This week the call for my yoga practice to be reignited sounded and I headed that call.
I am now attending a yoga class nearly every day and it provides that much needed balance between all my other forms of training - beach walks, swimming, Guinea dancing, and Capoeira Angola.
In almost every class we are guided into Tadasana (Mountain Pose).
Tadasana is often the first āhua / asana (shape / formation) that people learn in the yoga tradition, and essentially teaches correct standing technique and posture. Never underestimate the power and beauty of standing - like walking, standing is what demarkated our species as homo sapiens, as humankind.
E tū, whānau! Stand up, family!
One teacher recently gave this fascinating insight about the inwards rotation (or 'wrapping') of the inner thigh that opens up space in the lower spine (a problem for me because I have a 'sway back'). When I focus on my inner thigh instead of painstakingly trying to suck my belly in (which always restricts my breath) I feel an incredible sense of my body being in control, of knowing how it's meant to be in space; and the energetic link between my feet/earth and head/sky manifested through this simple action of rotating my inner thigh inwards.
Today, another insight came - the role of the inner arch.
"Push down through the big toe, ball and heel and lift UP through arch", said the teacher.
I imagined the heavy weight of soil on the seed as it strives to sprout its shoots. I pressed into the earth with my big toe, ball and heel; and then I imagined the creeping roots sprouting up from the earth into the arch of my foot, extending all the way up my inner thigh, wrapping around my pelvis, around my belly, up through my solar plexus, and all the way up the crown of my head, where they finally sprouted baby leaves smiling to the Sun Light above.
I bent my knees and dropped my pelvis into Utkatasana, returning my awareness to my stocky legs, grounded like tree trunks. I called on the wrapping of the inner thigh and came to standing tall, majestic, atop the earth, and suddenly had this vision of my legs as being a channel for water from the water tables deep beneath the earth's crust, into my belly (water centre).
The depth of Tadasana (Mountain Pose) and Utkatasana (Chair Pose / Squat / Douplé) amazes me. It also amazes me that in embodying these āhua, we might also physically and spiritually embody the Māori creation narrative of when Tāne pushed Ranginui up and away from Papatūānuku, becoming the Mātua (father) of all human beings, the forest and all life that dwells within. Thus, coming home to that push against Papatūānuku with our feet, and the manifestation of the line of energy between feet and crown, and thus serving as the consequential connection between Papatūānuku and Ranginui, we come into manifestation of the triad - Papa-Tāne-Rangi.
We are trees by our very nature of standing tall.
E tū, whānau!
Heather
7000 year old Baobab tree, Tanzania