If you don’t like doing a full split because it just feels too intense, or you are too far away from the floor and you feel unstable and worried about tipping over and tearing something (a legitimate concern!) there are some modifications that can help you get there by reducing the discomfort of the full pose.
Caroline Myss describes a couple of lessons she learned early in life that helped her to understand how energy works in the body.
The first was an assignment she had in a journalism class in college where the instructor was trying to emphasize the importance of objectivity in accurate newspaper reporting. Objectivity was defined as being emotionally detached from the subject on which you were reporting and seeking out only the “facts” that describe a situation. The professor asked the students to imagine that a building was on fire and that four reporters, each standing on a different corner, were covering the story. Each reporter would have a different view of the same event. Each would interview the people on his or her own corner. The question the teacher posed to the class was: Which reporter had the real facts and accurate viewpoint? That is, which reporter saw the truth?
The other one involved an encounter with a Native American woman in Alaska. This woman, Rachel, told Caroline that “Life is simple. You are born into life to care for each other and for the earth. And then you receive word that your time is coming to an end and you must make the proper arrangements to depart, leaving behind no ‘unfinished business’. You must make your apologies, pass on your tribal responsibilities and accept from the tribe its gratitude and love for your time with them.”
Rachel then told Caroline that she was going to a ceremony the next night. A man is preparing to leave the earth and he will give to the tribe all of his belongings. He will lay his tools and clothes in a long dish. The tribe will symbolically accept his belongings, meaning that he will be released from any tribal responsibilities so that he can complete the work of his spirit. Then he will leave us.
Caroline asked Rachel how the man knew he was going to die. Rachel answered that the medicine man told him. Caroline wanted to know how the medicine man knew these things. Rachel said, “How is it that you do not know such things? How can you live without knowing what your spirit is doing and what your spirit is saying to you?”
These events helped Caroline to understand that “truth” and “reality” are only matters of perception. She eventually came to understand that we weave our spirits into everything we do and everyone we meet. She also came to realize that our life choices express our spirit and affect our health.
Caroline began to use her gifts of intuition and symbolic sight to help people see why they have become ill. She eventually made the connection between disease, healing and personal power. She now says that power is the foundation of health.
She describes her journey and her apprenticeship as a medical intuitive and she uses this book to teach people how to discover their own intuitive abilities. She claims that everyone is born with intuition and that it is less a gift than it is a skill that can be cultivated. She teaches us the stages in this book.
The single most important question that people have asked throughout history has been “What is my purpose in life.” Caroline answers this question simply and profoundly. One’s purpose is to live in a manner that is consistent with one’s spiritual ideals, to live the Golden Rule every moment of one’s life and to live every thought as a sacred prayer.
In this book Caroline Myss invites you to learn to pay attention the subtle energy shifts that you feel when you enter a room filled with people. She will attempt to teach you how to read the energy and health of every individual in the room. Even more importantly, she shows you the tools you need to discover how to discern in detail your own energy and every factor that is draining your intellectual, physical and emotional power.
Quantum physicists have confirmed the reality of the basic vibratory essence of human life, which is what intuitives sense. Human DNA vibrates at a rate of 52 to 78 gigahertz (billions of cycles per second). Life energy is not static and intuitives such as Caroline can evaluate it.
This book will give yocu detailed information on the seven power centers of your body. These centers are critical regulators of the flow of life energy. They represent the major biological batteries of your emotional biography. “Your biography becomes your biology” – this forms the center of what Caroline teaches.
This book presents how the major religions understood that the Divine is “locked into our biological system in seven stages of power that lead us to become more refined and transcendent in our personal power.” Caroline ties together the metaphysical meaning of the Christian sacraments, the Tree of Life of the Kabbalah and the seven chakras of Hindu and Buddhist teachings. Since knowledge is power, the knowledge presented in this book is the key to personal power.
In this chapter, Mr. Broad covers how yoga seems to stoke the fires of creativity. Yoga seems to produce a retardation of mental functions, moving us out of the left, analytical and sequential hemisphere of the brain into the right, more holistic, intuitive and creative side of the brain.
Yehudi Menuhin (1916 – 1999) was an American-born violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in Britain. He is widely considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century. In the height of his career he began experiencing physical and artistic hardship. By the early 1950’s, he was complaining about aches and pains, of tension and deep fatigue and of the impossibility of getting any rest. His art was suffering. In 1952, while traveling in India, he met BKS Iyengar. The ensuing yoga lessons gave Menuhin feelings of deep refreshment as well as better control of his violin. Mr. Menuhin declared Mr. Iyengar his best violin teacher and wrote a glowing introduction to Iyengar’s book Light on Yoga.
Besides Menuhin, there are many famous creative people who have also practiced yoga: Leopold Stokowski, Great Garbo, Sting and Carl Jung, just to name a few. The problem is that we don’t know how much yoga influenced their careers.
The inspirational power of yoga seems to arise, at least in part, from nothing more complicated than the release of psychological tension and the quieting of the mind. In this chapter, Mr. Broad looks at the power of yoga to act as a muse. He considers everything from the difference between the right and left hemispheres of the brain to the production of neurotransmitters that create a state of calm to the phenomenon of rising Kundalini energy.
Over the years, a number of intriguing clues about the relationship between yoga and creativity have come to light. Other topics more central to the discipline – health, fitness and safety – have received more attention. Have you noticed that yoga has had an effect on your sense of creativity?
Parivrtta means revolved, turned round or back.
Parsva means side or flank.
Kona is an angle.
This is revolved side angle pose. It is a deep twisting posture that forms the foundation of many other twisting poses such as Parsva Bakasana, Side Crow and Eka Pada Koundinyasana I, a twisting arm balance. As we play with this pose this month, we will see where it leads us.
Parivrtta Parsva Konasana looks like Side Angle Pose with a twist, however, it is more related to Warrior I as the hips are facing the front leg, rather than turned open. It is a harder twist than Revolved Triangle Pose because of the position of the bent knee. The bent knee locks the hips in and restricts the twisting action in the lower back. In Revolved Triangle Pose, the twist is more evenly spread over the length of the spine. It is for this reason that Revolved Side Angle Pose can be therapeutic for the low back. But, it is also a caution to allow the spine to twist organically and not to try to force the twist. We will use other more open twists to prepare the body to come into Revolved Side Angle Pose.
The nature of twisting poses is that they change energy. If you are feeling stuck and lethargic, twists can help you get unstuck and energize you. On the other hand if you’re feeling wound up, twists can release energy and calm you down.
The thing about twists, however, is that when we run into difficulty in this pose we literally run into our self. Our own body gets in our way. How do we sit with the energy of that? What does it bring up for us? Does the judge or critic show up? Do we get mad or frustrated with ourselves? Do we try to use our arms for leverage and try to force ourselves into some external, or preconceived idea about ourselves? This is the interesting, inner work of the pose.
Pay attention to your breath while practicing Parivrtta Parsva Konasana. We generally use an exhalation to come into a twist and an inhalation to come out. Once you are in the pose notice your breath. It will be a little more restricted , but can you still breathe easily?
Mr. Broad opens this chapter by stating that sex was never a topic discussed early in his yoga experience. That same has been true for me. I knew that in early yoga some sects were completely devoted to the ultimate orgasmic experience. That was a part of the roots of Tantric yoga and where the Kama Sutra came from. But that was never a part of the hatha yoga I knew and practiced.
That’s not to say that there weren’t sexual interactions happening between yogis, or between yogis and their teachers. Is that because yoga heightens sexuality? Or because people are sexually attracted to each other? It may not have anything to do with yoga.
There is often an interesting power dynamic between students and their teachers that is especially true when a teacher reaches “guru” status. A charismatic teacher naturally gathers followers and some devotees go to great lengths to win the favor of their guru sometimes giving up their own agency and powers of discernment to get ever closer to that teacher. Often this power and adulation corrupts the “guru”. I’ve seen this happen in Anusara Yoga, I heard it happened at Kripalu and you can watch how it happened in the recent Netflix movie about Bikram.
Mr. Broad mentions that the topic of sex in yoga has become more prevalent recently, again not in my experience, and touches on the science that describes how yoga can induce relaxed states by influencing the parasympathetic nervous system and how that can lead to states of arousal. While I found this information interesting, it is not something that I find useful for teaching my public classes.
He makes references to a text called the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, is a classic fifteenth century manual of hatha yoga. The work consists of four chapters that include information about purification (satkarma), posture (asana),breath control (prāṇāyāma), spiritual centres in the body (chakra), coiled power (kuṇḍalinī), force postures (bandha), (kriyā), energy (śakti), subtle/gross bodily connections (nāḍī), and symbolic gestures (mudrā), among other topics. The other topics refered to are esoteric practices like drinking urine and those practices related to enhancing sex. This text is an interesting reference, but not something I recommend that my students go out and buy.
