Diary of a yoga nobodhi

Wednesday 1st July 2004

Savasana Reflections
The end of practice comes around…time to lay out to rest, to integrate all the changes, to passively absorb the gifts of the practice by osmosis.
Savasana is the piece de resistance, a luscious dessert after a fine meal, the icing on the cake, a slow intravenous drip of nectar.
But the surrender required to experience this bliss doesn’t come easily. Some days it’s just downright impossible as my mind can often be racy if the practice has stimulated openings, brought up emotions and dislodged comfy habits.
Some days I need to use all my will power and conscious effort to relax – what a paradox. Peace is our natural state, and look what we go through trying to even remember that, let alone cultivating and dwelling in it. It’s elusive. I often remind my students that Savasana is the most difficult pose of all and needs full awareness like other poses.

At the end of a typical Iyengar class, we are usually guided into Savasana with auto suggestions, keeping us engaged in the process of consciously relaxing body and mind. I’ve noticed that at the end of led Ashtanga classes, we are just told to “take rest” – no guidance, just take rest (in John Scott’s book it barely rates a mention). “Take rest” reminds me so much of Vipassana retreats and Mr Goenka’s instruction at the end of each day of meditation. After 10-11 hours of sitting, you’re in a weird state of exhaustion, almost unable to sit up, head heavy, body aching, and those two final words are almost the catalyst for tears!

I’ve had some very rich and luminous Savasanas. It’s a timeless, deathless state. The weight of daily commitments, stresses, tensions, burdens, contractions is lifted. The total release of tension results in expansion. Stuck and held energy is dissolved. I lay there, free, having passed through death, resting in peace, liberated, no personality, pure energy, reconnected to the divine source. My natural state.

This kind of Savasana is rare. Days like today, my mind races all over the place and when the others begin to stir from their slumber and I realize my Savasana time is up, I sit up and kick myself for wasting the most precious opportunity of the day.


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Tuesday 29th June

Now that my shoulder’s feeling less traumatized, the rest of my body is starting to respond to the practice again. Joy, joy, joy.
Within each pose this morning I felt little physical openings that squealed with delight; muscles, joints, ligaments and organs, waking up and stretching after a deep comatose winter. I so enjoyed the entire practice today. I made love with every pose.
Does this reflect my state of mind? Of course.
Something’s shifting.

Uranus Conjunct Ascendant
Ive been struggling under the influence of Uranus conjunct my Ascendant for the last month or so: wanting to break free of all commitments, to give up teaching, break off my relationship; a simmering state of rebellion. It was pure luck that I discovered this transit as I haven’t consulted an ephemeris for years. Happened to look upon one last week because my daughter just had a baby girl (my first grandchild) and I got curious. Uranus conjunct Ascendant is a very powerful and disruptive energy so I feel comforted that I can blame my quiet implosion on the stars. It makes much more sense now, but more importantly, I can view the feelings objectively and assess how to use the energy to my advantage.

Enjoyed the deep twists of Paravritta Trikonasana, Parivritta Parsvakonasana and the Marichyasanas this morning so it wasn’t surprising when I bound on both sides in Marichy D AND Pasasana – it sounds so trivial but binding in Pasasana just makes my day. Continued the practice up to Ustrasana then did 4 Urdhva Dhanurasanas and 4 slow, bendy dropbacks.

Pindasana
In Pindasana I found myself rolling side to side on the back of my neck so I squeeeeeeezed my Padmasana legs in tightly and found a delicate point of balance on the very top of my spine. Simi used to say this pose was the smallest, most contained of them all, embryonic, protected; so introverted when I’m curled up like that. But when I fold in really deep, my upper and lower jaw are jammed together which causes a grinding pressure through my back teeth – not quite sure how to alleviate this apart from backing off in the pose.

Padmasana
There’s a reason for crossing left over right in all the Padmasana poses, but I don’t know what it is, maybe something to do with the movement of stuff through the intestines from one side to the other? Whatever it is, it doesn’t make for a balanced opening of knees and hips in my book. I don’t want to change the Padmasana cross in my practice, partly because you’re not supposed to (and I respect this for whatever reason it may be), but mostly because it’s what I’m used to so it’s easy.

Crossing right over left in Padmasana (the wrong way) almost tips me over in Pindasana and I can’t get my arms through my legs this way in Garbha Pindasana, let alone balance there. That suggests my hips and knees are really uneven.
I might use my meditation time to sit in opposite Padmasana instead of my usual comfy half Padmasana. The few times I’ve done this, I’ve emerged after 45minutes or so with such a dead leg and dead foot, it’s taken a couple of long and excruciatingly minutes to breathe life back into them.

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Thursday 24th June

Period Practice
I had to cancel yesterday’s gallery practice because Rebecca had organized a 6am teacher’s practice at the studio where Kosta and I teach so we felt obliged to attend. Then at the last minute she cancelled it.
So having had such an emotional practice on Tuesday, then yesterday off, I began this morning’s practice with great curiosity and just a little trepidation as it was also the first day of my period (which in retrospect probably explains the emotions on Tuesday – PMT).
Sometimes on day one of my period, I feel bloated and heavy in the lower abdomen as if my pelvic bowl is full of an unctuous liquid in which a sack of potatoes is bobbing around. Other months I feel no different to any other day. So I now allow my body to determine whether I practice or not during the first few days of my period.

This morning I did all of Primary really thoroughly up to Setu Bandhasana.
Because of my period, I spent a few extra breaths in Baddha Konasana and Upavista Konasana in true Iyengar menstrual fashion, focusing on softening and opening up the pelvic floor to allow the free flow downward of the menstrual energy.
I remember early on in my Ashtanga practice when I just started to get a gross form of mula bandha happening by contracting and lifting up the pelvic floor, I was surprised to find I couldn’t engage it at all during menstruation; my body wouldn’t allow it – a nice revelation of the body’s innate intelligence. I guess the downward movement of the flow exerts a releasing energy in the subtle body to speed the passage outwards of the flow, and trying to pull up Mula Bandha and Uddiyana Bandha interferes with this.

After Setu Bandhasana I did Pasasana and Kraunchasana and three really good Urdhva Dhanurasanas. The backbends were really good, not because they were easy or fully open, but because I felt quite restricted in the first one but stayed for 8 breaths working consciously to free up all the parts that were preventing the openings. Then I did 5 breaths in the next two.
It’s so rewarding when I can apply such precision and clarity in a pose, when my awareness is directed like a laser beam, sharp and penetrating; the moments open up and time expands…like you see when a cat stalks a bird, pure intent, not missing a move. My practice had that quality through it this morning and suspended up there in Urdhva Dhanurasana, feeling all the subtle openings as they occurred, I sensed real connection and felt great love for this practice that challenges and teaches me.

I saw a photo of someone in a modified Matsyasana recently (legs extended rather than folded in Padmasana) with elbows and palms pressed to the floor. The woman had an incredibly lifted arch in her thoracic spine – it was beautiful. So I focused on pressing that part of my spine deeply in and up in the backbends this morning.

After the Urdhva Ds, I stayed in Paschimottanasana for a few minutes, trying to find a softness there which never came. I find it difficult to work softly in this pose, especially with the shoulder injury. The pose should be held from the core (bandhas), not from external muscular strength, a balancing act between effort and yielding. When I back off slightly, engage gentle bandhas and extend the front spine from inside, the focus immediately drops inwards, the pull/push of the mind softens and the pose starts to become really interesting.

After Paschimottanasana, instead of the inversions, I did a softer Baddha Konasana, then Baddha Padmasana and my current favourite Yoga Mudra.