Jai Bhagwan!

Do you love the skin you’re in?  I hope you answer yes to that question.  My last few practices have revolved around this, around loving this body of mine; not because it’s healthy and looks good in t-shirt (does it?) but simply because I love it.  Don’t practice because you want to change this, that or the other.  Practice because you are in love, because you love that body of yours, that mind, that spirit, that you that is you.  Change will come but it will be a side effect of increased love, peace and stillness for yourself and others.  Yes, your practice will create so much love and peace and stillness within you that it will spill out all around you onto everyone and everything around you.  It’s messy but enjoy it.

Notes

Follow-up Notes

As I mentioned Tuesday, I frequently experienced tremors when moving from one pose to another.  That has dropped off completely.  I still have tremblers now and then but these are simple muscle weakness and not the same as described last week.

I also metioned the “Hollow Man” experience.  This has also not repeated but there has definitely been something very different happening since then.  The only compasrison that I can make is that when the hollowness showed up, it was because I was empty.  Thursday night during my sadhana at the community center, every pose was incredible.  I am incredulous even as I write that and yet, that was the experience.  Two moments stand out in my memory and in my notes:  Standing Yoga Mudra, usually the arms are perpendicular to the floor and eyes are about knee level but this night the shoulders suddenly opened dropping the arms much further and the hips released bringing the eyes to mid-shin.  Being this “deep” in the posture was not, however, what was most notable.  As the shoulders opened, the arms were drawn forward and the space left behind felt empty and full of heat.  Something similar occured in Paschimottanasana, hands barely reached ankles and that was sufficient.  Breathing was only in the abdomen and low back.  Extension from navel through sternum pulled the low back into the body and the sit bones shifted backward dramatically.  Gentle pressure on the mid-thoracic spine moved the torso forward, face approaches shins, heals of palms even with bottoms of feet.  Open space in front of sit bones, heat running from heels up through the legs, over the sacrum and up the spine.  No tension in the legs or in the back.

In both cases, I moved as deeply into the posture as I could and then breathed and held.  The body then opened/released and was moved deeper into the postures.  Another noteworthy aspect is that coming out of those poses, breathing felt like drinking air.  That sensation of drinking rather than inhaling very thick air continues.  The massage therapist noted—he came Friday morning—that my body was soaking up every bit of energy he was putting into it.

Namasté