Notes from Detroit, January, 2015

Posted on February 9, 2015 by admin

Nurturing the Heart:
Stabilizing the Heart Field and using this as the center and source of action and perception in the postures, and in life.

1. Find your heart:
a. as a deep feeling of love and compassion, or even simple well being and joy: nurture this often.
See PYS I-33
b. as a place in the center of your chest, just behind the physical heart.
(yoga nerds: the sino-atrial node).
c. From here allow a subtle expansion field to emerge, radially. No force, no muscles, just an opening.
d. Recognize the ever-present stillness at the center of the field. Eventually the sense of stillness will grow to fill your whole being.

2. From the expansion, allow the “brain” to condense and drop into the heart. This is a subtle shift in energy from the brain center to the heart center.

3. From the heart expansion, allow the 3rd chakra energy to rise up to the heart, opening and spreading the dome of the diaphragm from below. Now feel the heart balancing head and guts as a single conscious intelligence.

4. Now allow heart energy to open through crown and root chakras, up to the heavens and down into Mother Earth. Feel the toroidal shape of the heart energy field. Let it stabilize. (The Institute of HeartMath is a rich resource for heart related studies.)

5. Using the sound ‘OM’, continue to awaken the heart field, feeling the balance of expanding and condensing (centrifugal and centripetal) energies.

6. Now, in tadasana, establish heart link to earth through the feet. Keep ankles, knees, hips relaxed as they feel the rhythm of flexion – extension, allowing energy to both ground and also rise up through crown chakra to the heavens.

7. Chest expands, brain softens and drops, continuously. Divide the lower body energy, from diaphragm to pelvic floor, into three sections. The first, the upper abdomen, including liver, stomach, spleen, expands up toward heart, as if this region were part of the heart energy. The second, the navel region, strongly condenses, not muscularly, but energetically as in a vacuum. Half squirts up to help upper abdominal, diaphragm and heart rise and expand. Second half squirts down to help open the third section, the pelvic bowl. Feel the inside of the pelvis expanding slightly and let the downward energy grow through your legs and your imaginary tail. Let all levels and layers of energy and structure find the expanding heart field. Integrate, stabilize, dance.

8. With minimum disturbance to the dynamic balance, use your imaginary tail to take you in and out of the forward bend. Explore from uttanasana to prasarita padottanasana and back to develop and sustain fluidity through the full range of motion.

9. The groin gates and the groin highway: When we examine flow and structure in the previous poses, we find energy/pressure often gets stuck between torso and limbs. Opening the imaginary tail is helpful to create space and flow here. The inner heels are part of the ‘tail line’ of energy, and they in turn are also connected to the groins. Anatomically, the energy passes through the ‘femoral triangle’, following the blood vessel highway. If this area stays open, from the heart, all the way to the feet and back to the heart, the legs and torso are harmoniously integrated.

In any standing forward bend, turn the feet out slightly (external rotation, and notice the feeling through the femoral gate. Next, turn the feet inward (internal rotation) and again notice the energy flow through the gates. On inwards rotation especially, extend out and down more through the inner heels. Which offers more space and flow for you? Notice that, in general, inner rotation helps spiral the energy down, and external helps to spiral the energy back up to the heart.

10. Use the inner groin highway extending to inner heel for the back leg in the fish body standing poses, trikonasana, parsvakonasana, vira II, and ardha chandrasana. Feel the extension like a skater pushing out through the inner edge of the skate blade. The dominant energy flow is from the pelvis into the back leg, creating a deeper opening to the front leg groin. This can be further explored in this variation of half moon I call the mushroom. Here I am asking yoga teacher Amy Christine McCoy to drop her back leg slightly, without losing the inner length. this allows the whole outer leg, including ITB, glute medius, piraformis, to relax into the support of the inner line. Many students hold the back leg from the outer line, which breaks the connection to the heart/core/organ energy. Notice also the ‘stem of the mushroom’, the standing leg, how the down and up energies are in balance and the whole torso ‘floats’ above the standing leg femur head. No compression, lots of space and lightness. This is sthira sukham in action. (see below)

11. Now take this action into the one legged dog pose, moving in and out of flipping the dog if your shoulder allows. Continue to elongate out through pelvis and legs, but also extend out through heart into crown chakra and arms, like plank pose. This double action centered in the heart allows you to remain balanced as you go deeper into the flip. The blood vessel highway opens and becomes the perceptual source of deeper opening and movements.

12. Next, use the wall to do move from one leg dog to handstand. The extended legs grounds into the wall, use the groin highway to lift the leg from the floor and extend it up to th ceiling, going into slight extension to open further. Add a bit of ‘plank heart’ and bend the back-bending leg at the knee to create a mini scorpion pose.

13. Use the same principle of groin length in coming up into head balance and elbow balance.

14. Supported bridge pose with a block is another wonderful way to explore the heart energy and its capacity to open the body. Gravity and leverage are used to balance energies moving to and from the heart. Use the block as a fulcrum to help lift the heart by lengthening pubic bones / tail out and down. Lengthen the inner regions without contracting the lower spinal muscles. stay grounded through the feet to help. Let the heart and then shoulders lift away from floor. Only back of skull remains grounded at that end. Then, keeping the heart reaching to the tail, let the shoulder hang/release back to the floor with out sinking. This will keep 5th chakra open and maybe even 6 and 7. All the shoulder stand variations have this opening as a foundation. ( In theory anyway!)

15: Some other postures: Bakasana takes the same principles into a very compact pose. Groin length becomes groin depth as you extend out through pelvis, even as the legs are in deep flexion. The plank heart empowers the arms, and the whole core rounds and lifts simultaneously. Uncoiling the energy allows you to jump back to chaturanga or plank pose. Dhanurasana is the inverse: the back body coils to elongate the deep front line of the body, including heart, diaphragm, mediastinum and mesentery, as well as groins and armpits.

16. Spiralic action: twisting poses require a double action, like the coiled serpents and wings of the caduceus, the symbol of Hermes, the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology, also known as Mercury by the Romans. In any twisting pose, with the stillness of your heart at the center, feel the spinal axis or chakra line. Imagine that whatever rotation you desire will begin subtly and slowly from the deepest core of this axis. Let it radiate out slowly. Invite the opposite direction to join in the dance and allow the fluid body, open to your heart energy, respond in its own way and time. Old friend Betty Eiler shows the lightness and elegance of a heart centered twisting posture with some support from blocks.

15. Sutras Lesson: Key sutras to ’embody’ the practice:
Chapter II, sutras 46, 47, 48; Chapter I, sutras 2, 3, 4

Patanjali has only three sutras on asana. Yoga students, and especially teachers, should know these ‘by heart’, i.e., embody them continuously. Every pose is a yoga pose, 24/7/365.

II-46, sthira sukham asanam: a yoga pose is a balance of stability and adaptability. Stability is neither static nor stagnant. It is a dynamic state that sustains its core organizing intelligence from the heart, as the world, inner and outer, changes. It is flexible and adaptable, in tune with its environment. It is an expression of the fundamental principle of aliveness.
II-47 prayatna shaithilyaananta samaapattibhyaam: with the dissolving of effort and absorption into the cosmic field (posture is mastered). When the heart field is the root of the pose, no effort is required. Then the cosmic field embraces the heart field and there is integration, wholeness, oneness.
II-48 tato dvandva anabhighaatah: Then duality is seen as an expression of wholeness, not conflict. Yin and yang, when integral to each other, are not two, but One.

These next sutras need to be experienced together to fully realize their meaning. Mind activity (citta vrttis) is normal and an inherently healthy aspect of being human. However, as we are also emotional beings in continuous relationship with others, we have an aspect of mind, known as the ahamkara in Sanskrit, that organizes our self sense, so we can, in a healthy way, differentiate self from other. The immune system is the physiological component to this process. Parenting and the attachment process plays a major role in determining whether we mature with a healthy sense of self. When love and compassion, expressions of the heart, are the center of our self sense, the mind can function in a healthy way.

The question, ‘who, or perhaps what, am I?, is a crucial seed for contemplation. From the yoga point of view, the self, the I am, is non-dual ‘Wholeness” or Purusha in the sutras, which we all ‘know’ when we are heart-centered. But it may take a while to ‘recognize’ this. We may have multiple selves, multiple identites in our mind field, not all heart based, often in conflict. We play roles in society: father/mother, daughter/son, friend, neighbor, boss, employee, etc. When mind over-rules the heart, conflicts in these various roles lead to stress, feelings of inadequacy, the need to defend ‘ourselves/beliefs/ideas against ‘others’. The transformation of these stress inducing ideas/beliefs/patterns of mind activity into an innate sense of fullness, wholeness, inner peace and equanimity, also known as spiritual maturing and the awakening of the heart, is described in the next three sutras.

I-2 Yogash citta vrtti nirodha: yoga is the dissolving of the dysfunctional mind states. The energies tied up in mental patterns based on separation, alienation and feeling inadequate are transformed into the healing energies of the heart.
I-3 tada drashtuh svarupe avasthaanam : then, wholeness, resting in its own inherent “Stillness” centered in the heart, recognizes itself and becomes stable.
I-4 vrtti sarupyam itaratra: (at other times) our beliefs about our self come from a sense of separation, are confused and inherently dysfunctional.

As these clues from Patanjali begin to resonate more and more, you will find they all lead back the the heart, that amazingly mysterious, wonderful, intense expression of being alive, of Spirit coming into matter to celebrate Itself! Rest there. Be consumed there by the fire of aliveness. Celebrate!

2014 YLT 10th weekend summary

Posted on January 8, 2015 by admin

This weekend we focused on using energy lines in new ways. So far, we have been using lines and circles/spheres of energy to create simultaneous balance and extension (moving out of tension) in the postures. The Hoberman Sphere has been our metaphor for breathing as expanding and condensing, and sustaining an internal, 3-dimensional spaciousness. The circle is the feminine side of sacred geometry, and to this we have added the masculine, the straight line, as an axis through the sphere to give is another polarity, such as head and tail, or heaven and earth. From these we have created the basic shape of an organism centered in the cosmos. The gyroscope gives us the sense of dynamic stability the is at the essence of all life.

For the next level, we will begin to explore some new energy shapes based on what are known in math as the conic sections. These are defined by the different angles one can slice through a cone. We have played with the circle so the next to come is the ellipse. Like the circle, the ellipse is a closed shape, but where as the circle has a single center to define its perimeter, the ellipse has two centers, known as focal points. We use the elliptical shape to explore 2 chakras at a time , one at each focal point. For example, when lying in savasana, or any supported position, we can imagine the heart chakra at one focus and the navel center, or the sacral center as the second. Any two chakras will work, but if you use the alternating ones, (1-3, 2-4, 3-5, etc) the chkra between can also emerge as the center of the two focal points. The earth’s path around the sun, as well as that of the other planets, is ellipsoidal, so this is a very cosmic, macro-phase pattern to align with.

When we come to the parabolic and hyperbolic curves, we enter a new phase in our integration as these are open curves, coming from outside the body, passing through us, and then moving on again. From the conic perspective, the parabolic curve is parallel to the edge of the cone, where as the hyperbola is parallel to the perpendicular axis of the cone. Hyperbolas also come in pairs, but one half is enough for our somatic play. Parabolic curves are more focused, and such are used in mirrors and auto headlights. Hyperbolas are more open, that is the ‘arms’ can spread wider.

Try standing in a nice simple, grounded tadasana, find your heart center, and from there open the arms, pointing slight up and forward. If you have some anatomical sensitivity, align the shoulder girdles, arm bones, ribs and heart center into a parabolic shape and let the bones, muscles, connective tissues, blood vessels etc feel suspended and supported by the energy flowing through you. Widen to find some hyperbolic lines.

This can also be done lying down, with arms up and out to ceiling, or even with the legs, like a parabolic or hyperbolic anemone. In any pose, invite these in to light up aspects of your interior, or to bring into focus cells, organs or any structure that invites you.

Homework for the final sessions: Review, Read Hsin Hsin Ming, continue with Gita and Sutras as you feel inspired. Keep practicing.

2014 YLT Weekend 8 Summary

Posted on September 30, 2014 by admin

Theme of Weekend 8: Embryology for Yoga Students:
embodying the earliest days of embryological growth and development
as a yoga practice/meditation.

Out of the infinite, luminous emptiness of the present moment arises the entire cosmos, in a mind boggling multiplicity of forms. The forms to explore today are the echos of our embryological past, still emerging, available when we can be still and feel our inner depths.

Some general principles for contemplation:
1. Embryology for yogis is an investigations of the emegence and transformation of forms through fluid dynamics.
2. The morphology of the embryo is present in the adult human as possibilities of deeper integration.
3. Structures and cavities appear and disappear through time during development.
4. Growth is movement!
5. Not all cells grow/divide at the same rate. This leads to changes in both shape and function.
6. Cells grow by contact along lines of energy, like ants following a chemical trail.
7. Membranes and fluids are primary.
8. The first major differentiation of cells, known as gastrulation, gives rise to three primary types of tissue. The endodermal cells become the gut body, the mesodermal cells become connective tissue structures including the heart, and the ectodermal cells become the nervous system. Most of our explorations will be here. (See day 12 in the diagram below.)

Week 1: Conception, spherical energy: rolling, falling, tumbling, dividing, condensing, hatching, hollowing, fluidity, freedom.

Practice: Rolling and Pouring, from “How Life Moves” to find omni-directional freedom, felt sense of weight, rotation/spinning in relaxed, supported, quiet environment. This is a very internal, meditative state. Savasana or other restorative poses can take us here as well.

Week 2: Implantation; landing, attaching, making connections, establishing roots.

Practice: Making a connection with floor or wall, feel how a new level of stability allows more types of growth and movement. Attach yourself in one place and allow everywhere else freedom to move. Now we are moving outside ourselves to find support from the world around us. It is a more extroverted state, discovering the ‘other’.

Week 2: Gastrulation: differentiating into front, back and middle; expanding, differential growth. This is a huge shift in perception/awareness as the biological intelligence now differentiates into three modes of being/action/perception.

Practice: Explore each of these three places and modes of being before they complexify and differentiate more completely. This can be done in any pose, as all embryological moments are available at any time, as fields waiting for imagination to re-ignite them. However, new students may want to stay on the floor where you can safely surrender to gravity and feel the awakening of the fluids and membranes. The fluid filled cavities carry nutrients, sound waves, and waves of movement.

Front body as:
Endoderm – yolk sac space- nurturing – gut body, eventually to become upper, middle and lower GI track; Feel the deep support of the yolk sac before it is drawn into the body and elongated. Feel it as expansive, soft, full. Kapha in Ayurveda.

Back body as:
Ectoderm – amnion to become amniotic sac, and primitive nervous system – brain – sense organs – skin; Feel the deep support of the amniotic cavity before in encircles you, before the middle emerges as mesoderm. Feel the wide sensitivity of the future skin/brain/nerves. Vata in Ayurveda.

Middle body as:
Mesoderm: mediator; grows out from middle – all connective tissues, muscles, bones, ligaments, fascia, heart, kidneys and eventually limbs. Pitta in Ayurveda. Find the middle ground as place of balance in all planes and movements.

Week 3: Yolk sac drawn into body as amnion grows around to complete sphere. Deepening the roots. The three layers begin there next level of differentiation. The ectoderm enlarges to become the neural plate and then the neural crest and neural tube. The neural tube will later become spinal cord and various sections of the brain. Mesoderm shows beginning of head and tail, heart. Bones and muscles will emerge. Endoderm begins lengthen to mouth and anus. Lungs, intestines and bladder will emerge.

Practice 1: Gut body; Hu breath or Vessel breath to active gut body – hollow tubular fluid consciousness. Wake up the fluids and feel the shifts in pressure as the fluids rebound around inside the membranes containing them.

Practice 2: Emergence of the Mesoderm: Lying on your back, feel the entire floor as your back body/ectoderm and amnion; the ceiling and space above you as your front body/endoderm/yolk sac. Take this into your cells so that all the cells behind your median plane become the ectoderm and all the cells in front become the endoderm. Now imagine the emerging of a middle layer growing along the interphase between endo and ectoderms. This is the median plane feel it spreading sideways and also lengthening to head and tail. Finally find arm buds, leg buds, head and tail emerging.

Practice 3: Coiling and Uncoiling: Rolling onto your side, use the mesoderm to begin to ‘coil up’ to come into a fetal position Keep the back long and feel the yolk sac being drawn into the body as you curl. Now, again from the mesoderm, begin to uncoil, extending through head and tail as you feel the gut body lengthening, carrying the spinal column into a mild back bend. Slowly and mindfully repeat this coiling and uncoiling. Bonnie Cohen calls this physiological flexion and extension as it is driven by the gut body action.

Practice 1: Bring any of these explorations into any yoga pose or sequence of poses. Find where there deep inner movements and fluid waves can support you so there is less ‘muscling’ and more surrender in the poses.

Awakening Practice: Introduction to the Bhagavad Gita
The ‘Mahavakyas’ are four (or seven) sacred phrases for contemplation that appear in the Upanishads. One of them, tat tvam asi, is from the Chandogya Upanishad and is an instruction from a guru to a disciple. She is telling the student; That Brahman, that undivided wholeness we have been discussing is ‘you’.

The Bhagavd Gita, Krishna teaching Arjuna, takes 18 chapters to unfold the wisdom of this one statement. Chapters 1 – 6 are about Arjuna, the disciple. They are about all seekers of spiritual wisdom who may be confused by the teachings. Chapters 7- 12 are about Brahman, the unbroken wholeness, as represented by Krishna. Arjuna at first sees Krishna in his human form as his charioteer. As Krishna gradually reveals more and more Arjuna gets a bit overwhelmed. Chapters 13 – 18, unfold the equivalence. Arjuna is Brahman.