Back-Body

Recently, I took a yoga class that moved me to a new space. My back-body.
"Audrey, welcome," said my back-body.  "I have been waiting for your arrival for a long long time. How did you find me?"

I never knew I hadn't found my back-body until... I landed in its palm. Standing up, I was resting.  I was vertically laying in my tall long back-body as easefully as I lie down, as supported, as cradled, as held.  The presence of my whole body released itself completely, trusting my back-body and the gorgeous surrender it was welcoming from me. My back-body gently guided me down the street, all of me sinking toward it. This feeling is hard to put into words.  I felt utterly safe and yet undefended.  I had no armor. My front body fell into me like rushing water.  Like a baby's trusting body asleep and peaceful against it's mama's torso.  Like wind blowing daffodil seeds.  I was faceless feeling and radiantly illuminated. I was open and unafraid.

What helped me find this new experience of my body?  Marcella Clavijo is my teacher, and she was leading a slow prop-filled Iyengar based basics class.  She leads a kind of yoga which is not about getting into the sweaty flow.  She teaches a kind of science that is deeply informative. I listen astutely to every detail, like an utter beginner, a decade and a half in the making!  We hang upside down from wall-belts -- a technology that is quite new for me.  I am ready to be born, hanging upside down like this. My spine is lengthening exponentially! The pose does itself to me -- while I undo, to allow.

Restorative Downward Dog

See Scaramooch's blog for more about his restorative hospice time and how it ushered him to a peaceful close. Click here. *

Tree Meditation

Breathe in the gift given from the trees --
Breathe out a gift for the trees --

In, Oxygen.
Out, Carbon Dioxide.

In deeply.
Out fully. 

Envision your fundamental interconnectedness on the planet:
notice what comes to mind.

Experience simply through breath awareness,
a rhythmic interconnectedness that lives in every breath taken and given.

Call to mind a specific tree you know or have known:
One you pass daily, or remember from childhood,or stared at in awe one fine day of your life, or climbed, or ate fruit from, or cultivated.....

Hold your tree in mind.
Experience the texture of it's bark,
the shape of its leaves
the weave of its branches,
the motions of creatures that enjoy it,
the roots that ground it.
With your tree by your mind's side, Breathe in.
"In-spired" by your tree and it's natural gifts.
Breathe out, softening your own bark, your skin -- releasing reciprocal gifts.
Follow the cycle of the breath in and out of your body
The cycle of the breath is our collaboration with the tree. With all plants on our earth.

Root yourself through your lower body, digging your sit-bones deep into your seat
rest your trunk, vibrant and lengthening, present and neutral,
branch your neural pathways, blossoming your brain..
Drink a glass of water. Grow your breath. Your peace.

Later, as you walk by a tree -- one that you see every day

Greet it, wink, smile, nod. 

Take a breath-filled moment of sharing 

                                          -- of mutuality -- of gratitude.

******

This meditation is in honor of Wangari Matthai, an ethical HERO OF BREATH.  I write to share my reverence for the contributions of Dr. Wangari Matthai of Kenya, whom I met almost a decade ago at Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. I call her a hero of breath because her life's work championed the interconnectedness of our existence with our green growing rooted friends. Trees. Without whom we could not do this powerful act.  Breathing.

Her shining self leaves it's light brightening our world. She began a movement decades ago called the Greenbelt Movement. It addressed the deforestation and industrialization of her own African lands, the disempowered role of women in her society, and the need for human rights and environmental health to be regarded as integral to one another all over the planet. Her work creating the revolutionary Greenbelt Movement was (and is, wherever I teach) a consistent highlight in my curriculum for children. There have been at least two children's books published about her in the past few years, since her work was acknowledged with a Nobel Peace Prize -- they are great resources.

Corpse Pose

As Dia De Los Muertos came and went, I imagined a Savasana process specifically designed for the day. If I get the guts, maybe I'll try it someday.  Savasana is the practice of letting go after building up a great amount of energy and heat through other yoga poses.  It translates literally as becoming corpse like or composing yourself to practicing de-composing (as my profound and wonderful yoga teacher Marcela described today).  Many years back, I remember the first time I heard (in a yoga class) that lying down in this delicious experience of rest was actually called a corpse pose.  I was horrified.  Was this really supposed to be a relaxing notion?  I was alternately embarrassed and even scared by this association to death.  I felt haunted by a movie I'd seen as a kid where a woman was buried alive.

Something shifted after deep practice.  I'd become more peaceful about death.  It was the surprising thing I reported to my teacher-trainers in closing our intense time of study together almost a decade ago. More peaceful with death.   I guess I'd been practicing.

Upward facing dog, turtle posing, peace on earth

upward facing dog

turtle poses

strong bones

                                                                                                               upside down heart and brain

mandala for meditation

peace on earth

Meditation

Connecting the deep inner to the great outer

Spirals move from the infinite inner awareness to the expansively infinite world beyond us.

RESTore

I learned to rest through Yoga.  Before that it was just Sleep and Awake and the hazy struggle in between.  Discovering REST meant knowing gravity's dense welcoming cradle.  It meant accepting the fall toward safe nothingness, through and below floating chaotic dreamscapes.  It meant feeling the heavy physicality of tiredness and welcoming the lightness of release.  And it meant becoming part of the Earth.  Corpse Pose, Yoga calls this.  Was I incredulous when I first heard this notion.  How dare! ...... How dare yoga be so blunt! .... frightening? ..... honest? ..... clear?  After intensive yoga studies,  I entered a one-on-one session with my teachers to reflect, have closure, and "graduate."  Invited to share with them how deep study of yoga had affected me, I shared one simple thing.  It "rose to the top of my mind's water" as the one essential truth that had shifted for me.  I was more accepting and less fearful of death.  Not actually fearless, but profoundly less fearful than I had been before.  I had been practicing the art of letting go in corspe pose, and discovered a new world that brought ease gently into my reach.  It was the world of REST.