Deepest Winter Round 1--Infinite Beginnings

MYOGA SEASONS for Subscribers

Wishing a Warm Winter of New Beginnings to Northern Hemisphere folk!

Gathering decorative greens for the holy days with family in Halfway, Oregon, 2021.

Any practice you make the time to do is a valuable one, however I have systematized MYOGA Seasons to attune our internal energies and weather patterns - the chakras - with the external energies and weather patterns - the seasons. So those currently in the colder, darker time of the year, this session is for you.

We have just emerged from the shortest day and although the days will (gratefully) continue to lengthen from here, we are still currently in ‘deepest winter’. So, may your embrace of the depths and the shadows serve you as the burgeoning days draw you into greater light. While we do what we can to evolve out of the darkness in ourselves and navigate those who are still (however sadly or maddeningly) firmly seated in darkness, it’s imperative that we replenish our light stores.

Don’t underestimate the skill and value of laughter in the face of demons. One of our exercises in this Season is Last Dance of the Dying Bug, which is a laughing exercise that I made up. I felt it would be easier to laugh when we’re waggling about wildly on the ground, rather than standing awkwardly facing one another, which is how I first encountered laughing yoga while living in India! This short Good Morning Show session is meant to aid you in learning to laugh on command :)

Each MYOGA Season runs over 52 days and features what I call “tricky” poses, which can often be as seemingly “untricky” as Warrior 1, Tree, or in this Round’s case, sitting tall in Danda. By delineating the specifics of each pose, we begin to re-cognize levels of awareness that might be missing when other classes or teachers have us pop into a posture without first building foundations for it.

As we embody the winter energy of turning inwards, MYOGA’s Deepest Winter Season focuses on Forward Folds. Forward Folds are so often compromised because the ego gets caught up in the goal of taking head to knees or hands to toes.

So, if you haven’t done this practice in a while, or ever, please be patient with both me and yourself. Engage fully in each seemingly small aspect along the way and I’m pretty sure you’ll still by challenged. If not, be in touch!

Alternatively, if you find it all a bit too much, Restores, Sounds and Basics are great lower-intensity options for connecting mind, breath and body. I’ve popped some relevant practices in each of those modules below, so read on brave scout!

Seasons are intermediate level practice made up of 3 roughly-30 minute Rounds that build to, and culminate in, a final 90 minute Wrap-Up Round.

In this first 32 minute round, called Infinite Beginnings, we set some foundations on the ground with breathing, core strengthening and understanding the right angle between lower body and upper body. Throughout this Deepest Winter (Sahasrara Chakra) Season we’ll roll through the qualities of the bij (seed) mantras of Sa-Ta-Na-Ma, starting with Sa here in Round 1.

Sa indicates Existence, the Truth out of which All arises in its individuated form. Notice, in this first of the 4 Rounds, what the truth is for you of where and how you are right now. Only by accepting (one of our key words here) what is true for you, will you be able to shift from “what-is” to “what-is-desired”.

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

"First day for me and I’m sooo happy for committing to this, Eager for more after first session! Thank you :)"--Sarah

This next video is from MYOGA Sounds and is simply an edit of the same breathing we do at the start of this first Round of Deepest Winter. Here we play with Bahya Kumbhaka, or suspension of the exhale, when the body is virtually empty of breath. If you’re unfamiliar with Mulabandha and Kumbhaka, suspension of breath, or if these practices are inappropriate for you at this time, leave them. Pushpaputa, the mudra (hand symbol) is sweet and reflective of the approach we take to the practice, as it means ‘hand-full of flowers’.

How I structured this breathing or pranayama meditation is to reiterate the Sa-Ta-Na-Ma cycle, which is our featured mantra for Deepest Winter. Taken altogether this mantra indicates the idea of “this too shall pass” and gives us Sat Nam where we name (nam) our truth (sat/satya).

From Deepest Winter notes in my book Trust the Longer Journey:

As I’ve written before, I’m a great one for beginning again. If I’m having a difficult day, I cut my losses, do the best I can to treat myself well by eating well and attempting humor, and then I trust that a good night’s sleep will dissolve the main bulk of dissatisfaction or frustration so I can begin again the next day.

Taking a wider, more inclusive view is what allows me to find the nugget of wisdom or the kernel of truth in whatever the current situation is. If I’m then lacking the fire power in that moment to turn it around, I have learned to let go and trust the longer journey.

Surrender is not about giving up the overall journey, but rather giving up the struggle in the current battle. You’ve probably heard that pain is inevitable but struggle is a choice. It has taken me years to agree with this and, until I accepted this, I (ironically) railed against the idea that struggle was a choice! Surrender felt like giving up, like laying down and letting the world stomp all over you.

Thought is our element in Sahasrara, the crown chakra of transcendence, immanence, effulgence, acceptance, and boundlessness. Thought. How we think is how we live. Thought is so subtle that it is easily neglected as being un-impactful. Even in a world now filled with positive thinking and affirmations, we can still very easily think that thoughts are not enough to change circumstances.

We can also think we’re being positive by following the news and lamenting the state of the world, when, more often, its immense negative pull, pulls us under. We end up reiterating the pain, which further emphasizes it. Our energy plummets and our light dims.

If there is an action you can take to make the world a better place, take it! If not, or it’s not yet apparent how or what can be done, then be aware of how readily the world’s traumas and dramas will take you.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” ~Mahatma Gandhi.

The challenge of this simple statement (and again simple does not mean easy!) is that only you can know your thoughts. I often say to students, “You’re the only one who can determine what’s best for you in each moment, because you’re the only one in there! Yet most of the time even you’ve wandered off! Come home to yourSelf!”

I’m convinced that one day we’ll evolve as a species into wider telepathic communication. I remember reading a story in 5th grade about a planet that didn’t have spoken language because it would have been superfluous. Everyone could already read everyone else’s mind. I was fascinated by this idea. Imagine it!

If this were true, you’d be in a heap of trouble right quick if you couldn’t self-determine your own thoughts. Ultimately I’m of the belief that there is no hiding. You can’t hide from your conscience! Privacy is good, but hiding is an absurd delusion.

I had a private student once who was referred to me by a friend, because he knew she was highly sensitive and struggled in group environments. She was like a sponge that picked up all that surrounded her, even the unseen realm of other people’s thoughts. I didn’t know this last part until I met with her. I was excited about the things I had put together for her that I felt would help her strengthen her shield so she wouldn’t be so susceptible to others.

Yet when we met I found myself internally judging her, and even frustrated with her sensitivity. Over the years since that meeting I’ve wished I could replay our encounter with a more centred, compassionate and accepting attitude in myself. It’s possible that she could read my mind and she knew I was judging her, and for that I’m sorry.

So now I do the very best I can to monitor my slippery mind. I live as though there truly is no hiding. Just like I say in class with the physical body, “You can’t let go of what you don’t know you’re holding onto in the first place.” If your habit is to hug your shoulders to your earlobes, you can’t change that habit until you realize you do it in the first place!

And you will have to change it over and over and over. Each change requires awareness of where and how you are, and then re-making the choice of how you want to be, which requires energy to pull yourself out of the automatic nature of what you have been doing unconsciously for decades.

It’s the same with the mind. I can’t change my thinking until I am aware of what I’m thinking in the first place. Which is why writing is a good practice for making the mind apparent by putting it on paper or screen. Jed McKenna, author of The Enlightenment Trilogy, says that, contrary to common opinion, the mind is no place to do critical thinking! You need to get that shit out on paper, or screen, where you can clearly see it and assess it.

So Gandhi’s simple statement, if we were to live it in our lives, means we learn to exist strongly, with the tapas, or heat to burn through impurities, of Manipura in the solar plexus, as well as with the kindness of ahimsa, the non-violence of Anahata at the heart centre, and with truth, or satya, the core truth centred in Vishuddha our communication arena of throat, voice and ears. In other words, we learn to balance the fire of strong living with love and truth on all levels of being, from the most gross in our actions, to the more subtle of the vibrations our words make traveling through the air.

All of this alignment stems from the most subtle level of our seemingly-imperceptible thoughts. No wonder Sahasrara is considered the crown and, along with the Perceptive powers of the Ajna/Strong Eye chakra, connects into and activates the master glands of our endocrine system, the pineal and pituitary.

Such a task of thoroughness on all levels and layers could cause us to throw up our hands and give up, for feeling it’s all too much to manage. But when we take it a layer at a time (as we do in exploring the Seasons/Chakras over a full year), we learn the balancing of the fire to keep up and stay committed (Manipura/Navel), with the kindness to forgive ourselves and others (Anahata/Heart), aligned with the honesty (Vishuddha/Throat) and clarity of vision (Ajna/Brow) to know what’s what, and thus we begin to accept our right to infinite beginnings (Sahasrara/Crown).

I take a spirallic approach to the chakras, visualized below, because we are not linear beings and it is not helpful to act as though there is a finite beginning and a finite end. While we do evolve, especially when we intend to, unless you are a rare bodhisattva, we are never finished with the awakening. And, actually, even bodhisattva’s are in-process…

With MYOGA Seasons, we don’t pop off into nirvana at the crown when we ascend the hierarchical ladder of chakras, but instead re-integrate and compost that lightness into the base of our being by cycling from Sahasrara at the crown back down to the ground of Muladhara in the roots, as you can see detailed in my drawing below. And we keep rolling through the seasons and unfolding into greater ‘freedom from concern’ and reactivity.

MYOGA Seasons, drawn by Melissa Billington in 2010.

Here’s a supportive Restores session to round out the free offerings for this Round. Learning to let go is far more challenging for most people than it seems, and it’s a valuable skill.