Sweat Your Prayers-Ishvara pranidhana

There is nothing quite like letting it all out on the mat. You step onto the mat and you let go and in the letting go you become a conduit for grace--you enter the flow. As you open you are opened.

Pranidhana means to surrender and Ishvara is spirit, or God. In practice it is the remembrance that we can allow ourselves to be supported by stepping out of the way and opening up to something bigger. The "Bigness" surprise surprise is actually not outside of us anyway--we just have to step out of our OWN way. There is this power far greater then most of us ever touch that is in us so deeply-- woven powerfully into every fiber of our being. It is the programming in us for greatness and when we are aligned with it we are the embodied GREATNESS.

We are all much more capable of magnificence and far more able to perform magic in life and on the mat.

The author Starhawk says it best I think:

Energy is ecstasy. When we drop the barrier and let power pour through us, it floods the body, pulsing through every nerve, arousing every artery, coursing like a river that cleanses as it moves. In the eye of the storm, we rise on the winds that roar through mind and body, throbbing a liquid note as the voice pours out shimmering honey in waves of golden light, that as they pass, leave peace. No drug can take us so high, no thrill pierce us so deep, because we have felt the essence of all delight, the heart of joy, the end of desire. Energy is love and love is magic!

The Magic show begins though when we allow ourselves that deep surrender. If you're clenching, holding, blocking, resisting in your practice--you're blocking the pulse of energy that can take you to that sweet shimmering place that Starhawk so beautifully describes.

The first step in practice is to feel before you act. To notice what is and to feel the body, heart, mind opening up to vast spaciousness. The way to surrender is to deeply feel the breath and notice it. To ride the crescendo of each breath until you feel synced up with the larger current. In that larger current your body responds to the pulse and then you are in the Spanda Shakti

The practice invites us to become more of ourselves--to tap into the depth of our fullness--to reveal more light, to relish in the radiance, and to expand consciously into greatness. We just have to be ready to open and to surrender. You ready to sweat your prayers?