Everyday Sacred

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...

The Womb of Creation

If what we call your roots (your 1st chakra and perineum) are symbols of your relationship with the soil (i.e. your ability to grow and manifest things) then, your crown (your 7th chakra and pineal gland) are symbols of your relationship with the universe, our understanding of seasonal rhythms and our ability to see patterns setting up.
A full winter practice includes both poles because being able to respond creatively to challenge requires vision and action. Speaking of vision, the pineal gland contains occular tissue. It responds to vibrations from the optic nerve. Could this be the third eye? The pineal gland produces melatonin and seratonin. When days get shorter, our bodies respond by producing more melatonin and less seratonin. We sleep more and play less. This could be the reason for Seasonal Affective Disorder.
So, when you sleep, you dream and when you dream you access the unconscious and perhaps, a vision. You could be a melatonin junkie though, and still miss the big picture. It's easy to miss because most of us don't function at that level. We tend to interpret life through fixed beliefs and language that can only reference what has already occured. New visions cannot arise within this context. What is needed is Direct Relationship with unfolding reality. The universe is always trying to teach us something. Unfortunately, most of the time, we miss it.
It is possible to listen deeply, to see far and still notice the importance of little things. Whatever is showing up, wherever life stops you, even if its the most mundane thing, when seen and experienced (instead of resisted) can open up worlds of understanding.
The pineal gland/crown chakra is our organ of dialogue with heaven. We can access the conversation directly. We don't need a middle man. You can receive oceans of understanding about the suffering of your soul. You can fathom the Laws of the Universe.
You won't get any of this when all your attention is drawn outside yourself. There are millions of ways to siphon off the energy required for self-reflection. A good yoga practice will take care of that. It will bring you back into yourself and then you can get some action.
Action has to do with balance and directness. You want to be poised when you act. You want to be in relationship, not fantasy, when you take action. To do this, you need good timing. You need to understand rhythms. You need to be sure that you are not missing the message and acting out of some agenda of yours or someone else's. You need to be "awake" to the moment. You can't do this when every challenge gives rise to a running commentary on it, complete with judgement, opinions and condemnation.
So what's a yogi to do? Sometimes life just comes too fast. Things get unglued. After all, we are living through the birth pangs of a sea change in consciousness.
This is why I love the winter practice. It gives me a chance to pause before I act. If I'm feeling fearful or angry or physically sick, I know that this will get me back on track. While I'm in my forward bend or Uttanasana, I remember water. I become like water with what's stopping me, it's edges touching the soft water of my presence. Water is the element of winter. It is associated with the kidneys. Find the true seat of your poses in the perineum not the low back and the kidneys become soft and plump. We become fluid. Water the element becomes water the spiritual intermediary.
You see, water is truly awake. It responds to every breeze along its surface, every change of temperature and every waterbug that comes in for a landing. Water knows how to meet the unexpected by flowing around it. It balances all things by sending out perfectly circular concentric rings to swallow disruption into stillness. Robert Frost wrote a poem called "West Running Brook" about two streams running in opposite directions and meeting each other. Where they connect, they create a pocket of stillness. That little pocket of stillness is the womb of creation. It can birth tadpoles and galaxies.

Bodhisaatva Fitness

I was born under a balsamic moon, whatever that means. ( I've often wondered: is this when you put up balsamic vinegar or uncork it and what does the lunar energy do to the vinegar anyway?) On Friday, January 4th, we enter the waning crescent or balsamic phase of the moon. This is the final phase before the new moon of Capricorn on the 8th.

In a balsamic moon, your hindsight is ripe. It is a great time for detecting personal and social patterns (both past and future if you know how to read the signs).

Hindsight and foresight occur naturally in deep quiet practices like the Winter Practice of forward bending and restorative poses. Pranayama and meditation can reveal and release deeply held patterns of physical armoring and blocked emotion. It is amazing to discover how many layers of self are held in place by patterns in the breath. Just be careful not to lull yourself into some happy place that sidesteps your growth. Did you ever notice that the difference between Meditation and Medication is the "c"? That's because you have to supply the "see" and the eye that sees is not the personal one that supports your egoic fantasies. The eye that sees is the eye of the witness who wields the double edge sword, the Sword of Truth. This sword cuts both ways. It cuts through the bullshit in the world and in you.

We humans live in a world of ideas, opinions and beliefs. Many are conscious, many more are not. This running commentary has twisted our mind, body and soul. It has distorted our energy field and separated us from Direct Knowing.

We need to see ourselves and our environment as Fields of Living Energy. We must view all our relationships as interactions between living fields. Then we can add coherence to chaos as Islands of Peace. We become a resonant field of harmony creating more harmony via magnetic resonance.

That is how we make a difference, one act at a time.

How do you understand patterns and watch them setting up like waves? How do you see the patterns of your own story, where you are thrown off axis and trapped in the bardo of emotional reaction? How do you live in the flow and not get broadsided by obstacles and karma? How do you navigate through life with grace and unfold your glory?

Where do you repeatedly get stopped by life? Your story matters AS the key to your freedom.

These are the issues addressed in a yoga practice that teaches you about your life as alignment and flow as a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional phenomena of existence.

Your body is the metaphor and the material manifestation. The difference between matter and spirit is the rate of vibration, not what is vibrating! We hear vibrations of sound above 20,000 cycles per second. We don't hear vibrations below that but we know they exist.

Do your yoga awake as the co-creator you are. It is Bodhisaatva Fitness and you are the growing tip of conscious evolution.