Dec 8, 2008, Timed Standing Poses

First a word about the video I posted yesterday - did you watch it? I tried out a few different introductory sentences before posting, but none served the piece so well, to my mind, as the element of surprise achieved by no introduction at all. I stumbled upon it completely by accident, and I felt it offered more on the subject of freedom than any amount of my words ever could.

My classes this week have been focused on on the subject of practicing expansion. I put my neck out while taking my exam. After a few days of suffering from limited movement and all around agitation, I sought help from the chiropractor I work with and received a wonderful and freeing adjustment. Then a day or two later, as is common with chiropractic care, my neck went right back out again. This process of being brought into alignment by a capable doctor, feeling immensely freed by it, and then watching my body shrink right back toward bound again has made me very contemplative about the value of readying ourselves for growth, of buoying our capacity to accept an expansive experience when life chooses to offer one. The readership of this blog has also doubled this month, which provoked in me an instant case of writers block. Do you see the parallel here?

Practicing yoga is good for flexibility and strength, but even more than that, practicing yoga deepens our understanding of, and our relationship with, the patterns of nature within us. It can make us more willing to accept the twists and turns of life without struggle, more patient with the obstacles we run across. Perhaps most exciting is the way that hatha yoga, with it's attentiveness to awareness in movement and breath, serves to familiarize us with the experience of expanding itself. Potentially, this familiarity can help us to receive our own growth, when it comes, with greater poise.

In order to maintain equalibrium while I watch body and my words assume a broader scope, I have modified my practices of asana and website writing to one of steady attention to the basics. In the website - reordering pages for better navigability (let me know if you have trouble finding anything), and preparing supporting pages like a site map and a privacy policy (yawn). In the body - standing poses. Yep, in honor of maintaining the feeling of fullness that comes with a happy cervical spine, my yoga practice this week consists of steady and careful lunges, warriors, parsvakonasana - the basics. No going upside down, no getting twisted up or digging deep for me until I feel fully comfortable with my new and expanded relationship with the perfection that is my essence.

If you haven't yet, take a moment for that video, now.

blessings, and namaste,

Alison

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