Friday, February 27, 2009

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?

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

What's your story?

It all begins with the breath. Nothing is more important or fundamental than the breath in practice. It's one of the easy ways to be empowered in practice--because while you may not have all the say in the sequence, intensity, etc--you have a say in how attentive and responsive to the breath you are.  The breath is the foundation from which everything else is built around. It's what allows a practice that could form around aggression be infused with a sweetness and nurturing that only a deep and spacious breath can provide. It is what grounds and connect us to the creative pulse that animates all things. 

Think of it like this. The breath is like the formation of words. From this the poses become animated expression of the words--sentences begin to form. From this the poses flow together to create a story--the story of you in any given moment. Unlike other art forms the well spring from which you draw your creativity is endless. --the breath is always there waiting patiently for you to notice it--to create with it--until you take your last breath.

 What kind of story are you writing now? A larger question is--what are you willing to write now that you know it's within your capacity to craft your story.

Here is a practice for you this week. Notice how the breath starts off as you begin your practice, and then moment to moment remember you can harness a different breath--constructing new pathways of connection. Your willingness to open to and create with the breath is all in your hands. Your practice can become poetry in motion.

Breath freely!

I also want to direct you to the first few meditations in the Radiance sutras on breath...here is one:

The Radiance Sutras have this to say:

"The life essence carries on its play 
through the pulsing rhythm 
of outward and inward movement.
This is the ceaseless throb, the rhythm of life - 
terrifying in its eternity, exquisite in its constancy.

The inhalation, the return movement of breath,
sustains life. 
The outgoing breath 
purifies life. 
We breathe out the old air, the old thoughts, the old feelings.

These are the two poles 
between which respiration goes on unceasingly.
Between them is every quality you could ever desire.

As the breath turns from in to out, 
and again as the breath
curves from out to in -
through both these turns, absorb intensity."

(the first few sutras have beautiful breath meditations--go to www.lorinroche.com for more info on the sutras)