| ONGOING WEEKLY CLASSES |
Please contact SMC Marin for directions to the studio. The Stress Management Center of Marin offers ongoing yoga classes, private sessions, workshops & Yoga Therapy training, massage, body work and much more. |
| WORKSHOPS & RETREATS |
Daylong Retreats at Deer Run Zendo in Corte Madera 9:30 to 5 PM Saturday, June 7 These days at Deer Run are a way to connect with others who are also exploring the practices of yoga postures and meditation -- in the silence of practice, during conversation at lunch, and in question and answer sessions.Meeting each other in these ways engenders a sense of community and helps us feel supported by one another. Deer Run is a lovely, intimate retreat space in which to practice, and is conveniently located. The day will begin with an orientation and meditation instructions before our first meditation, followed by a yoga class and another meditation before we break for lunch. After lunch we will enjoy some walking meditation, inside or outside, depending on the weather, a short talk and/or question and answer time, followed by a restorative yoga class with pranayama. We'll end with a final meditation. Please register in advance, by sending a check for $75 (please specify which retreats) to Patricia at PO Box 151183, San Rafael, CA 94915. Within a week of receipt of your check you will receive confirmation of your registration along with directions. ========================================================================================================= June 27-29 Weekend Intensive at Lulu Bhanda's in Ojai, CA |
| TUESDAY / 9:00 - 11:00am For seasoned students and teachers. |
| THURSDAY / 9:30 - 11:30am Mixed levels. |
Patricia Sullivan
| The Sacral Belly: The Jelly that Moves Us I think of the pelvic or sacral belly as an energetic hub: a small amount of movement from here magnifies its expression as it moves out to and beyond the periphery of our body. This area of the body is known by many names, including the hara or dan tien. I like to call it the "sacral" belly as it is intimately connected with the movements of the sacrum, and is situated right in front of the sacrum. A student of mine calls it the “abdominal brain”. The vital organs contained within the torso act as energetic storehouses and transformers of the vital force, prana, which comes in via the breath. As the Vijnana Bhairava speaks about breath, it comes "in and down". To the sacral belly, the hara. The sacral belly then transforms and moves us as we learn to direct that incoming life force, the prana. The prana is amenable to conscious influence, though it is not controllable. (Try to hold your breath indefinitely!) It "likes to", or naturally will fill all the channels of the body and flow through them and out again, just as water in streams and rivers migrates back to the ocean. We live in an ocean of prana and the more freely it flows through us the better. We are living in the midst of a pranic “Krebb’s Cycle”. We can be a better conduit for its passage, and a better conductor of its purpose if we encourage its movement from its gathering place in the belly outward. Thus life and connection are supported, and we manifest this through compassion . Like water in a stream which will stagnate or become polluted, or dry up if the source or anywhere along the way is blocked, so too, our body feels the ill effects of blockages in the flow of prana. Yogic understanding informs us that prana, awareness, and the breath are tied together, and like to travel together. Any one of these can be accessed to affect one of the others. The neurology of this area is also fascinating and evokes many possible sceanarios in my mind for healing and transforming old patterns of psychological holding. Because so many nerves are embedded in the psoas muscle it is always an intimate player in the fear instinct, and responds immediately to protect the life by contracting and closing the body toward and ultimately into a fetal like shape. Since we live such stressful lives today, and many of us carry the scars of threatening circumstances from childhood, or exposure to the horrors of war, and the threat of annhialation due to global warming or other such modern problems, the fear reflex is easily activated, and in many, constantly active. The reflex becomes conditioned or habituated, and is seen as generalized tightness and immobility in this area. Not to mention the toll it takes on our psyche and capacity for creativity. Thus, when initiating movement and stabilizing from the hara, one’s more inward turned awareness will sooner or later illuminate hitherto unconscious coping patterns. We may experience a range of feelings, from anxiety or nervousness, to dread, or sensations of nausea, tightness, shortness of breath. (the roots of the diaphragm, the primary muscle of breathing extend all the way down to the 2nd and 3rd lumbar vertebrae, and are anchored right next to the fibers of the origins of the psoas.) Sometimes memories will appear in the consciousness as new openings are experienced. In my experience, when the work of opening is balanced with supportive, aligning and strengthening work, and compassionate patience, one’s responses are also more balanced. While these feelings just mentioned may arise, there is also a sense of new possibility with these releases. I have noticed an profound increase in overall energy and confidence, as well as a greater capacity to feel the discomfort of the old stuff passing through without reverting to shutting down when they do appear. If movement is initiated from the pelvic or sacral belly, and awareness flows from there toward the periphery, then the life force will also flow thusly. The channels are getting cleaned out with each breath! As long as we are breathing there is an endless supply of this life prana, but it can get blocked for many reasons. With awareness and intention the movement of the prana through the channels of the body can definitely be enhanced. Blockages can occur anywhere and I believe are seen and felt as the aging process. Conditioned movement, thought, feeling and consciousness all affect the potential for how clear any of the channels remain. Healing may be more accessible through through any one (or more) of these modes, and some experimentation may be required to find the route to change. When one aspect is altered the others are also affected. When any aspect of our being is freer, that supports exploration into the other areas where heretofore perhaps that terrain was taboo. For example, freeing movement at the femoral-acetabulum junction has been experienced as a release of emotional holding: feelings connected to 1st and 2nd chakra correspondences, such as not feeling safe or deserving (1st chakra), and ability to allow feelings to move fluidly through one's psyche (2nd chakra). Initiating movement by centering intention at the sacral belly and outward from there means the musculo-skeletal system serves rather than leads the movement. The life force bathes these structures allowing them to heal and evolve to better serve the compassionate, wise being within. A refined sense of kinesthetically appropriate movement protocols will enhance, but also will be informed by this approach. I submit that the likelihood of new revelations unfolding is enhanced if a humble, curious attitude is cultivated while exploring this work. These insights and revelations manifest physically, mentally, psychologically, emotionally and/or spiritually, demonstrating experientially the interconnectedness of all aspects of life. In the Taittiriya Upanisad, when Bhirgu seeks advice from his father Varuna as to the essence of life he is instructed to meditate on "Brahmin" to discover it himself. He first discovers that "all life is food", or material, physical; “For truly, beings here are born from matter, when born, they live by matter, and into matter, when departing, they enter.” He soon realizes that this is not the whole picture, that there are phenomena of life and reproduction which require another principle than matter and mechanism. He returns to his father to ask again. The investigation proceeds from the obvious and outer to the deeper and the inward. He performs austerities and perceives that beings are born from the vital pricniple, life force, evolve with in that and depart into it upon death. But reflection requires him to look deeer and he sees that mind outreaches the previous two levels, though as he looks deeper still he sees the play of “intelligence” is beyond mind. Eventually he realizes that intellligence does not exhaust the possibilities of consciousness and cannot be its highest expression; intelligence contains spirit as its secret destiny. He never negates his previous understandings in favor of the new revelations, but rather succeeds in realizing that all is "Brahmin", that while each newly discovered level of existence is valid, though incomplete, the sum of all together in this symbolic figure of Brahmin, is greater than the sum of the parts, beyond apprehension or description, though definitely “known” in the gnostic sense. |
| Please NOTE: Patricia will not be teaching the week of May 26 - 30, nor the week of July 28 - August 1. |