The Energy Current

These past couple of weeks my teaching has been inspired by the visual of our bodies having currents of energy much like that of a flowing river.  It was prompted when I was listening to an acupuncturist describing chi and the meridians. I am able to visualize these channels of flowing water coursing through our liquid bodies and, on occasion, getting dammed up and stagnant.

The longer I teach yoga, the more I see the practice being a method of altering energy and less a practice of over-simplified stretching and strengthening.  The lengthening and strengthening of the body is one way that we begin to move into the current of energy flowing through us and we often recognize where it's not moving.  This turns up in the form of fatigue, muscular tension, a particular soreness or lack of awareness.  As we begin coupling breath to movement, it's as though someone has taken a spotlight and shone it on the parts of us lying in the shadow.

I remember a story told by Matthew Sanford, an adaptive Iyengar yoga teacher who is a paraplegic.  Following a horrific auto accident that left his sister and father dead and him paralyzed, he was told by the medical world that he would never again "feel" anything below his injury.  He flat out says, "They were wrong.  When I sit with my legs stretched out in front of me and think of pressing through my heels, I feel something.  It might not be what you feel, but I definitely feel a sensation related to this energetic flow coursing through my legs."

As I heard him sharing this story, it awakened in me another level of awareness related to us being energetic beings that can feel and sense beyond what is obvious.  We can sense when someone is tense.  We get a gut feeling around certain ideas or thoughts.  We can visualize doing something without moving a muscle, and when we actually do it, we're better at it.  We can move, sense, tap into and alter the energetic flow in our own bodies.

What this tells me is that this process is often guided by seeing our intention in action as a thought that arises within us.  I'm a very visual person and enjoy the images that my mind's eye can see as I explore the inner highways of my own energy. I can encourage the flow of energy to move wherever it seems to be lacking.  I often encourage students to stand on their feet and see cables of energy flowing out of the soles through the soil, past the earth's crust and into the middle of the earth...grounding ourselves to this gigantic planet.  We then draw the earth's energy up through these cables and send it through our own bodies, exiting the crown of the head and penetrating out into the skies and galaxy as far as imaginable.  We are the energetic conduit between heaven and earth.

It is thought that if we have stagnation or what I refer to as "energetic clogs", that can also be out of balance and perhaps leaning toward disease.  By moving our bodies, connecting to our breath and opening these rivers of energy that channel through our entire physical network and beyond, we connect our mind, body and spirit.  We engage the elements that create our entire being and in doing so our awareness grows.  If we're stagnant, we can DO something about it.

Let's begin by stepping onto our mats and finding the soles of your feet connect to the earth and to your soul.  Inhale and go...