A Blog about Yoga, Life, The Universe and Everything

Journey through the Chakras 4 - Air + Anahata

03/29/2012 16:56:00

The fourth of our energy centres (chakras), 'anahata', resides in the centre of the chest, the energetic heart centre, the centre of our thoracic space. With lungs taking up so much of this physical region, it's unsurprising that the element associated with Anahata is air. Anahata governs the heart, the lungs and our ability to open ourselves to love.

Something that yoga has revealed to me very powerfully is the link between the physical and the emotional - when we open the body, stretching previously stiff and tense areas, we can find that rushes of emotion are released. The body is a physical storage unit for unpleasant experiences. We literally build walls in our body around the physical or energetic areas where we have experienced emotional or physical trauma in the past. This is often experienced with the hip and pelvic area - abuse or social conditioning can cause us to stiffen in the hips, and stretching and opening them can release extremely powerful emotions.

A similar thing happened to me with the heart. I think that (not unusually for Westerners) I had got out of touch with listening to my heart where life decisions are concerned. My heart area had literally hardened due to too much decision-making based solely around logic. A weekend of deep back-bending some 6 years ago now opened a flood-gate of tears and emotional junk that caused me to begin a process of evaluating my life in a totally different way. Shoulder- and thoracic-spine opening postures continue to be ones I need to work hard on.

Anahata, 4th of the 7 main energy centres, is the centre of our body and the gateway between the lower, more physical, energy centres, and the higher, more spiritual ones. It has taken me a while to write about it, perhaps for those reasons - air is harder to catch and grasp than earth, water, fire. How do I translate inviting in the qualities of air into my physical practice?

For me, there is something magical about mills, particularly windmills. I feel sure I was a miller in a past life. And so it's through windmills that I have been able to connect to a healthy anahata.

Without a current of air, the mill doesn't work. Too much turbulence however can break the mill's sails. We need to be vigilant of storms, have strong enough boundaries to avoid the winds breaking our sails, while still turning to the right direction to keep our sails turning.

And also to think about a literal 'lightness of heart' during my practice. Taking my self less seriously, and physically connecting to prana, the uplift force that we feel when we press down on the earth - gravititional force (apana) pulls us down, grounds us; the Newtonian equal and opposite force that keeps our spine rising towards the sky is prana, lifeforce. The more we press down, through feet, legs, whatever connects us to the ground in an asana, the stronger we feel the equal and opposite pranic force lifting us up.

Something delicious about Anahata is its seed sound, the sound that encourages it to resonate, is 'yam', pronounced 'yum' - it's literally yummy!! So chanting yum yum yum encourages healthy relationships and enables us to open ourselves to love without breaking our sails. Yum.

“You think you are alive because you breathe air?
Shame on you, that you are alive in such a limited way.
Don't be without Love, so you won't feel dead.
Die in Love and stay alive forever.” ~ Rumi

Love.

Donna

Back to basics

03/28/2012 14:20:00

Over the last couple of years, I've been in love with the vinyasa process where you look to a peak pose and design a flow of postures that open the body scientifically to take you towards that destination.

Every element of the flow is informed by the previous element, everything is connected, the practice is a wave and the individual asanas are like droplets of water within the process of the wave.

But I have just been re-inspired by Ruth White (with whom I did my original teacher training) and Dawn Smith's teaching at beautiful Dev Aura in Lincolnshire last Sunday. I have re-discovered my love of the individual asana, rather like seeing the beauty of a single flower or blade of grass while still admiring the beauty of the complete landscape you have found them in.

Ruth's teaching is firm and true to her Iyengar roots, but also nurturing (her school is called 'Karuna' which means compassion). Dawn's teaching is also rooted firmly in the Iyengar lineage but with fresh, insightful, light observation of each asana.

In my own practice, I'm loving moving from that macro level, crawling back down to the micro level to revisit postures, like revisiting old friends after years of travel.

So...I'm really excited to present a Karuna-inspired course of three very special classes in May, suitable for both beginners and those who already have experience of yoga.

For those new to yoga, 'Yoga Foundations' will be a great introduction to the basic techniques of yoga breathing, to the key postures of yoga which stretch and strengthen all of the body's key muscle groups, and learn some basic relaxation techniques.

For those with experience of yoga, this will be an opportunity to re-visit the key asanas (postures) and deepen your physical, mental and energetic understanding of them.

If you'd like to join me, you can read more about it here.

"Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies." ~ Mother Teresa of Calcutta

"Behind every atom of this world hides infinite universes." ~ Rumi

Love and light!

Donna xx

Journey through the Chakras 2 - Water, water everywhere

10/19/2011 12:25:00

At the end of September 2011, beautiful yoga teacher friend, Beth Croft, and myself led a yoga retreat at the wonderful Molino del Rey retreat centre in the mountains of Andalucia in Southern Spain.

'Molino' is Spanish for mill, and Molino del Rey is built around 2 ancient water mills on the side of a valley. The millstreams continue to flow in and around the beautiful building - alongside the steps down the mountainside from the bedrooms down to the yoga studio, behind little niches for meditation, and even under the yoga studio itself. Wherever you are in this beautiful place, there is the sound of rushing water.

Water is the element which is associated with the second chakra, the Swadhisthana chakra, the creative centre, located within our pelvic or sacral area. The colour associated with the Swadhisthana chakra is orange, and its seed sound (the sound which activates the vibration of the chakra) is vam.

I recently did a 30-day Swadhisthana sadhana project as part of my ongoing teacher training, to invite the qualities of creativity, fluidity, spontaneity into my life and my practice.

An orange altar with water for a swadhistana practice

A sahaja or spontaneous, fluid practice is beautifully liberating, particularly if your experience of yoga asana is from more of a static discipline. Cats show total embodiment of the qualities of Swadhisthana - fluidity, creativity, sensuality - and my cat particularly enjoyed winding and swirling around me on my mat with me during my feline swadhistana sadhana!

The second half of my sadhana project became devoted to my little swadhistana goddess as the Universe presented us with a swadhistana challenge - she dislocated her sacro-iliac joint (the joint between the pelvis and the spine) during her travels. She is well recovered from the surgery she needed now. During these 30 days I was finally inspired to complete my Just Jhoom! (Bollywood-inspired dancercise) assessment and start some choreography of my own.

I drew inspiration from the water at beautiful Molino del Rey to share my first Water Flow class, and am inviting the opportunity for more to arise like a spring when the time is right!

'The river that flows in me also flows in you' ~ Kabir (Hindu poet and saint)

Jala mangalam!

Auspicious blessings of water to you.

Namaste,

Donna x

Earth and Fire!

10/13/2011 12:39:00

Autumn greetings and blessings, beautiful friends!

Summer was busy and wonderful! I spent 5 days in June with my teacher Shiva Rea in London, and we were so lucky to have a live music accompaniment by Ann Malone and Tom Simenauer, two wonderful musicians.

Shiva's teaching in London kicked off with a workshop to support her Yoga Energy Activism project, encouraging the yoga community (and the world!) to make more conscious choices about our toxic energy use.

I have started to use more and more beeswax candles to light my yoga classes. Beeswax candles are much kinder to the environment and to allergy and asthma-sufferers than the usual petroleum-derived candles, burn with less soot and with a wonderful scent, and also support beekeepers, and with reducing bee numbers, this has to be a good thing! In my mind, seeds had been forming about a mid-winter unplugged yoga workshop with beeswax candles and live music, and the lovely Ann was kind enough to volunteer her services!

And so my Earth and Fire Flow workshop (Earth to ground ourselves during the busy lead-up to the festive season with hip-openers and hamstring stretches, and Fire to stoke our inner fires during the dark days of winter by working our cores) was ignited!

I have found a couple of local suppliers of beeswax candles as I want to keep the carbon footprint of the event as low as possible. One is www.honeybeeswax.com, who also donate 10p per candle to the charity Action on Addition (Reg. Charity 1117988).

You'll also be able to buy their candles at the event too if you'd like to support Yoga Energy Activism, local beekeepers and Action on Addiction.

If you'd like to come along to the workshop, please see the details here.

"There is a way to live with the earth and a way not to live with the earth. We choose the way of earth." -John Trudell (Thunderheart)

Bhumi mangalam! Agni mangalam!

(Auspicious blessings of the Earth and of Fire!)

Donna <3

Journey through the Chakras - First find your roots

06/10/2011 23:48:00

I have a whole bunch of sankalpahs (resolutions) right now. The keen-eyed will notice that I have added Facebook and Twitter feeds to my Home page. (What do you think? Let me know if you think it works.) I am eventually getting my head round Twitter and have resolved to tweet once a day. There's usually a piece of news about class updates or a lovely quote to share. I've also resolved to blog more regularly. Weekly would be good but monthly is probably more achievable! I don't need to commit to use Facebook more, I chat on that a lot, which probably says something about my 5th chakra (throat, voice, speech)... more on that one when we get there.

In my last post I gave an overview of the chakras. I'd like to give more of a personal view of each one. There are a lot of changes going on my personal life right now with respect to the way I earn a living, support myself and my children, and so as the first or root chakra, Mooladhara chakra, relates to our basic physical survival in the world, it seems a good time and place to start.

This energy centre is at the base of the spine, its colour vibration is red (2nd is orange, and so on up through the colours of the rainbow).

It's associated with the Earth element and our connection with it - how we survive on it (money, shelter), how we move about on it (the movement of the legs), how 'grounded' we are.

When the root chakra is under-active, we are likely to feel nervous or insecure, unworthy and misunderstood. There can be a tendency to compensate for these feelings by acquiring, keeping and controlling material possessions, by becoming addicted to material things. An over-active root chakra can lead to aggression, recklessness, impulsivity or belligerence.

It's important that we balance the energies of all our chakras to ensure we feel our best. In the 1940s and 50s, Abraham Maslow was looking at human motivation in a business context, and he drew up this hierarchy of needs (diagram courtesy of http://www.businessballs.com).

He determined that we can only address our higher needs of motivation and fulfillment once we have fulfilled our basic needs of home, support and security.

Similarly, we must open and balance our root chakra, ensuring energetically that we have our feet on the earth and a feeling of security, before energy can flow to higher chakras and we can give attention to our higher needs.

So what can we do to balance our root chakra?

Dance, go barefoot, feel your connection with the earth.

Clean your house, cook, look after your physical well-being.

Take care of your plants, or plant a new garden, take a walk in nature.

Focusing on the color red can help bring your energetic body "down to earth" and in alignment with your physical body.

Asanas (postures) which can help us to bring the base chakra into balance are those which engage moola bandha (the root lock - read Moola Bandha The Master Key, the definitive text on this) and those bring the base of the body into connection with earth, like hanumanasana.

Use sound - chant 'lam', the bija mantra or seed sound which resonates with the chakra, or practice bhramari pranayama (hummingbee breath).

There are lots of clips demonstrating bhramari pranayama on YouTube, but I particularly this the bhava (mood) of this one by QuickFixYoga - sitting on the earth, surrounded by nature - perfect!

You need Flash Player in order to view this.

Positive affirmations to balance root chakra:

I am supported.

I have everything I need.

I love life!

Here is a great site where you can test how active or under-active your chakras are... as I thought... it tells me my throat chakra is over-active! Giving it a rest for now then.

Namaste,

Donna

Journey through the Chakras

05/06/2011 20:34:00

I've been feeling the need to blog about the chakras since I mentioned them in my post about sankalpahs (resolutions). So here is the beginning of what will be a few posts exploring the subject.

In the ancient science of tantra, the human body is viewed as the most perfect instrument for the expression of consciousness. This perfection is realised through the development of the energy centres, or chakras.

These energetic centres of the body are located and have energy associated with them as follows:

Muladhara chakra is situated at the base of the spine and is associated with the earth, our grounding on the earth and energies associated with our basic needs of home and money, and the physical element of earth.
Swadistana chakra is situated in the sacral (pubic) area and is associated with our sexual and creative energies. The water element is associated with swadistana.
Manipura ('the jeweled city') chakra is situated in the solar plexus and is associated with our sense of self, how we project ourselves physically into the world. The fire element is associated with manipura - when we have a firm sense of self and purpose, we really do have fire in our belly!
Anahata, the heart chakra is situated in the energetic heart centre, the centre of the chest, is associated with love and our connection with others, and is linked to the air element.
Vishuddha chakra is situated in our throat is associated with our physical voice, the element of sound, and our ability to speak our own truth, have our say in the world.
Ajna chakra is located at the third eye point, in the centre of the forehead, and is our intuitive centre.
Sahasrara chakra is at the crown of the head, and is our connection with the spiritual realm.

The energies associated with each chakra can be brought into balance using asana (yoga posture), meditation and through chant - there is a sound vibration or bija mantra ('seed' sound) associated with each mantra.

I'm going to explore each chakra in a little more detail here during the lead up to a workshop which I am running at Yoga Ananda in July, which will be inspired by my teacher Shiva Rea's Chakra Vinyasa, a whole workshop using vinyasa flow yoga and chant to journey through the chakras from muladhara to sahasrara.

Love and Light,

Donna

February is the month of Love!

02/17/2011 13:07:00

Thanks to the lovely yogis and yoginis who joined me on 12th February for my yoga day - after a morning yoga practice and a shared lunch, we got out for a beautiful Spring walk in the Sussex countryside, and in the afternoon explored inversions a little deeper than a single yoga class allows. The weather was really kind to us, and during the meditative part of the walk we spotted and followed a pair of young deer who kept peering back at us. Thanks to everyone who attended (and to the weather!) for making it a beautiful day.

I created an altar to Saraswati at the studio for February. We tend to think of February 14th, St. Valentine's Day, as a modern, commercial creation, but like many modern festivals it has been superimposed upon festivals that arose long ago out of a natural connection with the earth and the seasons. At this time of year, the earth is stirring and creatures are looking for mates. In India, the goddess Saraswati is celebrated on Vasant Panchami (this year this was on Feb 8th). People wear yellow and offer yellow fruit and flowers to celebrate the onset of spring. Saraswati is the goddess of music, knowledge and the arts, so musical instruments are placed on altars to the goddess for her blessing. Vasant Panchami continues with honouring of Kamadeva, the Lord of Love, who has a bow and arrow, like Cupid....

If anyone has been admiring my beautiful new rose quartz mala, it's from Bali Malas - click on the image here to go to the shop. Rose quartz has qualities of heart-opening and of healing emotional wounds.

On the subject of heart-opening (this is Love month!) I attended a really beautiful workshop on heart-opening and back-bending at the new Life Centre in Islington on 13th Feb. Thanks so much to Lisa Sanfilippo. I've been really happy to share some of the love and inspiration during classes this week.

Love is invisible except here, in us.
Sometimes I praise love, sometimes love praises me.
Love, a little shell somewhere on the ocean floor, opens its mouth.
You and I and we, those imaginary beings,
enter that shell as a single sip of seawater. ~ Rumi

See you all after half term break!

Om maha saraswatiye namaha.

Love love love

Donna

Sankalpahs and sandiyas

01/31/2011 00:20:00

Happy 2011! A little late I know, but this is my first blog post of 2011. The year started amazingly for me, in beautiful Costa Rica with my beautiful teacher, Shiva.

In the days leading up to New Year's Eve, the teacher trainers had been giving some thought to what worked well for us in 2010, and (working up through the chakras), at the level of energy associated with each chakra (more on this later), where we felt blocked, and what were our sankalpahs or resolutions associated with each of these areas of energy in our life.

We created a ritual to mark the sandiya or juncture between the old year and the new. We collected sticks from the beach or the jungle.

For each sankalpah, or energetic resolution, we imbued our wish into a stick. For me, many of my resolutions / wishes were to give myself permission to allow 'clutter' - things which I feel obliged to do - to pass out of my life. Like a physical decluttering of my spare bedroom, which I also need to do, it feels good to allow myself to let go of things which I do because of some societal norm or unwritten 'should'.

We chanted while the sun set on New Years Eve...

...and then cast our sticks into a fire on the beach, allowing the physical vessels carrying our wishes to become one with each other and with the earth. I'm hoping they found fertile ground to sprout in.

Hoping all your wishes and sankalpahs come true in 2011.

Shantih,

Donna xox

Angels from the realms of glory

12/13/2010 10:33:00

I'm such a lover of Christmas carols. Two of my special favourites are 'Angels from the realms of glory', and, one we used to sing at school but I have rarely heard elsewhere, 'Three Kings from Persian lands afar'. This latter one has a beautiful descant that the upper school used to sing while the lower school sang the lower part. It was such a special tradition in a very special time of year. (Nonsuch old girls, do you remember? Did you love it too?)

Three kings from Persian lands afar

To Jordan follow the pointing star

And this the quest of the travellers three

Where the King of the Jews may be

Last Friday was my last children's yoga class of this term and we had a wonderful time making Christmas stars (all in a circle, leaning to one side and then the other in Trikonasana (Triangle); Paschimottanasana (seated forward bend) into the centre of the circle and then lying back and stretching away from the centre of the circle; and Upavista Konasana (wide-leg seated forward bend) with soles and hands joined with our neighbours). There were also some Christmas Camels (Ustrasana) and Cows from the stable (Gomukhasana). I'm so pleased with the progress my little yogis are making. The class has gone from something like a rugby scrum at the the start of this term, to a real appreciation of stillness when we come to savasana as the end of class now (although a little non-yogic competition to see who is really still and floppy does help....!)

My other favourite Christmas carol I mentioned above goes:

Angels from the realms of glory

Wing your flight o'er all the earth

Ye who sang creation's story

Now proclaim Messiah's birth

I mentioned in my last post about keeping healthy in the winter that postures that open the heart area stimulate the thymus and boost the immune system and internal temperature. Although I have to admit that I forgot the Christmas angels with my little yogis on Friday, we will be doing Parvottanasana (standing forward bend with hands in reverse prayer - lift your wings!) among many other things at my Solstice Saturday Yoga (10 am - 12 noon on Saturday 18th Dec). We'll focus on yoga for winter wellness, and end with some meditation to connect with inner stillness at what can be a stressful time of year. Let me know asap if you'd like to be there.

The gorgeous angel picture above is a painting / sculpture combination by Ginger Gilmour (first wife of David Gilmour of Pink Floyd!) currently on display at Yoga Ananda in Reigate. Elements of their spiritual art exhibition can still be seen at the centre until the end of December, so catch it while you can.

I have lots of news and plans for the New Year, please read more at my latest newsletter. Thanking everyone for your support in 2010, and wishing you all a happy and peaceful festive season, and a healthy and prosperous 2011.

Namaste,

Donna x

Keeping healthy in the winter

12/02/2010 10:30:00

Wow, we really are given everything we need. Earlier this week, I looked at my diary and wondered how on earth I was physically going to achieve everything that was in my diary for this week. And then down came the snow, laying beautiful white swathes across both the local countryside, and, as roads became impassable and travel difficult and dangerous, my diary too! So I am taking the opportunity to BREATHE. And to enjoy the beauty of the white countryside. I particularly love the extreme stillness that the snow brings. It's night-time as I start to write this entry, and while it's always quiet here in rural Sussex, tonight it's even more so.

Low light-levels in the winter can cause us to feel sluggish, and the immune system can get depleted. Heart-openers such as Bhujangasana (Cobra), Ustrasana (Camel) and Setu Bandha (Bridge) boost the immune system by stimulating blood flow to the thymus, an organ which is situated behind the breastbone and which is instrumental in the growth of T-cells, which are fundamental in the immune process.

Most colds enter the body through the nose's mucous membranes. Daily jala neti, the yogi practice of cleansing the sinus passages using warm salted water in a spouted pot called a neti pot, can help to clear the keep the nose clear of excess mucus and viruses.

You can buy this gorgeous neti pot set from MaryEverett on Etsy, click on the image to go to the listing.

Meditation and moderate activity (don't overdo it in extreme weather!) can boost our feelings of well-being and immune systems too. The snow continued falling overnight and now it's about a foot deep out there, but today I'm going to wrap up really warm and go for a good brisk walk in the snow, and then come back and do my practice with plenty heart-openers and a good long meditation session.

Stay warm and stay well!

Namaste,

Donna