Yoga on the Go: Try This NOW....

Ok, stop. Whatever you are doing. Reading this, playing on your computer. Sitting in a chair with terrible posture. Stop.

Stand up. Reach up over head. Fill your lungs. Feel gratitude for life as you exhale.

Now bring your palms together in front of your heart. Lace your fingers to one another. Circle your wrists.

Release your hands. Bring them behind you to interlace at your low back. Push your knuckles toward the floor and open your heart.

Inhale.
Exhale.

Now, you may return to your terrible posture. Thank you for loving yourself.

The Five Elements

The Five Elements of Yoga





Photo credit: Sprengben [why not get a friend] / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA





Found in the Chakras

I came across this amazing photo and was reminded of the elements related to our Chakras: Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Ether. Chakras are energetic discs that spin along our shushumna nadi and link our physical body with the greater cosmos. Artist Alex Grey has depicted this system in his art series the Chamber of Mirrors.



Alex Grey's Psychic Energy painting shows the Chakras along Shushumna Nadi



From Roots to the Heavens

The first Chakra, at the base of our spine, is Muladhara and connected to our roots. It is related to our basic needs (Food, Shelter, Security, Elimination). Our roots connect to the EARTH, and this is where we are able to find the resources we need to ground, to discover our core and get the nourishment for which we can grow from.

Moving up our spine we encounter Svadisthana, our second Chakra. This Chakra is related to the element WATER and is located near our reproductive organs. This energy is used for the reproduction of a human, and also used for creative endeavors. Svadisthanka Chakra also houses our emotions (note: MOTION!) and can flow tears, burst laughter and contain the river of experiences between.

FIRE is the quality of Manipurna, our third Chakra. This is contained in our Solar Plexus, the seat of our sun. The big, barrel chested WWE wrestler walks in a way that thrusts his third Chakra forward, symbolizing power and force. Our fire can also been stifled by forward-rolling posture (think of the 95 year old who is nearing her life's end, her posture will show diminishing fire with the forward rounding), by poor digestion or eating highly processed and non-organic food. Our third Chakra is connected to our passion and our purpose and it connects the heavier elements with the lighter ones of our heart, voice and intuition.

Our heart center is called Anahata Chakra and related to the AIR element. Air is movement and the Anahata Chakra is the source of our ideas and love. This air flows down through our arms to envelop others into a hug, and it flows upward to feed ideas to our throat Chakra. Our heart is filled by the purification of earth and water elements by burning fire, and the smoke and steam that rises up informs our heart as to our passions, creative satisfactions and foundational capacity to support ourselves.

The 5th element along our Chakra journey is ETHER, the element of Visudu Chakra, or our throat Chakra. Our throat serves as a bottleneck and filter for all of the ideas and expansion of our heart as it emerges into the world. Ether is expansive and flows beyond our atmosphere. The old saying, "Be careful what you wish for," is quite literal in regards to our speech. What we speak about is a call to what we are manifesting in our lives.

Agni Chakra (our 3rd eye, between our eyebrows) is the center of our intuition and Sahasrara Chakra (our crown, or 1,000 petal lotus) is our gateway to higher knowing, or god. Sahasrara Chakra is very open in babies, in that soft spot of their head, as spirit is moving into their body over the first year of life.

Stay tuned for some yoga practices to awaken the different Chakra centers, and move forward with curiosity!