what does it mean to be a hero?
What does it mean to be a warrior,
even if warring against the shite?
Bodes better to be a hero of the light,
rather than play the warrior’s might to fight,
for being heroic aligns one’s sight
with the way of the heart’s right.
The etymology of hero says the word was “perhaps originally "defender, protector" and comes from the PIE root *ser- "to protect”. Whereas a warrior is one who wages war, which comes from the PIE root *wers- "to confuse, mix up".
PIE stands for Proto-Indo-European, a linguistic hypothesis of shared origin among these modern languages: Spanish, English, Portuguese, Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu), Bengali, Russian, Punjabi, German, Persian, French, Marathi, Italian, and Gujarati. There are two theories on the geographic origins of PIE, both with Amazonian roots, one in the Eurasian steppes north of the Black Sea and the other in Anatolian terrain.
I'm looking into these origins today because we’re currently focused on the yoga poses named Warrior 1, 2, and 3, (Virabadhrasana 1, 2, 3) as well as Hero Pose (Virasana). The common Sanskrit root in all of them is *vira-, which has the Proto-Indo-European root *wī-ro-, meaning "man” and gives us the word werewolf! Virile and virility also come from this root and are words related to the energy of Virasana - seat/pose (asana) of the strong man (vira) - and Virabhadrasana - seat/pose (asana) of the strong man (vira) who is also good, gracious, kind, and beautiful (bhadra).
This is our last week in the current MYOGA Freedom seasons where, in both hemispheres, we’re featuring “Warrior” and Hero Poses. The Northern Hemisphere’s First Spring season has us exploring not only Virabhadrasana 1 but also the flying act of Virabhadrasana 3 as well as Hero pose, or Virasana. And in the Southern Hemisphere’s Fullest Summer we’re experiencing the intensity of holding Virabhadrasana 2 while we open what I call ‘the 4-doored vehicle of the heart’, as well as courting other heart-opening poses like Camel, Bridge and Dancer.
All are welcome to join - I teach in an accessible way and encourage you to both care for yourself and simultaneously tease out your edge in each breath. For the next few weeks we’re live on zoom 10AM UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) on Saturdays. That is 6am for EST in the US, 10am for London, noon in South Africa, 6pm in Bali, 8pm where I am currently in Australia. If that’s at all too confusing, or you’re reading this way past the date (as I periodically change the day and time) but still keen to get on the mat with me, be in touch directly :)
Virasana and Virabhadrasanas 1, 2, and 3 all share the same root of virile, meaning strong, especially of a man. Regardless of gender, in these poses we explore the strength required to be fully rooted to the earth. It takes courage to re-cognize that we are not only one with the Earth, we ARE the Earth.
And in Hero pose, or Virasana, we need to be flexible enough to fold right down to the ground. Heroic is being secure enough to be that humble. It’s here at the ground level that we connect with muladhara, the base chakra of stability, of one’s right to exist.
What then is a warrior, and do I want to continue to translate the Sanskrit this way? In these yoga asanas we’re not taking a boxing stance that protects the heart and throat with the raised fists. Whether we call it warrior or hero or something else, a strong man of beauty is one who is open. All the key points of attack - groins, belly, heart, underarms, throat - are where we are most vulnerable because they are areas of major blood flow. These areas of the body are wide open, indicating that a hero or a warrior is someone confident enough to be relaxed. They trust their ability to protect, defend, or wield confusion in war, as and when necessary.
Warrior 3 is a little more closed since all those places are tilted to face the earth, to honour the earth. However, we show our heroic prowess here by balancing precariously on one foot, with the whole front body hovering over the earth, as though flying above in homage. It's a beautiful pose (as the roots of its name suggest it needs to be) and it is truly exhilarating when we manage any version of it, even with a wall.
I love using the wall to find precision. Without the wall’s support as I’m learning and strengthening, I'm all too likely to hold everything up with the shrug of my shoulders and go wonky in my hips. By steadying my balance with my fingertips on the wall, I can square my pelvis to the earth and “turtle” my head towards the wall, out of the shell of my shoulders. I can also better hone what's happening in the root of the standing leg, by being sure I'm not locking the knee. Instead, I aim to lift the kneecap up by actioning the quads, and keeping the “eye” of the knee cap looking out over the middle toes.
Accepting the wall’s support can help you find all this, but the standing foot needs to be just the right distance from the wall. You don’t want to be leaning into the wall with your weight forward on the toes. Nor do you want to be reaching for it, weight on the heel with the shoulders likely strangling your neck! I say accepting the wall’s support because I reckon it’s another signal of a true hero/warrior/strong man who learns to strengthen through humility and trust; who is brave enough to find just the right relationship with support. Here's a MYOGA Freedom Restores practice to support you in playing with these ideas in your own body:
In MYOGA's Fullest Summer practice, brought to us by the heart chakra Anahata, we’re exploring what it means to “open the heart”. Here we edge into bending backwards, and we do it from the confidence gained in the stem-strengthening focus of the previous series, First Summer based in the navel chakra Manipura.
As we Trust the Longer Journey, we learn to be like a flower that begins to bud and then eventually to blossom, all atop a sturdy stem. We come to know, and to rely on, the core strength cultivated directly underneath in the stem, and also deeper below that in the root strength of the legs. As we cultivate the leg strength we're inevitably also toning the lungs, the wings of the heart, because the thigh muscles are our biggest muscles. As the legs strengthen, the breathing gets easier, even through exertion.
When you practice with me in strengthening the stem, what most call the core, you come to experience in your own body the multidimensionality of this support area. Most think of the core as only the front abs, but in MYOGA we come to know just how many layers of abdominal muscles we have that serve to corset the internal organs. We make friends with them all - vertical, horizontal, and diagonal - and also with the low-back muscles. As we find the front, sides, and back of the core, we then do the same when we move our attention upwards into the heart area.
I feel the heart as a 4-doored vehicle - front door, right side door, left side door, and back door. As we hold the leg stance of Virabhadrasana 2 and explore all of these doors, we experience what it means to be a hero of the light. We train to hold steady when we want to quit, when the legs are shaking and the shoulders are threatening to come up and take over. We continually stay aligned within our own right form, even in the face of fatigue and the balking of the mind at the intensity that makes us want to fall out of alignment and crumple to the floor, back to the earth we come from.
We school ourselves in Ujjayi Pranayam, Victorious Breath where the victory is not in panting, gasping, or grasping for breath, but rather in continuing to breath slowly and deeply in the face of intense sensation. We know our own evolving edge by how the breath sounds - any more and it’s too much; you’re creating more tension than you’re releasing. Any less and you’re not really engaging at all, and ought to ask yourself why you’re even here! This breath is often called ocean-sounding breath and like the steady sound of the ocean's waves we hear when we put a shell to our ear, the breath has a powerful ebb and flow, even through the immense sensations that come from riding the waves of intensity.
I've never been in an actual life-threatening battle so I can only imagine how counter-intuitive it must be to stay calm in the face of such danger. It's what all the training and boot camp rigour is for, no? To be able to withstand the worst and still retain some modicum of one's best. Best what? Values, I reckon. Intentions for why you're there in the first place. Defending LIFE.
In The Amazon Academy I would have folks hold standing squat, also known as Goddess or Kali Devi pose, for 11 minutes. In this video I did it for 45+ minutes!
But first it’s important to clarify why we're holding the pose. What intention will get us through staying that long in something that we know we will want to run from?
What are you willing to stand up for?
And what are you no longer willing to stand for?
There are so many yogis and yoginis now in the world, unlike when I was growing up and yoga was a fringe freak show. Imagine the energetic impact all those people could have for the Earth’s benefit. For it’s the Earth that makes our lives possible. I can just see thousands of people standing up for what matters most to them--that we all have a home we can call home, with beauty still left in it. I mean really, is anyone going to stand up for a chain store or a sweat shop or fracking fields? Is anyone inspired by those places? Inspire roots itself in spiritus, which gives us expire and respire and spirit. How we breathe is how we live. Spirit is nothing more esoteric than how alive you are in any given moment - how much you’re breathing in what-is and offering back the beauty and blessing of what could-be.
Beauty is how we know the world is good. Yoga’s “warrior” poses translate to mean strong and beautiful. Not just the strong and virile that can kill you with bare hands, but the beautiful, kind strength to protect what needs protecting. A hero, then, is not the one who goes about killing, but the one who prevents the killing from happening in the first place. There is grace behind the scenes here. There is true courage, which we all know by now is a word that originates in the heart, and which looks very different than the false bravado of the killer. It takes courage to cultivate care and to stand up for what you care for, as so many mothers do, like this one:
A hero is someone who has been cut down, who has been wounded, and who has wounded and cut down others. Yet they still stand, with all areas of vulnerability open. All scars visible. Willing to be wounded yet again. They stand clear and strong amongst the confusion that is war. Yet they are also willing to stand in the way of anyone who hasn't evolved enough to re-cognize the supreme value of beauty, and who therefore threatens beauty’s right to Be.
A hero is one who represents in thought, word, and action the contract of care we humans have for the world. A hero is the one who will not stand idly by while those who have forgotten (or never been taught) the value of all life in its biodiversified beauty, threaten the fates of the innocent.
A true hero has the so-called feminine strength of kindness at the ready, the kindness that will kill any act of unkindness. The care that will quash any thought of carelessness. The hero in our story is the embodiment of humble presence dancing with active engagement.
I'd love to know - What are you willing to stand up for? And what are you no longer willing to stand for?
I’m curious to know because next week we begin to build on all we’ve explored here. We’ll move from our embodied consciousness of courage, bravery and earth-centredness into the exciting energies of Autumn (S) and Brightest Spring (N)...