Body Praying

Monday 26 October 2009

I have so much more energy these days, now they are lengthening. I am sorry that the consequence of them lengthening for me is that Erin is most likely suffering from the shortening of them at her end. I cannot think of a remedy for this situation, living on a sphere and all that. If we lived on a flat plane, then we could all have the same amount of sun all the time, but it would probably mess with the time-space continuum and stuff wouldn't grow and who knows what else :)

Anyway, if I was going to create a place for people to live, far cooler a round ball that just hangs in the middle of nowhere being held up by nothing, with distinct seasons to give variety. Maybe the flat plane thing would be boring. Or maybe there's one of those in an alternate universe.

My floors are almost vacuumed, due to this excess energy. I've got some yummy meals to cook. There's clothes flapping on the line. I've driven to Vermont and back and then to Seaford and back in 24 hours. I've delighted in catching up with friends. All this yoga I have been doing has been a total Godsend. How delightful it is to get back into this space where if I do not do an hour's worth of asanas one day, I am hanging out for it the next. I can feel the greater flexibility in my body already, plus I am beginning to tone up, and the sense of wellbeing is pretty much priceless.

I am in love with my spine. It doesn't get paid all that much attention in our society but it really is the centre of the ship, something that I focus on every day now. The main seven chakras, each of which is linked to a gland, run along the spine. So does the central nervous system. Working my spine keeps me centred, helps keep the anxiety at bay, the mind monkeys from chattering me into a coma.

It's amazing how spot on people thousands and thousands of years ago were about intricate parts of the body - glands and things. It was knowledge arrived at in a different way to the way we often measure our knowledge these days. What amazes me is the great poetry and narrative that accompanied earlier ways of knowing - and how accurate it was. Mindboggling really. And exciting too. We "know" in many different ways. Our bodies "know" things before our conscious minds do. We do well to listen to them instead of dismissing them as something evil.

It also amazes me, the whole chakra thing, how it works. We dismiss them as stupid moronity because you will not find a chakra on a micrscope. And yet science is consistently finding that we are energetic bodies. Chakras live in our energetic bodies, not our physical bodies. That makes them no less real than what we sense as that part of us that goes on, that is our essence. People dismiss this stuff because our ways of viewing things are too narrow and restrictive. Sola scriptura ways of viewing anything dismisses what does not fit into small compartments of our own making. As if any of us ever know anything perfectly.

I cannot begin to describe how wonderful it feels to do different poses that stretch the spine and flood my body with good feeling. I feel like everything is working better in my body since I began a regular yoga practice. Performing yoga asanas is like an active, beautiful form of prayer to me, now.

Fearfully and wonderfully made and all that. We are beautifully made too. The intricate complexity of our bodies, of all of these different bits that all come from a single cell. God, you take my breath away. (And you give it, too :)

5 comments

  1. yoga, chakra, prayer
    love the way you put things together

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  2. Isn't it interesting, this question of the seasons and length of days? In the UK we still have the equivalent of daylight saving, don't know if you do. Our clocks went back at the weekend, so a) we got an extra hour's sleep (great!) and b) it now gets dark earlier. This early darkness was a real relief to me - at last, I thought, long dark evenings just like they're supposed to be. I'm feeling more energised as a result of that!

    And mention of chakras have come into my life in about half a dozen ways recently, so I can see this is something I'm going to have to find out about.

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  3. Ah don't worry about me, I'll live. But I don't have to enjoy it!

    I should do yoga. I've been thinking about it for a long time, and the only reason I haven't is for my complete lack of flexibility to start with will mean I have no ability to do any poses. I tried, once, with a video. It was not pretty. But I also know it would get better with time, I am just not a patient girl.

    And you're right about the sola scriptura box...we are not disembodied brains floating in jars, or else that would work.

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  4. Barbara - thanks. I hope you come to love yoga too :)

    Kel - thanks, fellow heretic. If we're gonna burn in hell from a psychotic god, may as well do it energy-balanced mwaha

    Tess - we just began daylight savings a few weeks ago. I love it. That's fascinating what you say about feeling more energised with the early onset of darkness. I sort of understand but I can't relate; my body works the complete opposite! :) Are you, by any chance, a morning person?

    Erin - no, you don't have to enjoy it :) Your complete lack of flexibility is exactly why you *would* benefit from yoga. After weeks of feeling like a galumphing stupid moronic elephant, you will be surprised at how you are able to enter into a posture a little bit more than you were the last time.

    Thank God we're not disembodied brains in jars. We send the world a bit mental when we operate out of that paradigm.

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