Robert Moss: http://mossdreams.com My dream teacher and mind-boggling guide to the many layers and levels of non-local reality awaiting our discovery.

Pema Chodron http://pemachodronfoundation.org Amazing teacher, grounded in the darkness of the human condition and the light of love and compassion. She has many books as well as audio and video teachings available.

Thomas Huebl: https://thomashueblonline.com/ Teacher who focuses on the collective awakening and the spiritual practice of being in relationships.

Resources in Movement: web site for Caryn McHose and Kevin Frank, dear friends and deeply engaged somanauts and spiritual beings. The ‘Books and Articles section has a vast library of insight for bodyworkers, yogis and lovers of the somatic journey.

Yoga and the Fluid Body

Posted on November 28, 2016 by admin

Yoga and the Fluid Body, November 19, 2016, The Yoga Room Berkeley

Foundation is Non Dual (Advaita) Wisdom: Can we differentiate The Seer from the Seen, Purusha from Prakriiti, Awareness from what arises in Awareness? This essential skill is known as viveka in Sanskrit. (See PYS II-17 – II-26) Differentiating “Now” vs ‘clock time’ is a very practical and easy entry into this.

Why is this essential? Most of the world is caught up in movement and action, completely missing the ever-present unbounded, unchanging stillness that is the source/background of action. In stillness, we can step out of habit and open to new possibilities; we can rest deeply, even if only for a few moments; and hopefully, we can realize that this unconditioned stillness is the very core of being, the home of the soul. Of course, the heart always knows this, which is why all practice begins and returns to the heart again and again.

Out of the unbounded quantum field of possibilities in stillness,
what arises in the human mind field? :
Perception, Intelligence, Action

How do we come to know something? The process of Attention links sensation to intelligence creating perception. This may trigger a memory encoded habit from which action flows. Or, the intelligence, through memory, insight, intuition and discernment, can create spontaneous action. Attention is a mental facultyskill/process that can be trained and refined. It can also follow pathways of old habits. Samyama, the simultaneous practice of dharana, dhyana and samadhi described by Patanjali in the Vibhuti Pada directly addresses the attentional process.

Awareness, directed through attention, to portals of perception, integrated with and through Intelligence (buddhi), to create/sustain of action. In a yoga pose or practice, this is known as ‘samyama in asana’.

We can define ‘Yoga’ as the continuing refinement and expansion of perception, intelligence and action, at all levels of reality and life, while remaining in the stillness of Now.

When we look deeply into the nature of things, we discover ‘Nested Levels of Reality,’ each with its own perceptions, intelligence and action. Please watch the mind expanding video “Powers of Ten” to get a sense of this.

Refinement of perception, intelligence and action engages the Five Outer Senses; seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling; and the Five Inner Senses: proprioception (tracking the internal energy flow of prana), kinesthesia (tracking where and how the body is moving through sapce), psychological perception, (noticing one’s thoughts and emotions), relational field perception and Imaginal perception (Dream Time)

In an embodied yoga practice, we can recognize/perceive/know three basic levels of reality;

Matter / Structure Energy / Flow Information/Fields

Attention usually goes to the structural level, muscle and bones, maybe skin. To refine our skills we need to bring our attention the the energy flow, prana or chi. The fluid body is prefect for this as it has weight, but also energy flow or movement. When we can track the movements inside the body (proprioception) through following the breath, or tracking the fluid flow, and sustain our attention there, we are in the present moment, grounded and alert.

Once we have learned to sustain this state of continuous connection with flow, we then begin to notice the level behind the flow, or the fields. A field gives direction and shape to the flow of energy in the body, just as the sun’s gravity gives shape to the orbits of the planets and other bodies of the solar system. Fields provide a crucial level of stability to the potentially chaotic movements of the life force. (The heart is beating at fluctuating rates, peristalsis is rippling along the digestive track, nerve current is flowing every where, gravity and outer movements are constantly shaking up the inner world.)A healthy filed is both dynamic and stable.

The field we are most interested in is the one involving the heart. In our practice we connect the heart to the organization of the basic physiological movements, known in yoga as the five prana vayus, and the three pressure cavities of the body; head, chest and abdominal-pelvic regions.

As we can see in the image above, the heart sustains a 3 dimensional energy field. There are 3 primary axes: head/tail/, right/left and front/back, or height, width and depth, which lead to our 7 sacred directions of embodiment: 1: to the heart; 2 and 3: head/heaven and tail/earth; 4 and 5: front/east and back/west; 6 and 7: right/south and left/north. Can we find a way to balance the energy flows of the body/mind,
by finding the field sustained by balancing the energies of the 7 sacred directions ?

In the torroidal heart field, the primary axis, connecting head and tail, heaven and earth, can be seen as a hollow tube expanding at the two ends. A two dimensional line becomes a 3 dimensional tube. When we move into the tube in perception/imagination, sustain attention there, feel the environment and how dynamic it is, and then create movement from the inner impulses, a whole new world opens.

The tube is complementary to the sphere, as the line is complementary to the circle in sacred geometry. They both can expand and condense like the hoberman spheres and a dynamic heathy field allows both possibilites to oscillate back and forth. You may feel this energy as wave like, as in the breathing rhythm; pulse like as in the heart beat; or as vibration, as in sounding any vowel. All are present to be felt and explored. All can be used to sustain the field that sustains a yoga posture. When the posture is ‘held’ by the dynamic field, there is minimal over contraction and dullness in the cells and tissues. Thus the field, when strong and stable, helps transform rajas (overworking) and tamas (dullness), into sattva, the clear energy of balance and harmony. This is Patanjali 101.

To begin this exploration, we will do a series of breathing explorations. As these were described in the previous post, I’ll send you there now.

After the breathing work, explore this feeling/possibility in many different relations to gravity: sitting, lying prone or supine, standing, inverting, flexing, extending, and rotating. And in any combination. You can make up your own poses!

All the time of course, staying grounded in Awareness/Silence/Stillness/NOW!

Homework for January: in savasna, begin to imagine ‘Your’ ideal place/space of healing. Use all of your senses to create this imaginal space. What do you see, hear, smell, feel? What other beings are there to help in your healing. As your space evolves (return to it every day), it may begin to offer its own suggestions. Be open to awe and wonder at the possibilities that begin to reveal themselves.

Yoga in the Sault (Soo)

Posted on November 22, 2016 by admin

Much thanks to LSSU in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan for hosting our weekend of yoga explorations, November 11 – 13. The classes were blessed with an amazing spectrum of students. There were parents bringing their children, ranging from 5 months, to 5, 6 and 8 years old; college students, University teachers, yoga teachers, and many of us on the other side of 60 and 70. The college students were a great inspiration, bringing energy, enthusiasm and creativity to the group. What follows is a brief summary of the points covered, some class details, and some links for further studies.

Unique and Universal

Unique: Make your practice your own. Authenticity is crucial in self exploration and self discovery. Every pose and every specific practice can be matched to your needs in the present moment. Learn to be sensitive to what your body/mind soul is requesting right now. In a yoga class, trust your inner instincts about what you are doing. This may not be easy as a beginner, but if you ‘trust’ that the body knows’, even a new student can tell when something does not feel right. Most yoga classes are based on conformity at some level, with students going through the same poses at the same time. (Chaos is not an easy thing to guide!) But even so, you can find a pace that works for you.

Universal, pt 1: There is a spiritual practice, a ‘yoga’ practice available for anyone, from a young child (SBK, born 12/14/96) to someone on their death bed (BKS, born 12/14/18); from a highly trained athlete to an ex-couch potato: from a ‘type A” world conqueror to a laid back hippy. (Your unique needs may require a balancing practice complementary to your dominant mode of being !)

Universal. pt 2: There are also universal principles that apply to all practices. Know these few intimately. “Always stay centered in your heart.” “Keep the breath/prana/chi moving at all times.” “Work with pairs of energy, the yin and yang, in every action, and find the place/feeling of dynamic balance.” “Warm up and cool down if you are practicing dynamically.” ” Constantly check in with ‘how it feels’, using this as the root of your next action. “Bring your practice into the world. Do not leave it on your mat.”

Awareness and Attention:
Awareness is a synonym for the Infinite Silence or Unbounded Stillness, that is the ‘Universal’ source of all. What arises, creation, what we can become aware of, we observe and study through the art of ‘paying attention’. We all create a unique perspective on life through the direction of our attentional field. To grow, we must continually expand the range and variety of our perceptions. In a somatic practice like hatha yoga, we expand our sensitivity into the inner worlds of: proprioception (feeling the breath and other energy) flows coming from within: kinesthesia (the feeling of how the various parts of the body move together. In meditation praction, we expand into self observation of the thoughts and emotions that flow through us moment to moment. In our relational yoga, we notice how our personal energy fields overlap and interact with others. In all of these explorations, we are looking to find more healing, lightness of being, kindness, ease and love.

Matter and Energy: Our attention/identification tends be on abstract thought. When our attention is brought to the body, we often ‘grab onto’ some structure like a muscle or bone to ‘land’. This is a clunky way to be in relationship with the body. If we can shift to an energy based sense of self, we begin to find and feel the chi, the flow that is our aliveness, and our body becomes our teacher, a living presence looking to express the divine light that is our universal fundamental nature. This requires bringing attention to the breath and its more subtle dimensions.

Seven Sacred Directions: please click for a detailed look at these.

Friday Evening Class:

Use a bolster, block or folded blanket for support in sitting. Your lower back will collapse without this and you will either sink down, or overwork trying to sit upright.

Three Limbs of Meditation:
1. Concentration or focal attention: Sustaining your attention in one place over time. Bring your attention to your breathing. If and when it wanders, bring your attention back to the breath.
2. Open Attention or mindfulness: Stay in the present moment, open to whatever arises. If and when you become distracted by following and getting lost in a thought or sensation, come back to open attention.
3. Contemplation: Hold a spiritual question or pithy phrase, (a Zen koan) in the mind field without trying to come up with an immediate answer. Let the question or phrase sit quietly, with the deeper dimensions of mind slowly adding their perspective.

Basic Standing Poses
please click to see the origins of these poses as three basic movements of the pelvis
Relaxation

Saturday Morning Class: Sound and breath: Open up your ‘ahs’ and ‘oohs’ to help clear the energy channels. Sustain the sound by balancing the action of the ribs and diaphragm.

Finding your core channel: Click here for more on the 7 sacred directions and relationship of the navel to the core.

Then, click on following link : Dog Pose and Variations

Pinning the clavicles: To help stabilize the shoulders when the arms are weight bearing, we begin by anchoring the collar bone to the sternum at the sterno-clavicular joint. You can use the fingers of the opposite hand to feel this. Now imagine the other end of the clavicle pinning itself to the shoulder blade at the achromion process. The clavicle feels as it is now extending in two opposite directions. The two ends have to be awake to allow the shoulder a healthy balance of both stability and mobility. Try the dog pose and variations again and compare the feelings. Flipping the dog requires an awakened clavicle to protect the shoulder during the weight bearing rotation it must do.

Now try vasisthasana, the side plank. We just played with the beginning level. If you feel inspired try variations 2 and 3.

Anantasana and variations: more practice on the balance from lateral line. Iyengar is doing the final pose. We began with the legs parallel and stabilized any wobbling through the core.

Saturday Afternoon class: The three pressure cavities, the five Prana Vayus, and Pranayama.
The heart center organizes the field that sustains the breath through the three pressure cavities of the body: the skull, the chest from the roof of the mouth to the diaphragm, and the belly, from the diaphragm to the pelvic floor. The skull and belly have a positive, or higher pressure, relative to the outside, and the chest is lower or negative. This creates a constant flow from skull and belly to the chest, as higher pressure will move toward the lower, and helps support the flow of blood back to the heart.

The problem is that, over time, many humans let the higher belly pressure push out, rather then up and down. Same in the head. And the negative chest pressure leads to a collapse of the ribs in and down. This leads to a very common postural shape. We can begin to restore the happiness of balance by learning to sustain an expanding rib cage, independent of inhalation and exhalation. Imagine the primary action of the heart center is expansion, like the opening of a hoberman sphere. In standing feel how this can help the brain empty downward and the lower body energy rise up. This unified field will then support all other physiological movements in the body.

In yogic terms, physiological movements are divided into five basic categories, known as the Prana Vayus, where vayu refers to the element air or movement. The first is called prana, (with a small p, to differentiate it from the “Prana” which refers to all of the five), is centered in the chest, and governs everything we take in. For our purposes, this is inhalation. From our unified field exploration, the chest should always feel expanding. The second is the apana, governs elimination, and is centered in the lower belly. It is a squeezing energy, and thus the belly should always feel that it is slightly squeezing inward. When prana and apana work as a single intelligence, you have the energetic support for what is now commonly called ‘core strength’.

The samana vayu governs digestion, deciding what to keep, what to eliminate, and generating energy from the oxygen of the breath and the food. Vyana is circulation, distributing the energy throughout the body, and udana is in charge of growth and development.

Breath explorations: pt.1: lying on the floor, supported as necessary to relax the spinal muscles and limbs, begin to relax the breathing more and more. Track the release down through your feet and out through your arms, as well as through head and tail. Pay special attention to the region form the diaphragm downward and try to empty it of as muchtension as possible, so the breath becomes effortless.

Pt.2: Now, without losing that softness, become aware of the ribs and invite them to expand sideways as the primary action of inhalation. Not up and down, not out into the belly, but sideways, like an accordion. On the exhalation, let the belly/abdominal wall squeeze the breaht out by pushing up on the diaphragm. This will ‘stretch’ the diaphragm, which may be tight. The ribs can slowly return, but feel the expanding energy still strong. Keeping the chest open (prana) lets the diaphragm stretch even more as the squeezing apana pushes the diaphragm higher into the more spacious chest.

Pt 3: Viloma Pranayama: here we choose to divide the inhalation and exhalation into stages, rather than a continuous flow. Viloma I divides the inbreath with a normal exhalation; viloma II divides the exhalation with a normal inbreath. The dividing creates a series of pauses, like walking up or down stairs. There may be 2 or 3 pauses, or even more if you are comfortable. What happens during those pauses is what makes Viloma such a rich practice. Our intention here is to balance the expanding prana and the squeezing apana, helping them work together.

Viloma I: on each of the pauses during the inhalation, squeeze the abdomen slightly and open the chest more. As a beginner, you may actually exhale slightly during the pauses. This is just fine. Two steps forward and one back will eventually create a nice soft long inhalation.
Viloma II: on each of the pauses during the exhalation, expand the chest a bit more and squeeze the belly. As a beginner, you may actually inhale slightly during the pauses. This is just fine. Two steps forward and one back will eventually create a nice soft long exhalation.

Pt. 4 feel the effects of the practice and then lie in savasana and enjoy the deep stillness.

Sunday Morning Class: Some fun energy patterns we can play with to help discover more freedom in movement.

Three basic walking gaits: Explore contralateral, (opposite arm and leg move together); homo-lateral (same arm and leg move together); and homologous ( alternating upper and lower limbs like a frog jumping) walking patterns. Walk around and compare the feelings, sensations, and emotions evoked by each pattern.
Walk by isolating each of the three pelvic axes: Flexion/extension, lateral flexion/extension and rotation. How do they feel? Which is most familiar.

Flexion and Extension in the feet knees and hips: to help with knee injuries, learn to act from an integrating flow patterns that includes all joints. From standing, the up lifting or spring loading spiral includes supination (inversion) of the foot, flexion of the knee and hip, and external rotation of the hip. This brings you into a vrksasana like position, or, with a few additional trunk movements, the loaded spring position to begin a martial arts side kick. The down or grounding spiral is the reverse. Internal hip rotation, extension of hip and knee, and pronation (eversion) of the foot. This is the firing of the leg in a side kick.

The pathology is to over work the knees, either by initiating the action from them or jumping in with the quads and bypassing the inner flow. Begin in supta padangusthasana, but use the belt or strap to offer resistance as you bend the knee into the up spiral, and extend out. Do not let the knee overwork. Let it receive the flow and move from flexion through extension and back from within.

Take this into your standing poses, especially triangle and parsvakonasana.

Then explore, beginning in one leg tadasana (see photo right) and then bending and rotating the hips while extending the leg to half moon pose. A wall is helpful.

From half moon, rotate into revolved half moon. Then go back and forth to open the hips. Then carry this awareness into the dog pose series from above. Then, from there, add hand stand, climbing up the wall to find the action in the hips

Preparing the sacrum for backbending poses. Using a block for support, find a fulcrum where the tail and lumbar release in opposite directions away

for the sacrum to open and lengthen the center of the pelvis. Then add the free flowing anemone to the sequence. Keep the chest open without contracting the spine.

From Lying to Standing: the spiral unfolds: 1. Lying on your back, feel how you cannot move well, but your hands are free to explore. Then, from lying on your back, find a way to roll over onto your belly without using arms or legs, hands or feet. Use momentum of your fluid body. Feel the urge to move. Try the homolateral or contralateral actions. Which helps more? 2. Then, find the spiral movement to sitting. Hard to move, but hands are free again. 3. Spiral to crawling pose where contralateral is the easiest. Try all three. 4. Spiral to the ‘almost up position, one knee down, one up. If you are really young, a piece of furniture can help you complete the journey to standing. 5. Otherwise, spiral to standing.