Project 8 - Live to Learn

One of the most amazing things in life is the endless information that exists... this never-ending knowledge to learn, infinite wisdom to grow and develop from.  This can fuel the curious, overwhelm the perfectionist, and humble the genius. I have to admit that I have been busy/distracted/focused on other priorities for the last few years and haven't read enough, changed perspectives often, or studied and discovered much. I've missed reading. I've missed watching documentaries and inspiring videos. I've missed being the student. And I didn't realize this until my teacher training last summer. Just like someone who realizes they're overly thirsty way past the point of dehydration, I got a really intense - an unquenchable - thirst for knowledge.


Steph, my wise Peer Support Guide during this distance learning portion of my teacher training, wrote "With so much knowledge out there, it's kind of a comfort, isn't it, in knowing that we can't know it all? In knowing that we can't take it all in, we have the freedom to choose something here that truly inspires us, and use this as a chance to add to our passion for our practice."


With so much possibility, I decided to focus my topic for the Live to Learn project to my teaching and practice. I also wanted to make it a creative project, one that would fuel the right side of my brain. And with so much out there to learn, I wanted to make it thematic in order to focus my efforts and learnings into a more comprehensible package. I decided to do research on the history, meaning and story behind the sanskrit name for postures in the Moksha series and to highlight the meanings and interpretations through poetry, imagery, or through exploration of less traditional definitions. I was left with lots of questions still, sometimes unsure of what to think due to contradicting texts. I want to highlight that there is so much richness to what there is to learn in the stories of asanas, and that I've only captured a single layer of that.

PRANAYAMA

ebbing and flowing
through the passageway of lungs
extend the life force

 
 

UTKATASANA

While most people call it "chair pose", I found adjectives, as opposed to this noun that gave me a new love-on for this posture. Powerful. Fierce. Wild. Frightening. Intense. Furious. Uneven.

Power from the ankles as the heels root powerfully into the mat, calves that ground and thighs that hug. Fierceness in openness of the chest, in the reaching of the arms, made uneven with a calm of the face. Building heat. Fortifying will. Yet staying soft and steady. Seated in strength and in grace. There is so much opposition to explore in this posture (looking forward to my next practice)!

GARUDASANA

Garuda, king of birds; he transported the God Vishnu.

Ally of the gods, Garuda was eager to help humanity fight against demons. Devourer in Sanskrit, Garuda is also known as the all-consuming fire of the sun's rays.

When in Garudasana, we can claw (albeit without gripping!) and root through our feet as if on a branch but can find levity in our torso at the same time.

Stoic. Mighty. Focused. Poised.

When releasing the compression in Garudasana, we almost appear to be flapping wings, allowing fresh, oxigenated blood to flow through our joints, and releasing heat from the body, glowing, full of power.

PARIVRTTA UTKATASANA

Sweet thoughts,

pray and release.

Have a seat, stay, visit,

and let go of what's not serving you.

BANARASANA

Lunge equestrian posture - when I found this "translation", I was struck by what a beautiful image this makes of this posture.

Runner's lunge is often accompanied by running visualization - a runner up against a runner's block at the start of a sprint, a runner springing forward to reach the finish line at the end of a race.

With this new equine imagery, I bring to this posture: composure, pride, calmness, athleticism, and a sense of being lithe and majestic. 

VIRABHADRASANA

Virabhadra

Hindu deity

Incarnation of Shiva

Hero + friend

Warrior

The warrior poses recount a story of love, attachment, pride, shame, vengeance, violence, sadness, compassion and renunciation.  That complexity, in and of itself, encompasses such a textured, layered and beautiful depth to what the posture can be.

Background: Shiva, higher self, is heartbroken by the death of his love Sati, caused by humiliation and sadness from her father Daksha. Heartbreak transforms to rage and in a dark place, Shiva pulls out his hair and creates, from this, an army of fierce warriors. He names one, Virabhadra (Hero friend), and asks him to destroy Daksha. When Shiva sees the damage Virabhadra has caused, he brings Daksha back to life. With dead Sati in his arms, Shiva walks away from the scene with his beloved wife's lifeless body, headed for isolation.

From research on why we practice Virabhadrasana, I found this, which really resonates with me:  It is not to honour the practice of violence, but to fight our own ignorance and ego. "What's really being commemorated in this pose's name and held up as an ideal for all practitioners, is the spiritual warrior, who bravely does battle with the universal enemy, self-ignorance (avidya), the ultimate source of all our suffering."

If one is hurt by the arrows of an enemy, one is not as aggrieved as when cut by the unkind words of a relative, for such grief continues to rend one's heart day and night.
— Lord Shiva, Bhagavat Purana

PATANVRIKSASANA

 The willow tree allowed the wind to carry and lift its branches, dancing, tumbling, sometimes being dropped but always remaining graceful and calm.  

NATARAJASANA
Symbol of the Lord of the dance
What fascinated me about the research I did was the visual representation of the Nataraj form. An intricate, beautiful bronze statue that is now iconographic was developed in Southern India in the 9th / 10th centuries by artists of the Chola period (read more about Chola art here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_art - I was fascinated by this). Today, the Chola Nataraj is a recognized statement of Hindu Art.

In the typical Chola Nataraj sculpture, the dancing form of Lord Shiva is shown with four hands - each representing one of the directions. He is in dance, one foot raised, the other on a demon/dwarf (said to represent ignorance). The upper left hand holds fire, the lower left hand points down to the demon/dwarf. The upper right hand holds an hourglass drum with a hand mudra representing creation and the lower right hand is in the gesture of assertion: "Be without fear." He is surrounded by snakes (ego) and an arch of flames (birth and death or the larger universe). Shiva's stoic expression is said to be neutral, balanced. Look at all of these polarities, and the complexity in the opposition of the posture. Then stop thinking about it  - get out of your ego - and just feel the the posture evolve through your cycle of breath and dance with it.

 

 PAVANAMUKTASANA

"What I did would have been considered polite, especially in Fartland" - Jack Handy, Deep Thoughts.

(wind + relieving + pose = permission for Alice to regress to maturity of 12 year old)

SETU BANDHASANA

I've always known that "Setu" means'' Bridge.'' And that a bridge is a connection between two things. In one of the books I read, I resonated with this meaning of why we practice this posture - to allow for the connection between mind and body, inner word and outer world, the individual and the divine.

VIRASANA

Heroic, hero, chief. The posture is said to resemble a brave person taking position while attacking his enemy. While I can see this, similar to tradition with Japanese emperors, I don't see it in supta virasana  as we make ourselves vulnerable as we expand and expose our front bodies. There is opposition in my idea of a heroic, proud chief and this vulnerability, as the opening of the hips and shoulders can release emotions and sensations that have been ignored or pushed away by the rounding of the upper back and protective tension in the shoulders. Any insights on what seems to me to be an interesting contrast is invited!

FLOW:

Observe me, says the Breath, and learn to live effortlessly in the Present Moment. Feel me, says the Breath, and feel the Ebb and Flow of Life. Allow me, says the Breath, and I’ll sustain and nourish you, filling you with energy and cleansing you of tension and fatigue.

Move with me, says the Breath, and I’ll invite your soul to dance.

Make sounds with me and I shall teach your soul to sing.

Follow me, says the Breath, and I’ll lead you out to the farthest reaches of the Universe… and inward  to the deepest parts of your inner world.

Notice, says the Breath, that I am as valuable to you coming or going that every part of my cycle is as necessary as another that after I’m released, I return again and again… that even after a long pause – moments when nothing seems to happen -eventually I am there.

Each time I come, says the Breath, I am a gift from Life. And yet I am released without regret, without suffering, without fear. Notice how you take me in, says the Breath, … is it with joy with gratitude… do you take me in fully… invite me into all the inner spaces of your home… or carefully into just the “front foyer”? What places in you am I not allowed to nourish?

And notice, says the Breath, how you release me. Do you hold me prisoner in closed up places in the body? Is my release resisted or do you let me go reluctantly, not easily.

And are my waves of Breath, of Life, as gentle as a quiet sea, softly smoothing sandy stretches of yourself; or anxious, urgent, choppy waves; or the crashing tumult of a stormy sea?

And can you feel me as the link between your inner and outer worlds, suggests the Breath, feel me as Life’s exchange between the universe and you? The universe breathes me into you – you send me back to the universe… I am the flow of Life between every single part and the whole.

Your attitude to me, says the Breath, is your attitude to Life. Welcome me… embrace me fully. Let me nourish you completely, then set me free. Move with me, dance with me, sing with me, sigh with me… love me, trust me, don’t try to control me.

I am the Breath. Life is the Musician. You are the Flute. And Music – Creativity – depends on all of us. You are not the Creator… nor the Creation. We are all a part of the process of Creativity… you, Life, and me: the Breath.

Let us play together and rejoice, for creativity is magic. And magic is change – appearance … disappearance – it is all a wonderful illusion.

Donna Martin

ARDHA MATSYENDRASANA

HALF LORD OF THE FISHES

Matsyendranatha, a yogi who is considered to be the founder of Hatha Yoga as author of one of the earliest texts on Hatha Yoga in Sanskrit, was said to be a fish. In contradictary texts, he was actually created by Lord Shiva from absolute purity - fire, water, earth, sky and air. The posture is supposed to be named after him. The connection I was able to make is that if the creation of Matsyendranatha was to use the purity of the elements, doing a detoxifying twist that allows us to eliminate waste and toxins, aids us in achieving this purity within ourselves. Any other thoughts welcome!

KAPALABHATI

Skull Shining, illuminative

I wanted to know more about awakening the Kundalini Power in skull shining breath... and I wanted to know why it is called skull shining. Here is what I discovered distilled into 2 sentences per thought ... 


Kundalini Power is a dormant power residing near the Muladhar Chakra (lower abdomen), coiled at the base of the spine. The pushes in the Kapalbhati breath awaken this power. Awaking the nerves in the lower abdomen allows for the divine power (often refered to as a serpent) to start climbing up the Sushumna Nadi -- the subtle body passageway from the root to the crown, awakening each chakra in succession. (I have so much more reading I need to do on this to understand safe passages vs uncontrollable ones... fascinating!). 


As for the skull shining bit, in the process of eliminating toxins in the breath released from the body, the organs under the skull (mainly the brain) is influenced. You can think of it as a cleaning of the cranial sinuses.


SAVASANA
Come to the edge, the border between one world and another so you can remember what it means to be alive.
Let your breath slow down. Be thankful for one more day. 
Another day.
It is enough.