Posts In: mother earth

by Laura McCorry

When I think about meditation, I think about sitting down someplace like this: quiet, peaceful, with yellow butterflies (the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail) flitting from blossom to blossom.

But being Mama to two little ones, I don’t always get to sit down when I meditate.

Sometimes meditation is simply the awareness of my own breath, breathing in, breathing out. Answering a question about turtles. Bringing my focus to the warmth of the sun on my back. Feeling a small fist close in a vise around my index finger as we walk further along the path. Breath in, breath out.

Even if I had arrived to this spot without the children, who both pull me away and bring me back to the present moment, the world interposes itself.

I can hear the rumble of a backhoe across the street, and the rush of traffic on a major road just on the other side of the park. I stay focused on the butterflies, and the dragonflies, but then come the bees, and the mosquitoes, and the ticks.

It’s hard to welcome it all in, to simply brush away the undesirable (and sometimes it’s scary). But this is the practice – of both meditation and life.

It’s not just quiet and butterflies. Life is also noise and chaos and the wide kaleidoscope of living things all sharing the same living earth and life-giving sun. Breath in, breath out. Can you see that we are all one?

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura(AT)yogaonesandiego(DOT)com

by Laura McCorry

Lately I’ve found myself more drawn to silence, more drawn to sitting still and taking in the world as it presents itself. Life asking to be noticed in a small, quiet voice. It hasn’t paraded into my consciousness with fanfare and demanded attention. (There’s enough of that already, and we all know the strategy works, at least immediately.)

As Franz Kafka wrote, “You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

These are some of the moments that stopped me in my tracks, when my only response has been to sit very still observing, listening:

• My daughter already in pajamas stacking blocks as high as she can into a tower just before her bedtime. 
• The sound of my friend’s voice who tells me that in the middle of the night, she will ask her husband who recently died to go comfort their baby. 
• The late afternoon sunlight illuminating a hand-brocaded Indian elephant on a square tapestry, how I see for the first time the sparkling gold threads.
• The stark black and white text from a friend asking for prayers while she sits beside her husband in the ICU. 

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by Monique Minahan

I sit on the Earth herself and hold a smooth rock in the palm of each hand. I dug them up when we moved into our house and I use them when I need extra grounding, like today.

Mooladhara chakra is rooted in survival and threatened by fear. It’s located at the literal “root” of our bodies; the Sanskrit word moola meaning “root” or “foundation.” Its location differs for men and women. For me, I visualize it deep in the cervix. 

“Lammmmmmm. Lammmmmm.”

I start with the beeja mantra Lam because sound has always calmed and focused me on a deep level very quickly. The mantra lets me start low. From there I travel within. Deeper than I want to go. 

I allow my thoughts to keep running, and for the moment I descend into the breath. It changes from a natural breath to ujjayi pranayam, and I focus on it like my life depends on it. Because in so many ways it does. 

Once I feel grounded here, the rocks heavy in my hands and my breath steady and full, I feel safe to explore. 

Now I can dance with fear. Now I can speak with fear directly. Now I can feel my fear without being swept away. I’ve been running from her ever since she showed her face during a recent illness.

Sitting with my fear is uncomfortable. It is sticky. It is all mud and no lotus. I want to run but I stay put. I stay present. I keep breathing, I keep observing, I keep listening.

Eventually I open my eyes for nasikagra drishti, nose-tip gazing. This is one of the traditional meditations for mooladhara and inviting my attention to hover just above the skin anchors my vision, which helps steady my mind.

Before emerging, I come back into my breath.

I visualize each successive exhale traveling down through the root of my body, into the ground beneath me, winding its way through layers of earth and liquid until it reaches the intensely hot inner core of our planet.

Then I imagine my inhale drawing all that earth energy back up, through layers of earth and liquid, up through the ground beneath me and into my root chakra.

Nothing outside me has changed, but something inside has shifted. Like the rocks I dug from the earth, I sense my fear has been unearthed, acknowledged and respected. In the pause before I move, I savor this moment of feeling both connected and free, grounded and lightened, human and being.

Part 2 of a 7 part series. You can find Part 1 here: Ajna, The Third Eye.

Monique Minahan
Contributing Writer

Mo is a writer and yoga teacher who believes in peace over happiness and love over fear. She likes to set her sights high and then take small steps to get there. You’ll find her walking the dirt path behind her house with her little fluffy dog, practicing walking her talk by keeping her head high and her heart open. Contact: moniqueminahan.com

 

Paper towels are everywhere you go. Have you ever stopped to think about how many you’ve used over the past month alone?

As yogis, we’re always trying to expand our awareness and make subtle changes to benefit ourselves and the world around us. Check out this short four minute video on how to use just 1 paper towel. Every. Single. Time.

Trust us, it really works! This one small change can make a difference.