Notes from Boston and Portland, May 2017
Intention: 1. to keep awakening to the emerging depths of love, compassion and wisdom in ourselves, by aligning with the innate intelligence of the Cosmos; and to use our own unique set of skills to make things a little bit better, as best we can. May all beings be happy; May all beings find inner peace; May all beings be free from suffering.
Intention: 2: to discover the sacred geometrical patterns of cosmic intelligence, in form and flow, within and without, and nurture and integrate them into our daily lives.
Attention: What are the key points in the human energy field that, when discovered and nurtured, allow us to bring healing and harmony to our lives and the world around us? What are the primary rhythms of life and the cosmic intelligence that allow harmony, balance, stability and flow? How can yoga postures and practice use these points and rhythms to deepen our innate sense of stillness (Being) and integration (Becoming)?
Practice 1: Personal Practice
Samyama on these points, energy patterns and the fields they generate when linked in energy flow: Samyama is the simultaneous practice of dharana, dhyana and samadhi as articulated in the the third chapter of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the Vibhuti Pada. Dharana: bring your attention to the point, or energy flow between points. Dhyana: Stay there with discipline. When your attention wanders, bring it back (dharana). Samadhi: Remain there effortlessly. Stabilize the field by balancing yin and yang energies. (see below) This will take time. Eventually it gets easier and easier, but eventually distraction or fatigue comes. Begin again. This can be done in any yoga pose.
Practice 2: Practice in the Relational Field
Feel a heart-centered circle or sphere of energy surrounding the people you are interacting with. Bring in light. In a small group, feel the collective field, nurturing and being nurtured by the uniqueness of each and the communion of the whole. Out in public, expand your circle/sphere while sustaining a well defined/flexible self space.
First Seven Points:
1. Heart Center, at the back of the physical heart.
2. Center of perineum, known as the seat of the Yin.
3. Crown of skull, known as the seat of the Yang.
4 and 5: The two Kidney 1 or K-1 points located on the soles of the feet.
6 and 7: The two Pericardium 8, or P-8 points located in 
a similar place on the palms of the hands.
Polarity, Charge and Transformation:
The fundamental energy pattern in the cosmos involves polarity. For our studies here, we will call the poles yin and yang, or negative and positive, as in the poles of a magnet. In the slide to the right we see the stages of cell division and how creativity demands polarity. In the meta and anaphases, yin and yang, or the north and south poles separate move to opposite ends of the cell. A charge builds and the chromosomes are pulled in opposite directions. This is the ‘field’ of creativity that allows two cells to emerge from one.
The Taoist yin/yang symbol expresses the relation between the poles. First, they cannot be separated into pure yin and pure yang. The seed of the opposite is always present. Secondly, they listen and respond to each other and the outer demands of the moment. If more yin is required, yang yields: 50-50, can go to 99-1 and on forever in subtlety, and the reverse is also true. When exploring this in the asana and breathing practices, always look to feel to the yielding one. In 
a back bend, this is the forward bending energy and vice versa. In a twist, right and left are yin and yang. In breathing, yin and yang are the expanding and condensing, like the Hoberman sphere action.
Extraordinary Vessels:
In our microcosmic orbit meditation, we discover a similar pattern and field to cell division. The seat of the yin at the pelvic floor and the seat of the yang at the top of the skull act as the two poles. Yin energy grounds and roots us. It stores energy. Yang energy rises and expands. It acts, within the body and out in the world. Yin and yang are always seeking communication, integration and balance. We will use some of the extraordinary vessels to help imagine and trace the energy flow.
There are eight extraordinary vessels in Qi Gong/Chinese medicine that help integrate the flow of Qi in the body. We will use the four in the torso region in this session. The other four include legs and we will pick up in a later post.
The energy line of the front, the Conception vessel is yin. The energy line at the back, the Governing vessel is yang. If we stay in the median line, up the core from root to crown, we have the primary yin vessel know as the thrusting vessel. The forth, the Girdling Vessel we will see below wraps around the body at the pelvic region.
We add points in front and behind the heart center to root and crown to create a circle or oval shape we call the microcosmic orbit, as seen with the hula hoop below, which includes and helps integrate the governing and conception vessels. As the energy generated in the body begins to feel the patterns, the poles support and strengthen each other, building a stronger charge, and the heart center expands naturally. Meditation and asana practice support this when we begin to feel the circular energy flows and use imagination to help guide the flow.
When standing we begin to feel the links to the legs through K-1 and the hands at P-8. This is especially true in down dog, where the core Qi circulates out through hands and feet and back again. In your standing pose practice, stabilize the core and add the points on the hands and feet. Wake these points up though samyama.
Coming back to the core, notice that the microcosmic orbit circle divides the body into front and back, but allows movement in the sagittal or front to back plane, where back bending and forward bending actions take place. Experiment with both imagining energy flow up the front/down the back and up the back down the front circular patterns. Notice which feels better, and where in the body is there a response to the flow. You may feel various regions of the body expanding and opening, contracting away, or remaining neutral. Then try both at once, as a yin-yang relationship.
Start standing or sitting, and then explore simple forward and back bending actions such as coming in and out of uttanasana, or going back and forth between up and down dog. Wake up the K-1 points. As you go forward, down the front leads, so make sure the up the front is present and yielding, not collapsing. On coming into extension, down the back leads, so find the down the front for balance. It takes time and lots of practice to be able to balance the energies this way.
We can also imagine the circle, still centered in the heart and passing through crown and root chakras, only this time in the
coronal plane, dividing the body into front and back, and allowing side bending or fish body action like trikonasana, parsvakonasana or anantasana. Try clockwise and counter clock wise directions, and then both at once in a yin/yang interplay, including hands and feet as well.
The third dimension brings the circle perpendicular to the first to, in what in Qi Gong i called 
the girdling vessel. This circuit in the transverse plane, does not run have a diameter running through the core, but brings stability to the other two circles that do. You can call this the hula hoop or tutu because this is the circle of rotational energy, which provides the stability to the vertical axis. The major region of stability centered in the navel region. It varies slightly from individual to individual, up or down, but is a felt center, known as the hara in Japanese. This is the center of gravity in the body and we might imagine that our original cell, the one from conception sits there. From there, all the other cells, tissues and organs expand out into the full human form. You can imagine two points just outside the body at the navel at the sides, one front and one back to create a circuit. Sustain the balance of flow in twisting poses by feeling the left twisting when leading to the right and vice versa.
Longitude and Latitude Lines of the Body:
We can now begin to relate our personal energy field to that of Mother Earth by seeing the 
lines, circles and planes of each. The 3 dimensions of the human body can be described the three planes, as mentioned above and seen to the right, as well as with the hula hoop. The sagittal plane divides the body into right and left. Movement in the sagittal plane includes forward and back bending, or sagittal flexion and extension. The coronal plane divides the body into front and back. Movement in this plane is lateral flexion and extension, or ‘fish body’. The transverse plane slices through the body perpendicular to the other two planes and allows rotational movement or twisting.
On Mother Earth we see these planes as Latitude and Longitude lines (they are actually circles!) Longitude circles run through the north and south poles and are all the same length. In the body, the perineum or seat of the yin is the south pole, the crown point, or seat of the yang is the north pole. More than just the sagittal and coronal planes, we now have volume by rotating these around the transverse plane. The transverse plane gives us latitude circles which vary in length; very small near the poles, longest at the equator.
Linking Patterns of Energy Points, Lines and Fields:
To help visualize the links between our own bio-energetic fields and the larger patterns of the Universe we can use the simple image of the gyroscope. First point to notice is the vertical line or central axis, our chakra line of ‘thrusting vessel’. Second is the circle that uses the axis as a diameter, our micro-cosmic orbit. The third 
is the perpendicular circle or disc, our ‘girdling vessel’ or tutu.
The gyroscope balances stability and mobility through rotation of the perpendicular disc around the axis and this basic principle appears on Mother Earth,
our Solar System,
and our home galaxy, the Milky Way. (This is actually another spiral galaxy seen for above, as we cannot get ‘outside’ the Milky Way to photograph it.)
If we compare these planes and lines to the gyroscope, we can begin to visualize the stabilizing possibilities of the human energy field when we can access the points, lines, circles and spatial volume. Imagination, intuition and direct experience through practice are the keys to awakening your own bio-energetic field and allowing it to align with the cosmic fields of mother earth, the sun and our home base, the Milky Way.
Good luck. Practice well.
(Thanks to Stacy for the hoop photos!)
May all beings be happy.
May all beings find inner peace.
May all beings be free from suffering.