Last week was a yoga week based on that liquid element. Fluid, feminine, it rhymes with life, intuition, emotions and its corresponding mudra: VARUNA MUDRA, join thumb and pinky and stretch the middle 3 fingers.
“The fact is that life is like the river: endlessly moving on, ever seeking, exploring, pushing, overflowing its banks, penetrating every crevice with its water. But you see, the mind won’t allow that to happen to itself. The mind sees that it is dangerous, risky to live in a state of impermanency, insecurity, so it builds a wall around itself; the wall of tradition, of organised religion, of political and social theories. Family, name, property, the little virtues that we have cultivated – these are all within the walls, away from life. Life is moving, impermanent, and it ceaselessly tries to penetrate, to break down these walls, behind which there is a confusion and misery. The gods within the walls are false gods, and their writings and philosophies have no meaning because life is beyond.”
J. Krishnamurti
Postures
They activated the circulation of fluids, blood circulation and lymphatic circulation through the body.
They stimulate the endocrine system and massage our kidneys.
We practiced the following key poses: MAKARASANA (the crocodile), DHANURASANA (the arch), SUPTA-VIRASANA (the hero) and many VIRABHADRASANA II (the warrior), with arms free and floating like the fins of a Spanish dancer.
& meditation with VARUNA MUDRA visualising images of water for deeper relaxation.
We should be like water. We are water.
It is the matter of dreams, of an infinite softness and a profound blue… water flows, slips, emerges, fresh or warm, clear, spring-like. Water takes all forms, soaks up all colours, combines substances, is strong… it gives life.
Our bodies are made up of 70% of water. What if we imagined our bodies like a landscape that lets itself be irrigated, filtered through, drained, bathed, by our cells filled with water? We could become our own gardeners.
Yoga, amongst other things, is a way to allow ourselves to float free, with gestures that ripple gently over a plane of water we can picture… often :))
I asked you to visualise this water, bring to mind a beautiful and familiar scene, calming and reassuring, during the practice. I imagined the Mediterranean Sea, more exactly a little pebble beach of Tinos, in Greece, and a pure blue water into which I like to dive, swim, and float like a starfish for hours… and what about you?
Isabelle Esposito 