Welcome to your practice
Unroll your mat. Notice how each time it feels like you are unrolling possibilities, new beginnings. Each time folding the blanket, smoothing out the wrinkles, creating a smooth starting place making sure the fringes are on the inside. Sitting right on the edge of that blanket and easing your legs into lotus, feeling your spine straight and your heart opening a little wider. Your body gets the signal that the practice is beginning.
Close your eyes as the sweet breeze wraps around you, and settle in. Inhaling deeply through your nose and letting the breath go out your mouth, a deep letting go of residual stuff that is deep inside.
Now beginning to focus on the deep inhale and exhale, the belly rising and falling, the oxygen reaching beyond the lungs and into the legs and through your arms, into the head and through the crown. This is deep connection with all that is beneath you and around you. You begin to settle in and ease into your practice. This space between just living and consciously, mindfully living. Becoming aware of how your body is feeling again, beginning to quiet your mind and moving into stillness and ease.
As you start to come into this place of quiet, your body yearns to move with this breath- so you circle your head, gently moving out the stiffness of the nights sleep, and that movement slides down to your hips and lower back, beginning to create small circles with your hips, smaller pelvic tilts and then wider circles. You begin to create a rhythm with your breath, and this practice begins to take on a life of its own, pulsating with prana and the inhale and exhale, something bigger than you are, something led without trying. It is almost as though your body moves and then your mind follows through with the thought of moving. This practice is intuitive.
Making your way to hands and knees, and then stretching your hips back into Childs pose, this safe haven of protected space, your arms first stretched out in front of you, and then easing the shoulder around your knees, like wings, angel wings- those nice substantial ones that real angels have, not the ones from the party store. You can feel the structure of these wings, their softness and beauty, and yet their foundation, their ability to repel the elements and at the same time blend with the elements, allowing you to soar with the wind. As you start to rise, bring those wings with you, knowing they are always there, wrapped around you, nurturing, or spread wide, empowering.
Following the breath you begin to make your way up to the top of the mat and straighten the spine again. Hands move toward your heart space, palms touching in this ancient mudra, Anjali mudra, connecting mind body and spirit. Feeling the strength of the earth beneath you, and then feel the crown of your head reaching upward, your pelvis and heart in between the sky and the core of the earth, perfectly grounded.
Welcome to your practice.
