December Events
Sunday, December 5th, 12:00-3:00 p.m.
Women’s Self-Defense Workshop, Namaste Yoga and Healing Center
Sunday, December 12th, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Overtone Chanting with Bruce Bell, Namaste Yoga and Healing Center
Sunday, December 19th, 12:00-6:00 p.m.
Holiday Bazaar – beautiful and exotic, Namaste Yoga and Healing Center
Sunday, December 19th, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Dakini Wisdom Workshop with Yuan Miao, master of mudra and mantra, Namaste Yoga and Healing Center
Tuesday, December 21st, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Solstice pranayama and meditation, Namaste Yoga and Healing Center
Track Your Responses to Solar and Lunar Cycles
Ha (meaning sun) and tha (meaning moon) yoga links us to larger fields of energy beyond our own personal will.Practicing with an awareness of these cycles fills us with greater energy while it humbles us to the awesomeness of heavenly perfection.
Celestial cycles weave a tapestry of patterns that influence us constantly. Yearly solar cycles are most obvious but monthly lunar cycles also affect our moods and energy levels. Think of a universe of waves with currents, larger traveling waves and smaller surface waves, all moving in cycles of expansion into tenuity and contraction into stillness.
The new moon is traditionally the time farmers plant seeds. This is a time for getting a fresh perspective and beginning new things. The energy for your creations peaks at the full moon. From the full moon to the dark of the moon (3 days before the next new moon) is a good time to refine and edit. The dark of the moon is a time for slowing down.
December 11th is the new moon and the extreme yin time of the yearly solar cycle. During these dark nights, take advantage of the call to be quiet and take care of your inner needs. Listen for what you need most for your soul’s nourishment. Your intuitive powers are never more acute.
You will feel a shift from the stillness of this period as the light returns to the Northern Hemisphere. By the 21st, the sun’s light will begin its journey northward. As we receive more light, the moon and sun (from the Earth’s viewpoint) will move into balance at opposite sides of the Earth. By the full moon on the 26th, the lunar cycle is at its most yang, expansive phase. While the solar wave contracts inward, the lunar wave contracts and expands. Like the cycle of breath and the beating of the heart, as above, so below.
Give the gift that inspires
Visit the life in motion bookstore at www.lifeinmotion.com for your holiday shopping.
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The Transition from Fall to Winter
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)’s Five Element Theory teaches us that the key to health is to keep all the elements balanced. It is based on observations of natural cycles and interrelationships in the environment and within ourselves. One season (and its corresponding element) provides the foundation for the next. As we approach the solstice, the activity of the fall practice (warrior and standing poses) gradually gives way to the quiet of winter (forward bends and seated twists). The fall practice increases lung capacity to take in more life force, opens the large intestine to release the old, builds stamina and focuses awareness in the present. This prepares us to enter the most sacred time of year.
By December 21st, the sun is south of the equator, over the Tropic of Capricorn. As the light begins to return, we enter into the most mystical and contemplative time of year. If the fall practice has helped you to release the armoring of the back and open the lungs, forward bending becomes the experience of a rooted and charged first chakra (pelvic floor) supporting a fluid kidney and a pulsating wave of prana unwinding all tension in the spine. Thus, asana becomes meditation rather than struggle. These poses can help us cultivate an awareness of who we are at a physical, mental and emotional level. The quietness of these poses helps us to observe and release our conditioned patterns and live with less friction and discomfort. We learn how to use our energy more skillfully. We cultivate a place of inner certainty from which ease and contentment flow into our daily lives.
Solstice Pranayama and Meditation with Elizabeth Andes-Bell
Join us for a free event, Tuesday, December 21st
2:00-3:00 p.m. (immediately after Slow Flow)
Namaste Yoga and Healing Center
Free
Carve out an oasis of calm during this busy season. Take advantage of the enhanced energy of a group field to connect with that which is quietest and deepest within you.
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Asana of the Month Paschimottanasana or Seated Forward Bend
“If a posture is balanced and comfortable enough, it will free the consciousness to remember its relationship with supreme consciousness” The Fundamentals of Yoga, Rammurti Mishra
Seated forward bend was once considered a secret pose, not for the average practitioner. This is because it stimulates the kundalini energy to rise up the spine. It is contraindicated for people with active sciatica or disc problems. People who are overweight or have a tight middle back may experience spasms of the diaphragm in this position. This can be relieved by arching backward and lifting your chest out of the upper abdomen.
1. Bend the knees and hold onto the feet with your hands or a strap. Align the legs and feet in parallel, creating squares from feet to ankles to knees to hips. With your chest resting on your thighs, walk your sit bones back (one at a time) until you can go no further without lifting the chest off the thighs. If your knees are still bent, place a folded blanket or two under them so you can release your leg muscles. Prop up your head on a block or blanket so you can release the neck muscles.
2. Breathe even ujayii or ocean breaths. Inhale from the crown down the spine to the pelvic floor. Exhale from the base up and out the crown like a fountain. This is the vertical axis, the riverbed for the flow of kundalini.
3. Concentrate your focus to a central point in the perineum and begin to build geometric relationships: pubic bone and coccyx on the saggital axis, sit bones on horizontal axis, create diagonals from the hip socket to the opposite sit bone. Lift the sit bone out so that you develop the sensation of the pelvic floor supporting you way beneath the buttocks.
4. Notice your legs and feet. Are they maintaining form? Map them in a similar fashion, creating center points in the arch of the foot or the back of the knee. Find the vertical axis in the legs and , maintaining the form, spin the feet toward the big toe and spin the legs inward. You are not rotating the legs in, you are spinning the energy and the fluid tissue. Winter’s element is water and here the wave undulates through the spiraling axis.
5. Lengthen the heels away from the ankles. Allow the femurs to sink into the floor. Lift slightly and lengthen the ribcage away from the hips. Release deeper onto the legs.
6. Water always sinks downward. Water gives birth to form. Your spin is centripetal. As you contract in, you descend into the force field that nurtures, is receptive and intuitive. This is where flow creates form.
7. Come out of the pose slowly. Visualize two long lines of energy from the pelvis to the legs and from the pelvis to the crown. Lift the chest and extend your spine into a backbend returning to a vertical spine. Enjoy the upward flow.
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Student Feature: Paul Merrill
Paul is a painter and architectural designer who lives on the Upper Westside. He came to Namaste after studying Iyengar on and off for about 5 years. Like many men, Paul had a strong upper body and tight groins and hamstrings. This can lead to rigidity in the chest and lungs and overworking the heart. It has been remarkable to see how fast he has changed his body, how intelligently he works and how much more his energy is open and flowing.
Here is Paul in his own words.
“I’ve experienced a lot of changes and insights since coming to Namaste. Specifically, they are:
1. My strength and flexibility have increased substantially.
2. My body feels like it is becoming transparent to me, like I can see into it. I can “see” the bones and how they touch each other.
3. More of my body is becoming conscious both inside and in terms of its directions in space. I can signal something to go where I want it to go and watch it open into that direction.
4. I am developing the ability to tolerate more discomfort.
Several poses have brought up feelings of grief and despair. While I know it is valid to find those emotions and process them, I can now first establish space within me. In this way, the feelings are not overwhelming and I can go deeper, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
Paul turned 50 this year. It is a wonderful thing to know that you do not have to surrender to age instead; you can be changing your body for the better.
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