How to Swim in the High-Energy Pool

We're past the second full moon of Winter. Each season has approximately 3 lunations. That means we're in the depth of winter. As you know, as soon as you go far enough in 1 direction, the pendulum swings back. This means that the light is beginning to draw us out of winter's depth.

In class, we are rooting deeply through the perineum and spinning the legs down and in. We're also rising up to the light. The crown chakra and the pineal gland can become activated by sending your awareness there. Map it out so you can really occupy its center. Spin it so you can transform it into an organ of perception. The pineal gland has occular tissue. When it responds to light, there is a kind of "beam me up" feeling. The body elongates and you can access higher realms while your feet are firmly planted on earth.

We do a whole series of reach and hangs, backbends and forward bends from this perspective. It is in the service of transforming the back from rounding, contracting and armoring to gently enclosing the front body like a womb while you incubate your potential. It is the front body that moves our desire into manifestation. The front of the chakras are our emotional centers. This is where you feel your passion, focus your will, follow your heart and find your true voice. The back body connects us with our heritage but a rigid back is a sign of being stifled or held back. The lungs retreat to the back body and you lack the courage to swim in the high energy pool of life.

Please remember that this practice is a tool for conscious evolution. The rooting and spinning of the perineum doesn't just provide a good base for a pose, it is really your launching pad. Accessing higher realms is not just psychic whoopie. If you regard it as just another nice experience, to add to your collection, you won't change. In fact, you may become even more entrapped. You need to name these states as the nondual experiences they are and acknowledge the fact that you are integrating this dimension into your daily experiences more and more. You are not alone, many other people are as well.

You are the growing tip of a wave of conscious evolution that is the hallmark this new era. Once you can actually see these experiences as information from a higher dimension of you (not some disembodied 800 year old shaman - remember channeling?), then the insights gleaned from your yoga become stepping stones to integrating your Buddha Nature with your egoic self. Because the higher vibration always wins out over the lower, eventually ego's hold on us is less and less intense. Eventually, you don't experience the world through your emotional reactions; you experience it through your wisdom and you are called to skillful, compassionate action. To be continued...

Comments

[Tim Driscoll]

Dear Elizabeth, I am very happy you posted this new information, and I am using it in a different way than I have previously. I am performing my practice tonite after reading what you wrote once, and as I am in the poses, recalling what I remember of what you wrote, and incorporating it into each pose or each asana or each throne. I practiced mapping in every way I could remember: mapping the three parts of my foot - ball, arch, and heel; mapping my brows to occipital points, mapping my nipples to blades, mapping groins to sitbones, and I mapped through my abdominal area as well, oh, and through my throat. I spent quite a while in fish pose (which I suppose is a good place to explore swimming in high-energy) and my tail unwound in a very different way because I spun my pits, palms, and soles, and explored how to get my elusive pubis to rise, realizing that for the pubic bones to emerge has a lot to do with my feet, especially my toes. Then I thought about what you wrote about the spinning not being for whoopie (or just for a more supple system of bone and muscle), and what came to me is what I read of Sue's comment, as she made me remember about disappearing into the archtype of the pose. What insight I got had to do with how I protect myself from some imagined egoist preconceived onslaught oftentimes, particularly when it comes to my business - I have two teachers coming to look at my studio tomorrow, and I had these monologues and dialogues going on all day about what they would say and what I'd say back, and even before beginning my practice, I thought maybe I better instead do a workout with more exertion to present myself to these people with a somewhat flatter belly, since I am in the fitness profession and they'd be expecting to see me as such. Writing this is good because I realize how ridiculous I am, but then probably everybody is also. But as I experienced moments of swimming as a spinning fish and disappearing into the pose, I realized I could disarm myself within that experience - disarm myself from all this fantastical conjecture (and here is where another thing that Sue wrote came to my mind) of how I think people will perceive me and how I should act to prepare to protect myself from someone potentially trying to get over on me, and I had some very clear moments of feeling the truth of that I am just a being who has something to give and something to share, and there are people who will be attracted into my arena who appreciate what I am and will add to what it is I have to offer and share further. So, Elizabeth, I feel that this blog is successful, in that you put forth direction, some of which I take very literally, and some of which sparks my imagination to explore further, but me having this avenue to write back about my experience and then reading someone else's insights in responding to the dialogue that we had deepens the practice into the core of my being because not just what you wrote, but what I wrote and what Sue wrote occurs to me within my moments of disappearing into the pose, and lingers more than just those instants of my personal insight. Now I will go back to my practice again because my fascination has been peaked after reading what you wrote about swimming once more, and I will perform pigeon and double pigeon, and see how flying things take to swimming. With a better planted perineum and more mapping and spinning than I've ever experienced in my life, Tim

[Tim Driscoll]

Dear Elizabeth, I do not understand what you mean by, "You need to name these states as the nondual experiences they are..." Just wanted to mention that if when you continue direction for the high energy pool you could perhaps elaborate on that. Thank you, Tim

[Elizabeth Andes-Bell]

Thanks for sharing your insights, Tim. I just wanted to let you know that as soon as I finish up with the High Energy Pool teaching, I will post something on nondual states and working with archetypes.