DAILY Plow Pose This pose usually follows Salamba Sarvangasana, Shoulder Stand, although you can easily roll back into it from a seated position. If coming from Shoulder Stand, exhale and lower legs down toward the head, keeping torso as upright as possible. Do not take chin toward sternum, if anything, allow sternum to move toward chin. With toes on floor, keep lifting tailbone up, use hands to support lower back if needed, or clasp hands and extend down onto floor. Keep weight off the neck. But if it bothers the neck ,y fold a blanket under the shoulders and upper back, leaving neck free. Hold as long as you can, and when ready to exit, lift legs up into Shoulder Stand, or grab behind the legs, pulling them toward face and slowly roll down spine, getting a good hamstring stretch on the way. Because this is a softening pose, it’s often nice to follow it with Savasana. Health Notes: This is considered a folding pose, therefore it calms the body and brain, reduces anxiety and stress, helps with insomnia. It helps stretch the back, and is good for mild backaches, but if you have serious back or neck issues only do this under hands of a good instructor. It stimulates thyroid gland, helps relieve menopause symptoms, and sinusitis
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Garden Practices
Dancing between order and chaos, fragility and substance, small truths to larger truths emerge.
Read moreAll Hallowed Heavens
As this is a very magical day, make opportunity to take to the mat to revamp and renew. Ask, “What is the Practice that serves me in bringing 2013 to strong closure?” What Pranayama will help break stagnant habits? Where within favorite poses can I challenge my body? How does this Shakti Yoga Dance move me deeper into emotional connection? Which mudra supports my prayer in this moment? Which chant will help bridge reality and desire, moving me across chasms? How do I accept surrendering in Savasana, letting love hold me more sweetly? Today, the heavens are All-Hallowed-worthy. There is a rare, even bizarre line up of planets in the same 9th degree. Pluto, Uranus (the famous square) along with Mars, Chiron, Mercury, and the Moon. And include the Sun who is just a minute off. “What does it mean?” You ask. “I have no idea.” Says I. Certainly if you have any planets in the 9th degree, or close by, your world is going to shake rattle and roll….. Perhaps in magical, wonderful ways. If it were me, I’d make a wish, spend time visualizing it coming true, and believe in bizarre dreams being real. When given a choice, go for the magical, not the fearful. This All Souls Celebration might have a chance of uplifting the world and moving us all, willy-nilly, toward redemption and Grace. Have you noticed any symbolic parallels between events in the wide world and those closer to home? Any similarity of pattern? Don’t look at the form, but the energy. Is it break through, or break down? It’s often easier to see cultural and social shock waves rocking the high seas, usually more difficult to see our small life boat’s in jeopardy. The Uranus-Pluto square hits dead-on this week, accompanied by a Solar… Read more »
Read moreTransmissions
Ears, like handles on a jug, are odd but necessary protrusions. Their convoluted, sinewy shapes reach out to pull vibrations in to bounce on the tympanic membrane, then the auditory nerve, culminating in the membranous labyrinth of complicated sacs and tubes, filled with fluid, housed in the petrous bone. The external ear helps concentrate sonorous vibrations on the tympanic membrane and set it vibrating. The three bones in mid ear transmit these vibrations to the internal ear. What a journey for a single sigh, or syllable, to cover. Each word a small miracle in a complex transmission. You’d think we’d choose them with more care, eh? There is far more where this complex connecting came from, but you get the general idea…It’s complicated. So is listening to what is really being conveyed. Hearing is a feminine act of receiving, considered a receptive talent. But these days we are having to train ears, and eyes, to take on more levels of information, at a faster pace. We have ears to the ground for incoming instructions, ears tuned to one another, and hopefully, ears vibrating to dictates of spirit. Presently, we have greater opportunity to hear the numinous, re-defined spiritual vibrations, to help us all move toward the wisdom of ‘One-ness.’ This is wonderful, but not easy, for the new ear requires we pay attention all the time, and at very high levels of attention in order to understand hidden meaning relayed from this inclusive, sonorous spectrum. It is more important than ever to re-define and stengthen boundaries within self, as well as one another, as we absorb information with intuitive ears so the psychic heart can become a well-worn tool, not an abstract idea. Listening from old mind-sets, and out-grown grooves of assumption cannot take us to the next level. If… Read more »
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