Brightest Spring Round 1--Planting Seeds

MYOGA SEASONS for Subscribers

The New Moon is a good time to plant seeds, as they grow in the dark soil. Although we’re already a couple weeks into this Brightest Spring Season (Southern Hemisphere), I’m catching up with posting these practices so I’m grateful to have the new moon energy alignment.

Vrksasana/Tree with focus on roots, photo by Micahel Hobbs of hippyparents.com

Accessibility Level = Easy

All Round 1’s are the warm-up session, while Round 2’s are generally more intense and demanding, Round 3’s are the integration section, and Round 4’s are the Wrap-Up which is challenging for its fullness and length. So the more attentive you are all along the way, the more familiar and accessible the wrap-up becomes. Basics, Restores and Sounds are freely available for you to build your confidence before taking on Seasons, which is only available to paid subscribers.

Welcome to Brightest Spring Round 1--Planting Seeds. Be in touch if you have any concerns or questions. Also, feel very free to comment directly below this post, or on the YouTube page. This 33 minute Sowing (or Planting) Seeds practice and the entire Brightest Spring/Svadisthana Season comes with a Disclaimer:

Four women in my classes have conceived a child while practicing this Season! All I can suggest is to be very conscious of what you'd like to sow in your life!

For this practice you'll need an extra rolled mat, or you can use a pillow or block if you don't have one handy. We'll be activating core strength as it extends into the pelvis and also heating and strengthening the thighs, all of which is very empowering. To balance the heating practices, you'll learn a cooling breath at the start, a good tool to have as an alternate detoxifying and calming pranayam to some of the more fiery ones we do in other Seasons.

When you do the Prosperity meditation at the end, see if you can get the right thumb to be below the left one. This is a detail I only recently learned and have added in. Enjoy!

Here's what Others have to say about this practice:

"Love trying new postures, will practice frogs."--Sarah

"Third time doing frogs over the last week, and today I really felt stronger...able to be a bit more stable and fluid. These are intense, but impactful I can see. I do love this portion of Brightest Spring. After a bit over two years focused mostly on Basics, I can really see how to enter into Seasons now, breaking them down and getting to know them slowly and with breadth. I am grateful for the foundation of Basics though. A day of feeling lots of gratitude for slow but genuine growth!!!"--Barbara

We start Round 1 with a fantastic breathing practice featured in my recent blog post:

After tuning in with that cleansing pranayam and our Adi Mantra, we turn on the inner thighs. Which sounds super sexy but is actually super rugged in applying precision to strengthen the upper thighs. This is an area that gets turned on if you’re an equestrian (or a dominatrix) but for the rest of us pedestrians it generally gets ignored! And since Svadisthan chakra is a powerhouse for our sexuality, we’re in the right hood.

The main resource you’ll need in these short, intense abdominal exercises from Ana Forrest is your long, deep Ujjayi Pranayam (click for a focused practice of that). It may take some time to gain command over the specific muscular articulations in these Yogi Lifts with a Roll, so be patient but persistent. Give yourself time and support by sustaining as slow and steady a breath as you can. We only have 6 reps, so make them count! If you feel like you want to do more, then you’re either way ahead in strength or you don’t have them quite right. It should feel like 6 is enough.

Rocking and Rolling is such good, simple medicine so don’t underestimate the skill and self-massage inherent here.

Kundalini Frogs are up next and were what Sarah and Barbara mentioned above! They’re a practice unto themselves. Kundalini Yoga is accessible, yet rigorous, so you’ll feel the energetic impact no matter how few you do, or how much you adjust to support where you currently are. Trust the Longer Journey and intend to do more and more over time, until you’re doing your age-plus-1-for-good-luck all in one go! Practice reverse ageism—the older you get, the stronger and more capable you are.

Cat and Cow are, again, another super simple move, but so essential and effective when you are fully engaged. And perhaps a relief after Frogs :)

Vrksasana or Tree is an archetypal yoga pose. I teach mostly kids these days and it’s their go-to pose, which is great for their balance and mental focus. It also gives us something we can do in pairs, or even as a whole group making a forest. Sometimes I whirl amongst them as the wind testing their roots. If you’ve come out of First Spring’s focus in the feet and legs, then you’ll have those root systems more embodied and at the forefront of your awareness. Notice in this evolution into Tree that the arms are the last to be added in, as we’re refining our attention in the leg and hip bones first.

If a wall aids your precision, use it! Then you’ll also have it there for Wall Doll which is Rag Doll using the wall as a feedback system. Feel for how firmly and evenly you can stay glued to the wall underneath what is peeling away, and how that impacts the sensation of stretch along the spine. Also notice where you tense. Remember, this is a Rag Doll, not a GI Joe action figure!

Wide Child is, again, another simple pose not to be overlooked. Double check your alignment - are your feet and knees doing the same thing left to right? Support yourSelf so you can fully release and also feel fee to add extra time to rest here or in Savasana after you receive this poetic seed-planting from Rumi:

The Seed Market

by Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks

Can you find another market like this?

Where,

with your one rose

you can buy hundreds of rose gardens?

Where,

for one seed

you get a whole wilderness?

For one weak breath,

the divine wind?

You've been fearful

of being absorbed in the ground,

or drawn up by the air.

Now, your waterbead lets go

and drops into the ocean,

where it came from.

It no longer has the form it had,

but it's still water.

The essence is the same.

This giving up is not a repenting.

It's a deep honoring of yourself.

When the ocean comes to you as a lover,

marry, at once, quickly,

for God's sake!

Don't postpone it!

Existence has no better gift.

No amount of searching

will find this.

A perfect falcon, for no reason,

has landed on your shoulder,

and become yours.

Once you emerge from deep rest, our mantra work is another seed-planting practice with the bij or seed mantra Har, which is Gurmukhi for ‘the creative aspect of the Infinite’. It’s a dynamic prosperity meditation with moving parts and eyes focused. The video below is the mantra meditation on its own.