I think it’s perfect
that we are reflecting on this story during the week of Mother’s Day. Anyone
who has ever raised children, or even babysat, knows this paradigm well because
children are really good at dancing wildly through life! When things start to get crazy sometimes the
best thing you can do is just get down and dirty with whatever is going
on. Join in the unruliness and let it
run its course. First and foremost this
story tells us that we can’t fight what is - life itself is a wild dance,
sometimes we just have to surrender to it and let the dance move through us, to
let the rhythm of the universe move us and just move with it.
I had a friend going
through a difficult divorce a few years ago and when the battle got really
fierce and she was feeling really angry or overwhelmed by it she would put on
some really loud music and just dance. Energy
needs to be moved through the body to be released, and dancing does that. Kali knew it, and my friend knew it – it was
cleansing. Music itself takes us to a
deeper realm of existence. It connects us to the intrinsic rhythms of our
bodies; the cadence of our heartbeat, the pulse of our breath, and when we move
our bodies in time with a steady rhythm like Kali we can become entranced. Surrendering into a dance connects us to
intuition, emotion and our primal source of being.
And yet there are
times we have to learn to tame the wild dance of life – when we acknowledge it
is happening but we have to do our jobs and take care of our families and pay
our bills. This is the opportunity to channel
it; to still let it move us but harness it and use it to propel us forward in
the direction we wish to go rather than control us. Fortunately yoga gives us the wisdom and the
tools to do both.
Off the Mat:
Dance! Put on your favorite song to rock out to and
let go! Here’s some inspiration from
Shiva Rea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRou8B31Hic
On the Mat:
This week in my
classes we surrendered to the music for warm ups, moving with the rhythm and
letting it move through our whole bodies, warming up from toes to nose. Then we worked on taming the dance, pulling in
to the midline to harness it's power to move us into radiant and
expressive arm balances, from Bakasana variations to Eka Pada Bakasana
Sirsasana II (my own crazy invention) to Eka Pada Bakasana. We stayed fully present to the breath as the dance
of the goddess within us, finding the balance of being breathed and consciously
breathing, dancing with Kali in all her glory.
For the Anusara
Junkies:
Open To Grace: Breathe
in and open to the dance of life.
Grip your fingers into
your mat to find an anchor point in the wild dance of life.
Muscular Energy:
Adduct the lower arms (in caturanga and arm balancing poses) to tame the dance.
Adduct the inner
thighs (in Bakasana) to steady the dance as it rages inside.
Hug the midline to
connect to stillness in the wild dance of life.
Organic Energy: (As the last step of Shoulder Loop) Expand your
upper back to find levity in your dance of this pose.
Press out from your
heart to your hands and your hips (in arm balances), making your dance lighter
and freer.
