Archive for January 23rd, 2008

Snake. But as RF would say, “It’s not what you think…”

Posted in ashtanga yoga on 01/23/2008 09:15 am by karen

Zazen ahead of Ashtanga practice. Upper palate connection to pelvic floor. Immediately accessible. And today, the kinesthetic image of a snake appears. Surprise!

Cut to thought of Freeman’s audiocast: about Nada, the snake with an infinite number of heads. Related to kundalini energy – and he mentions it rising out of the spine of the Buddha as he sits, forming a canopy of infinite heads shaped like a cobra’s hood. Astonishing image.

There’s no way to adequately paraphrase RF, that’s for sure.

And then my legs disappeared. And I guess everything else, though I didn’t think about it. Just spine, top to bottom.

My heart, recently made transparent and removed by the cybershalamates, wasn’t missed. How can this be?! It feels like a great discovery. Though it doesn’t feel like anything in practice.

The upper palate/pelvic floor thing (is it just an associative thought? a metaphor?) held the key to keeping that snaky spine thing even in Ashtanga practice. Well, not in urdhva dhanurasana, though. Another thing to go looking for…

***

And in the midst of all of this mystical experience, at Marichy C, The Cop comes up with a burp. Oh, not just a burp. An eating-pizza-drinking-Pepsi-watching-a-UFC-fight championship-winning kind of burp. I glance over and he’s got a huge grin.

Need grounding? Me, yes. Him, not so much.