May Theme: Legs to Lungs and Lungs to Legs
April showers brought all the May Flowers. All the leaves on the trees in my neighborhood are budding green and filling out and the 75 tulip bulbs the boys and I dug into the front yard with chilly fingertips late this Fall are exploding in Crayola colors. It is a season of hope.
In Chinese medicine, it is said that our lungs hold grief and sadness. Grief and sadness can sit like a weight on the chest, blocking optimal intake and exchange. By practicing pranayama and breathing properly in our yoga practice our lung energy is strengthened and we revitalize the entire body. As we take deep expansive breaths we draw in fresh energy and ideas and let go of stagnant grief, toxic prejudices, and defensiveness. In the yoga tradition the heart center, the Anahata Chakra, is the unstrikeable space, the space of boundless courage, compassion, fearless love that cannot be brought down despite any fierce guarding or heartbreak we have endured. It has been a year. There is so much grief and yet so much hope nestled in right next to one another. Breathing and beating, exapanding and contracting.
This month we connect to our foundation - our legs - with strong standing postures, sun salutations, and balancing postures. We press into our edges of cardiovascular endurance to find that endorphin high that stays with you all day by setting a metronome for lungs and heart through steady flows. We work from the foundation of the legs to draw upward and find space to breathe better. We climb up into the lighthouse of the heart. And we will explore inversions, toes up towards the clouds and sun, crown to the mat, offering rest to our tired legs while cooling and calming and connecting our overactive minds to the cool, dark, absorbent earth energy.
As Tias Little writes in Yoga of the Subtle Body, “The aim of pranayama is to develop a full canopy for the lung tree. However, just as trees have withering tree branches that obstruct the flow of sap, nutrients, and water, it is common for some bronchioles to restrict the flow of air.” Postural tendencies from movement pattern repetition, stuck emotion, past pneumonia/smoking/illness, or physical trauma can obstruct the thoracic spine, ribs, lungs, and heart center."
This month we move through vigorous power practices to whip ourselves up and reconnect to our fire (perfect for Kappha season where we need more Tapas and purification practices) and we devote time for pranayama at the end of each session. Pranayama, the unrestraining (ayama) of our vital life energy (pran) (or more simply said - yoga breath techniques) can be taught at the beginning or the end of a yoga session - as a way to center and catalyze and orient the practice OR after opening the body as a way to fill the vessel with potent life force and harmonize/energize/balance the energetic body.
Just like the trunk and limbs of the tree are the bones and the scaffolding to the fullness and canopy of spring leaves I now see as I look out my window at the old Birch across the street. So too, our pranayama fills out, expands and unfurls a lush bountiful field of energy to our body after moving through the practice and making space for the breath to move in. Move your body, expand your lung capacity, and allow your heart to be moved.
I hope you can come and join us this month. Rest under the shade, protection, and healing canopy of the tree of yoga. Lean into the trunk, the wisdom of this practice that supports our lives, and feel gratitude for the deep root system beneath - the anscestors and lineage holders of this ancient practice that lives on today renewing us through each season.
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