December Re-cap

As always, beloved local teacher Meg was incredibly thoughtful in planning a sequence for us. Rather than focusing on the forehead itself, a rather literal interpretation of our third-eye theme this month, Meg structured the class around twists as a way to move energy up the shushumna to stimulate insight. The flow got us ready to workshop Marichyasana III.

image: http://iyengar-yoga.freepage.de/abhyasa8/adhyatmik_sastra.htm

 And since DOUBT is an emotion that obstructs intuition/perception, we started off the asana practice with several minutes of practice with eyes closed. For me, it was the first time that I've ever had two times in a row that I landed lightly jumping up in the sun salutation series! As you other practitioners know, it's the littlest things that can really wow you in your practice sometimes! It's not as if I just managed to "float" up or to "jump through" but it was an awesome realization of my capacity nonetheless.

"let your third eye lead the way!"

No, that wasn't something meg said because she's not cheesy like me. but since i put it in quotes, i will let you imagine that that was our mantra for the evening.

Since our meditation and chakra expert Katelyn wasn't able to be there, Jake jumped in and led us through a beautiful chant incorporating the downward spiraling of energy with a silent "OM" and the upward spiraling of energy with a vocalized "shanti". We sent this peace offering (shanti=peace) to Katelyn and her kitty who is not well. Thanks to Jake for jumping in with this offering on his very first collective visit!

Whole has recently re-arranged things so we ate in the cozy couch room. I have to say, this monthly ritual, even with the variations in who attends, is really starting to feel like family time!

As a fairly unrelated side note, I found this awesome website when I was looking for pictures of Marichyasana III in which a woman talks about accommodations for larger yogis. I really liked this post this image came from "tips on making friends with your belly". there is an awesome rap video she links to too called "let your belly hang out"!

http://yogawithnadine.com/2012/09/19/modifications-for-yoga-twists-and-tips-on-making-friends-with-your-belly/