Tuesday 22nd June 2004
Sometimes you just don’t realise what’s going on under the surface of your life until you step onto that mat in the morning.
Take this morning for example. I arrive at the Gallery around 5.30am, set up the space as usual with mats/blankets/heaters/incense/lighting etc, feeling full of energy and looking forward to a good practice.
Kosta and Renate arrive and at 6am we chanted three Oms then started the surjanamaskars; my left shoulder felt slightly weak which I wasn’t quite expecting since I’d had three days off with no practice. Then going into Utthita Trikonasana, I couldn’t hold my left arm up. Punctum – the shock of realization. A mild wave of panic washed over me then subsided into curiosity, as I started to explore the extent of this morning’s handicap over the next few standing poses.
As I caught my left big toe for the second side of Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana and extended the left leg, I couldn’t hold my arm straight to support the leg lift to the front and it was even worse to the side – my shoulder was on strike. I had to resort to hands on hips for the Virabhadrasanas and couldn’t even attempt my beloved handstand balance.
So I decided not to do any jump throughs which would stress the shoulder joint, and treat the rest of the practice like a forward bend Iyengar style session. But I guess I was tricking myself into thinking a softer, modified practice would make me feel all chummy and gorgeously self nourished. Not so. By Janu Sirsasana I was holding back the tears. What was going on! What started as a positive, exuberant attitude had deteriorated into confusion and tears in a very short space of time.
This practice reveals all.
Injury is emotionally debilitating. My entire body had surreptitiously shut down to protect itself and to conserve the energy needed for healing.
After Marichyasana B, I paused…Kosta and Renate continued. I could see that Kosta was enjoying a strong focused practice, jumping beautifully in, out and through the poses. Renate too with her lovely Ujjiya breath. I watched them for a couple of seconds, feeling as if I’d just run to catch the bus and then watched it take off without me. Left behind!
I softly moved through Sarvangasana, Halasana and Karna Pindasana, holding each one for an uncounted length of time, finished with a very long Yoga Mudra and then just sat quietly in meditation for about 20 minutes, occasionally interrupted by Kosta’s handstand dropback landings. I could hear Kosta and Renate getting their blankets for Savasana, but I stayed immobile in the half light, not wanting to disturb my fragile state, trying to stay focused on the breath while globally feeling out what was happening in my mental/emotional arena. I found a deep sadness there held back just beneath my conscious mind which the shoulder pain had catalysed. Lots going on beneath my smiling, tranquil surface, layers and layers of mostly unresolved relationship issues that need to be identified, addressed and resolved. Left unattended, they just eat away at your vitality like a cancer.
I quote Georg Feuerstein:
“Thus psychological wholeness is a platform for spiritual wholeness (enlightenement)-an important point that is seldom fully understood. Even serious Yoga practitioners can “waste” years before it dawns on them that they must support their spiritual efforts by appropriate psychological work. Sometimes half a lifetime goes by before they realize the need to take a few steps back, abandon their chase for extraordinary mental states or the elusive goal of (usually instant) enlightenment, and revisit ordinary psychological problem areas they would much rather forget.”
Ouch…so true.
Until they are dealt with we are not clean and free and thankfully our daily physical yoga practice will reflect the hidden issues in our subconscious if we are open to that inquiry. Step by step, I try to purify my mind, delving deeply into all the human baggage I’ve accumulated, using the tools I’ve gained from the yoga and Buddhist teachings to slowly transform the mud into clarity and light.
“Suffering is a call for inquiry, all pain needs investigation” – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
___________________________________________________________________________________
Thursday 17th June
A stronger practice is finally returning. The shoulder injury forced me to pull back a little and lighten off the rigid adherence to the primary sequence, modifying the poses and vinyasas as I needed to. So I did a few softer practices with no expectations – not wanting it to be a certain way, but just following the prompting of my intuitive feeling body. As a consequence, the space opened up to play with the more subtle aspects of the practice: the bandhas and the drishtis. When I began learning Ashtanga, mulabandha was engaged as a physical contraction of the perineum and a lifting of the pelvic floor. This is changing. On those ‘on’ days when I am more focused and can connect into the sublime, it becomes an intentionally directed upward movement of energy/prana/ch’i from the perineal area, and feels like a fine thread rising through the central channel of my body – usually perineum to heart. I can get it most days in Sirsasana now and it reaches the crown of my head. This stimulates a lengthening up of the spine as it automatically straightens and the crown presses itself into the floor in response. You can physically feel a strong energetic thread conducting a live current between the perineum and the crown. Although I’ve been doing full primary series for over one year now, on these days it feels like the real work is just starting. Very exciting.
I wonder if the more you travel this path, the more the horizon keeps moving away from you, teasing and inviting you onward.
A couple of extra people are turning up to the Gallery sessions . Angie is a blessing – she’d so consistent and committed. She’s had her share of injuries over the past year or so. Like me, she’s got a problem with tendonitis in the shoulder joint at the moment; she also has what she describes as a “loose” ligament in her inner knee which is limiting Padmasana poses at the moment. She said that a year or so ago, it was her outer knee that was the problem but she swears that it healed through the Ashtanga practice.
It makes me wonder if these injuries that manifest are part of the so-called purifying process, or whether they are a product of incorrect practice. Both I guess – Incorrect movements repeated over and over will result in an injury which then forces our awareness to the area; as we attempt to understand the cause of it and search out how to deal with it and heal it, that attention can simultaneously bring clarity to the area. For me it feels like I’m shining a light into a part of my physical body, waking up the cells’ intelligence as I do so. They come alive because the mind is focused on them. And considering that all disease/injury has it’s roots in our thought processes and manifests firstly in the energetic body then the gross body, a physical healing just might ricochet back and effect a mental/emotional healing. Dissolving samskaras maybe. Who knows? (not me) all just playful conjecture.
Lots to reflect on if only I had the time.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Friday 4th June
Darren’s Class
I just love Darren’s Friday morning Iyengar led practice. Just once a week is a good foil to the regular Ashtanga practice – like a balanced meal. I come away feeling so positive, balanced and strong, no matter what we do. Lately he’s been doing a lot of Supta Padangusthasana and Padmasana work followed by a backbending sequence.
This morning we did a few handstand variations against the wall: with hands placed so that the fingers pointed outwards, hands on blocks (you need more push to get up from here), alternating the leading kick up leg, and then free balancing. We also explored a few different hand placements in Dog Pose.
Darren almost always inserts Sirsasana in the middle of the practice as a transition from standing to seated poses, and he usually times it, letting us know after how many minutes we held it for. This morning was 11 minutes in total, which included the Padmasana variation - Sirsa Padmasana. It’s not as difficult as you might think to get the legs into Padmasana while standing on your head, even though you can’t use your hands to fold your legs in like you can when you’re in Sarvangasana; but twisting left then right from that position was new to me and felt disorientating – I wasn’t sure if I my alignment was skewed, but at least I didn’t fall out of it. I guess that’s the disadvantage of a led class where the teacher isn’t watching and correcting you. You could be doing a shocker of a pose and not know it.
Injury
Now that I don’t have a teacher to watch and correct me, I wonder how many of my bad habits are going to manifest as injury. My shoulder joints have been feeling so unstable for the last couple of weeks and my left one has actually been so painful this week that I had to practice without any jump throughs. In the vinyasas and surjanamaskars, instead of lowering into Chaturanga Dandasana before pressing to Upward Dog Pose, I have to jump back to an elevated Plank pose keeping my arms straight to roll into Upward Dog Pose.
Kosta had this problem a couple of months ago so he stopped practicing for 2 weeks and it disappeared. I won’t panic about it – yet.
Injury seems to be an unavoidable part of Ashtanga practice. A few months ago it was my hamstring, then my hip joints and now that they are both improving, another body part wants my attention. You have a body…you have suffering.
I know Pattabhi says something like “no such thing as injury, just weakness”.
Gallery Yoga
Our regular yoga practice in the Gallery is a real joy; apart from Kosta, all the others that come along are artists! Sasha and Renate are sculptors, Michael sculpts and paints and experiments with video, Sascha is a painter and also works with digital media. We are actually practicing for the next four weeks with Sascha’s work exhibited on the walls of the Gallery – I wonder how she must feel surrounded by the culmination of what she’s been creating for the last year or so. Renate will be in a group exhibition here later this year with some other sculptors so we’ll probably have to arrange ourselves around some fascinating floor installation pieces.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Wednesday 2nd June
Me, Kosta and Angie this morning.
So great to have Angie coming along to our morning practices in the Gallery. She’s been doing Ashtanga for the past 2 years with Simi, but is taking a break from Mysore classes at the shala like me until Simi returns to teaching the early morning classes again. I used to see Angie at the shala EVERY time I went. She was just always there, really early, every morning, a real die-hard. I never had an occasion to speak to her and didn’t even know her name. Angie heard about our self practice group from one of the art school models, and by pure coincidence it tuns out that Angie’s an artist and art therapist.
Angie started the Ashtanga practice with Simi, having never done any other kind of yoga before, so unlike the rest of us she’s a pure Ashtangi. Now that she’s coming every day, we start with 3 Oms and the opening chant which is a nice touch for the others who haven’t been exposed to this ritual.
I’ve noticed over the past couple of years that the flexibility of my right knee has very slowly been declining. Whereas I used to be able to flip my legs straight into Padmasana, I now have to caress and cajole my right leg into it gently. For a while now I’ve been including Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana as part of my pre-practice warm up (something like this), holding the pose for a couple of minutes to soften the right knee and hip ligaments.
This morning I didn’t do my usual pre practice prep, and had to spend a good 10 breaths to move all the way into Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana, but once I was there it was deeply satisfying to stay and work into it. Often in this pose my bent leg sort of dies off because I’m so focused on working the supporting leg, so I now try to work energy through the bent leg, extending from the hip to the knee, and keeping that hip lifting back rather than letting it drop
Yay…Almost got my legs pressed straight and heels off the ground in Kurmasana this morning, finally a nice small sign that the right hamstring injury is improving. I so miss doing this pose to the max. Then did nine perfectly spaced Garbha Pindasana rolls (arms outside of the Padmasana). Since I’ve been practicing in the Gallery I don’t’ think I’ve done this one with my arms through my Padmasana– must remember to buy a water squirt bottle this weekend so I can start doing it properly again. Self practice can become a little self indulgent when you’re not being scrutinized and chastised for cheating! I missed out Marichyasana D on purpose today, and consequently forgot to do the five Navasanas.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
17th May
Shoulder joints are feeling stressed which made my practice weak this morning sapping my core energy. Warning signs are a tenderness in the shoulder/collarbone area, slightly sore to touch at the front of the left shoulder, a dull stiffness through my neck as if the stress on the shoulder joint has spread to the neck through my collarbones, and a reduced range of shoulder mobility. It hurts to lift my left arm up (taking off my top after practice has become 10 seconds of torture)
I must be doing something wrong for this to come up. Need to observe and explore my shoulder movements through a microscope: especially the jump throughs and the pressing to Upward Dog from Chaturanga Dandasana, which is where it mostly occurs.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
12th May
-Just Kosta and me this morning. Since committing to early morning Gallery yoga sessions about 3 weeks ago, I’ve been doing the Ashtanga practice 4 days a week. My shoulders are feeling overworked and my left shoulder joint is deteriorating. Despite these ominous shoulder pains, the first half of the practice up to Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana was really delightful this morning. I stumbled into an eerie mulabandha twilight zone where the focus is directed and sustained in the vague netherland of the sushumna nadi and the energy moves up and down the spinal cord with the breath –my pelvis, lower back and abdomen responded: the entire area felt light, hollow and spacious, as if the breath was blowing through a deep cavern down there. My breath changed; my body became light, and while it lasted, I barely felt any weight on my shoulders with such luminous jump throughs.
It reminded me of a spooky game I played at a birthday sleepover party when I was about 11 years old (after the ouija board incident). There was a group of about 7 of us; one girl volunteered to lay down on the floor face up, and the other 6 of us knelt down around her with one person at her head. We each placed two fingers of both hands just under her body, palms facing up. The girl at her head began a kind of droning incantation (This freaked me out – I was thinking all my girlfriends were secretly witches and I was in for it now): “You are now entering the Valley of Death…your feet are becoming light…your legs are becoming light…your back is becoming light…etc…etc”. I can’t exactly remember the narrative but at the end of it we lifted the girl up from the floor to shoulder height with no effort at all. She was suspended there completely weightless, five of us holding her up with two fingers of each hand. But I knew that if we took our fingers away she’d stay up in the air. This was pure levitation.
Looking back at this experience now, I can see how the power of the words that were used closely resembled what a yoga teacher would say to lead you into Savasana. The power of visual imagery.
What I’m getting at here is that this morning, I experienced the same spooky floatiness for a magical part of the practice.
Sometimes you just don’t realise what’s going on under the surface of your life until you step onto that mat in the morning.
Take this morning for example. I arrive at the Gallery around 5.30am, set up the space as usual with mats/blankets/heaters/incense/lighting etc, feeling full of energy and looking forward to a good practice.
Kosta and Renate arrive and at 6am we chanted three Oms then started the surjanamaskars; my left shoulder felt slightly weak which I wasn’t quite expecting since I’d had three days off with no practice. Then going into Utthita Trikonasana, I couldn’t hold my left arm up. Punctum – the shock of realization. A mild wave of panic washed over me then subsided into curiosity, as I started to explore the extent of this morning’s handicap over the next few standing poses.
As I caught my left big toe for the second side of Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana and extended the left leg, I couldn’t hold my arm straight to support the leg lift to the front and it was even worse to the side – my shoulder was on strike. I had to resort to hands on hips for the Virabhadrasanas and couldn’t even attempt my beloved handstand balance.
So I decided not to do any jump throughs which would stress the shoulder joint, and treat the rest of the practice like a forward bend Iyengar style session. But I guess I was tricking myself into thinking a softer, modified practice would make me feel all chummy and gorgeously self nourished. Not so. By Janu Sirsasana I was holding back the tears. What was going on! What started as a positive, exuberant attitude had deteriorated into confusion and tears in a very short space of time.
This practice reveals all.
Injury is emotionally debilitating. My entire body had surreptitiously shut down to protect itself and to conserve the energy needed for healing.
After Marichyasana B, I paused…Kosta and Renate continued. I could see that Kosta was enjoying a strong focused practice, jumping beautifully in, out and through the poses. Renate too with her lovely Ujjiya breath. I watched them for a couple of seconds, feeling as if I’d just run to catch the bus and then watched it take off without me. Left behind!
I softly moved through Sarvangasana, Halasana and Karna Pindasana, holding each one for an uncounted length of time, finished with a very long Yoga Mudra and then just sat quietly in meditation for about 20 minutes, occasionally interrupted by Kosta’s handstand dropback landings. I could hear Kosta and Renate getting their blankets for Savasana, but I stayed immobile in the half light, not wanting to disturb my fragile state, trying to stay focused on the breath while globally feeling out what was happening in my mental/emotional arena. I found a deep sadness there held back just beneath my conscious mind which the shoulder pain had catalysed. Lots going on beneath my smiling, tranquil surface, layers and layers of mostly unresolved relationship issues that need to be identified, addressed and resolved. Left unattended, they just eat away at your vitality like a cancer.
I quote Georg Feuerstein:
“Thus psychological wholeness is a platform for spiritual wholeness (enlightenement)-an important point that is seldom fully understood. Even serious Yoga practitioners can “waste” years before it dawns on them that they must support their spiritual efforts by appropriate psychological work. Sometimes half a lifetime goes by before they realize the need to take a few steps back, abandon their chase for extraordinary mental states or the elusive goal of (usually instant) enlightenment, and revisit ordinary psychological problem areas they would much rather forget.”
Ouch…so true.
Until they are dealt with we are not clean and free and thankfully our daily physical yoga practice will reflect the hidden issues in our subconscious if we are open to that inquiry. Step by step, I try to purify my mind, delving deeply into all the human baggage I’ve accumulated, using the tools I’ve gained from the yoga and Buddhist teachings to slowly transform the mud into clarity and light.
“Suffering is a call for inquiry, all pain needs investigation” – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
___________________________________________________________________________________
Thursday 17th June
A stronger practice is finally returning. The shoulder injury forced me to pull back a little and lighten off the rigid adherence to the primary sequence, modifying the poses and vinyasas as I needed to. So I did a few softer practices with no expectations – not wanting it to be a certain way, but just following the prompting of my intuitive feeling body. As a consequence, the space opened up to play with the more subtle aspects of the practice: the bandhas and the drishtis. When I began learning Ashtanga, mulabandha was engaged as a physical contraction of the perineum and a lifting of the pelvic floor. This is changing. On those ‘on’ days when I am more focused and can connect into the sublime, it becomes an intentionally directed upward movement of energy/prana/ch’i from the perineal area, and feels like a fine thread rising through the central channel of my body – usually perineum to heart. I can get it most days in Sirsasana now and it reaches the crown of my head. This stimulates a lengthening up of the spine as it automatically straightens and the crown presses itself into the floor in response. You can physically feel a strong energetic thread conducting a live current between the perineum and the crown. Although I’ve been doing full primary series for over one year now, on these days it feels like the real work is just starting. Very exciting.
I wonder if the more you travel this path, the more the horizon keeps moving away from you, teasing and inviting you onward.
A couple of extra people are turning up to the Gallery sessions . Angie is a blessing – she’d so consistent and committed. She’s had her share of injuries over the past year or so. Like me, she’s got a problem with tendonitis in the shoulder joint at the moment; she also has what she describes as a “loose” ligament in her inner knee which is limiting Padmasana poses at the moment. She said that a year or so ago, it was her outer knee that was the problem but she swears that it healed through the Ashtanga practice.
It makes me wonder if these injuries that manifest are part of the so-called purifying process, or whether they are a product of incorrect practice. Both I guess – Incorrect movements repeated over and over will result in an injury which then forces our awareness to the area; as we attempt to understand the cause of it and search out how to deal with it and heal it, that attention can simultaneously bring clarity to the area. For me it feels like I’m shining a light into a part of my physical body, waking up the cells’ intelligence as I do so. They come alive because the mind is focused on them. And considering that all disease/injury has it’s roots in our thought processes and manifests firstly in the energetic body then the gross body, a physical healing just might ricochet back and effect a mental/emotional healing. Dissolving samskaras maybe. Who knows? (not me) all just playful conjecture.
Lots to reflect on if only I had the time.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Friday 4th June
Darren’s Class
I just love Darren’s Friday morning Iyengar led practice. Just once a week is a good foil to the regular Ashtanga practice – like a balanced meal. I come away feeling so positive, balanced and strong, no matter what we do. Lately he’s been doing a lot of Supta Padangusthasana and Padmasana work followed by a backbending sequence.
This morning we did a few handstand variations against the wall: with hands placed so that the fingers pointed outwards, hands on blocks (you need more push to get up from here), alternating the leading kick up leg, and then free balancing. We also explored a few different hand placements in Dog Pose.
Darren almost always inserts Sirsasana in the middle of the practice as a transition from standing to seated poses, and he usually times it, letting us know after how many minutes we held it for. This morning was 11 minutes in total, which included the Padmasana variation - Sirsa Padmasana. It’s not as difficult as you might think to get the legs into Padmasana while standing on your head, even though you can’t use your hands to fold your legs in like you can when you’re in Sarvangasana; but twisting left then right from that position was new to me and felt disorientating – I wasn’t sure if I my alignment was skewed, but at least I didn’t fall out of it. I guess that’s the disadvantage of a led class where the teacher isn’t watching and correcting you. You could be doing a shocker of a pose and not know it.
Injury
Now that I don’t have a teacher to watch and correct me, I wonder how many of my bad habits are going to manifest as injury. My shoulder joints have been feeling so unstable for the last couple of weeks and my left one has actually been so painful this week that I had to practice without any jump throughs. In the vinyasas and surjanamaskars, instead of lowering into Chaturanga Dandasana before pressing to Upward Dog Pose, I have to jump back to an elevated Plank pose keeping my arms straight to roll into Upward Dog Pose.
Kosta had this problem a couple of months ago so he stopped practicing for 2 weeks and it disappeared. I won’t panic about it – yet.
Injury seems to be an unavoidable part of Ashtanga practice. A few months ago it was my hamstring, then my hip joints and now that they are both improving, another body part wants my attention. You have a body…you have suffering.
I know Pattabhi says something like “no such thing as injury, just weakness”.
Gallery Yoga
Our regular yoga practice in the Gallery is a real joy; apart from Kosta, all the others that come along are artists! Sasha and Renate are sculptors, Michael sculpts and paints and experiments with video, Sascha is a painter and also works with digital media. We are actually practicing for the next four weeks with Sascha’s work exhibited on the walls of the Gallery – I wonder how she must feel surrounded by the culmination of what she’s been creating for the last year or so. Renate will be in a group exhibition here later this year with some other sculptors so we’ll probably have to arrange ourselves around some fascinating floor installation pieces.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Wednesday 2nd June
Me, Kosta and Angie this morning.
So great to have Angie coming along to our morning practices in the Gallery. She’s been doing Ashtanga for the past 2 years with Simi, but is taking a break from Mysore classes at the shala like me until Simi returns to teaching the early morning classes again. I used to see Angie at the shala EVERY time I went. She was just always there, really early, every morning, a real die-hard. I never had an occasion to speak to her and didn’t even know her name. Angie heard about our self practice group from one of the art school models, and by pure coincidence it tuns out that Angie’s an artist and art therapist.
Angie started the Ashtanga practice with Simi, having never done any other kind of yoga before, so unlike the rest of us she’s a pure Ashtangi. Now that she’s coming every day, we start with 3 Oms and the opening chant which is a nice touch for the others who haven’t been exposed to this ritual.
I’ve noticed over the past couple of years that the flexibility of my right knee has very slowly been declining. Whereas I used to be able to flip my legs straight into Padmasana, I now have to caress and cajole my right leg into it gently. For a while now I’ve been including Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana as part of my pre-practice warm up (something like this), holding the pose for a couple of minutes to soften the right knee and hip ligaments.
This morning I didn’t do my usual pre practice prep, and had to spend a good 10 breaths to move all the way into Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana, but once I was there it was deeply satisfying to stay and work into it. Often in this pose my bent leg sort of dies off because I’m so focused on working the supporting leg, so I now try to work energy through the bent leg, extending from the hip to the knee, and keeping that hip lifting back rather than letting it drop
Yay…Almost got my legs pressed straight and heels off the ground in Kurmasana this morning, finally a nice small sign that the right hamstring injury is improving. I so miss doing this pose to the max. Then did nine perfectly spaced Garbha Pindasana rolls (arms outside of the Padmasana). Since I’ve been practicing in the Gallery I don’t’ think I’ve done this one with my arms through my Padmasana– must remember to buy a water squirt bottle this weekend so I can start doing it properly again. Self practice can become a little self indulgent when you’re not being scrutinized and chastised for cheating! I missed out Marichyasana D on purpose today, and consequently forgot to do the five Navasanas.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
17th May
Shoulder joints are feeling stressed which made my practice weak this morning sapping my core energy. Warning signs are a tenderness in the shoulder/collarbone area, slightly sore to touch at the front of the left shoulder, a dull stiffness through my neck as if the stress on the shoulder joint has spread to the neck through my collarbones, and a reduced range of shoulder mobility. It hurts to lift my left arm up (taking off my top after practice has become 10 seconds of torture)
I must be doing something wrong for this to come up. Need to observe and explore my shoulder movements through a microscope: especially the jump throughs and the pressing to Upward Dog from Chaturanga Dandasana, which is where it mostly occurs.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
12th May
-Just Kosta and me this morning. Since committing to early morning Gallery yoga sessions about 3 weeks ago, I’ve been doing the Ashtanga practice 4 days a week. My shoulders are feeling overworked and my left shoulder joint is deteriorating. Despite these ominous shoulder pains, the first half of the practice up to Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana was really delightful this morning. I stumbled into an eerie mulabandha twilight zone where the focus is directed and sustained in the vague netherland of the sushumna nadi and the energy moves up and down the spinal cord with the breath –my pelvis, lower back and abdomen responded: the entire area felt light, hollow and spacious, as if the breath was blowing through a deep cavern down there. My breath changed; my body became light, and while it lasted, I barely felt any weight on my shoulders with such luminous jump throughs.
It reminded me of a spooky game I played at a birthday sleepover party when I was about 11 years old (after the ouija board incident). There was a group of about 7 of us; one girl volunteered to lay down on the floor face up, and the other 6 of us knelt down around her with one person at her head. We each placed two fingers of both hands just under her body, palms facing up. The girl at her head began a kind of droning incantation (This freaked me out – I was thinking all my girlfriends were secretly witches and I was in for it now): “You are now entering the Valley of Death…your feet are becoming light…your legs are becoming light…your back is becoming light…etc…etc”. I can’t exactly remember the narrative but at the end of it we lifted the girl up from the floor to shoulder height with no effort at all. She was suspended there completely weightless, five of us holding her up with two fingers of each hand. But I knew that if we took our fingers away she’d stay up in the air. This was pure levitation.
Looking back at this experience now, I can see how the power of the words that were used closely resembled what a yoga teacher would say to lead you into Savasana. The power of visual imagery.
What I’m getting at here is that this morning, I experienced the same spooky floatiness for a magical part of the practice.
