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Prithvi (the earth element) and Muscular Energy

ByElizabeth

The first of the mahabhutas is prithvi or earth.  When I think of the earth element, I think of stability, grounding, earthiness, nurture.  My experience is that I can more deeply connect to this element in ourselves by emphasizing what John Friend has termed “muscular energy” in my yoga practice.

As with all practices from an Anusara perspective, I try to start with the principle of “opening to grace.”  In this context, opening to grace can mean being sensitive to our earthiness and how it manifests energetically in us.  I have found that it can lead to my foundation and connection to the earth and invite a soft weightiness.

Muscular energy has three essential physical/energetic actions:  (1) hugging all of the muscles to the bone; (2) drawing to the midline (our central energetic channel); and (3) drawing energy from the periphery to the focal point of the pose.  See J. Friend, Anusara Teacher Training Manual (Anusara Press, The Woodlands, TX).  These three actions combined help stabilize us; they nurture by inviting us to give ourselves an unceasing self-embrace initiated from our opening to the good in the energies around us (like the loving hug of an “earth mother”); and they bring our focus from the physical extremities to our core, thus reminding us to bring our physical body to the support of the energetic body and spirit.

When I am feeling ungrounded, unsettled, or needing a little love, I remind myself to emphasize muscular energy and open to and invite in the light-filled energy all around me.

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    It has been a good winter.  I have learned to appreciate the cold and dark, which gives us time to enjoy the pleasures of home and introspection.  Now, I am looking forward to spring, the effusive colors, the warmth, the ability to get back out into the garden.

    This time of year, with the radical contrasts of cold winds and flowers does highlight the play of opposites, the very pulsation of existence — in yoga terms, the spanda.  This time in society seems to have a similar play of bitterness and sweetness.  Staying steady with our yoga practice and our community, we can delight in what we see and what we have, even as we may be worried and working for change.  That too, is part of the play (lila).  To invite in a steady warmth and support from our practice and our community, even as we see difficulties and challenges, want things to be different, and know that our work may not necessarily bring about the change we seek.

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    Yesterday, a former student of mine stopped me in the hallway at Willow Street and asked whether the “Yoga of Eating” workshop I will be leading on June 13th  will cover Ayurveda.  “I will mention it,” I said, “but I will not be teaching it.”  I didn’t have time to explain further because I was about to lead class.  As far as I got was to add that I was not sufficiently trained to teach it.

    Ayurveda is a wonderful science, and I honor and respect my yoga friends and colleagues who study, practice, and teach Ayurvedic principles.  Ayurveda is a much broader discipline than yoga, though, and is really medical practice rather than yoga.  Asana are among the practices that might be recommended by an Ayurvedic practitioner for a client or patient, but eating in accordance with the Ayurvedic principles is not the same as bringing yoga to how we eat.  For me, many of the principles of Ayurveda I have read or been taught are useful, but it has not resonated for me as a governing system, just as I do not believe in applying all of the principles of Western medicine to how I heal and nourish my body.

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    Sadhana

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    I formally took leave today.

    First, I went to a dance practice led by Margot Greenlee (BodyWise Dance), which was a lab for exploring techniques to enable those of a wide range of mental and physical capacities to express themselves through movement. Very inspiring.

    In between dancing and going to the Phillips Collection to see The Warmth of Other Suns: Stories of Global Displacement exhibit, I paused on the grounds of the Capitol and gave witness to the climate strikers.

    I meditated on the bus.

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