Asanas

Neck Rolls
Pretend there is a beam of white light coming out of the top of your head and as you revolve your head you create a circle of white light around you. Your neck will make many sounds if you roll slowly and continuously, a cacophony of stories - some the freeing of energy and some the cracking of tension released. Calcium deposits and gases, and nerves, muscles, and ligaments, blood and bones are being pleasurably massaged all over.  We have to start at the neck, for being women we hold lots of inhibitory trips in our throats - little girls don’t shout so million of screams are held in our throats and our necks hold much (formerly) unconscious tension which it is necessary to encounter at the beginning of yoga practice.

Balance is vital for yoga, so if you roll your neck seven times to the left balance that with equal revolutions to the right. And do this very slowly, even slower, smoother with the spirit of dance. No callisthenic consciousness. You are in grace and therefore truly graceful. Your breath is natural and relaxed - feel the relaxation spread down to your shoulders like a cape. Your arms hang freely and they too are limp with relaxation. Feel your breath travel down to your finger tips. When you wear no armour at your neck, the kundalini raised by your yoga practice will pass freely up your spine to the top of your head.

This is realization of your inherent progesterone bliss.

Folding to Squat
Gently come to a stop and balance your head directly over your axis. Begin inspiration through your nose and carefully, slowly drop your head by allowing your neck muscles to let go and continue dropping your head while exhaling through your mouth, lips loose and relaxed. Feel your spine, vertebra by vertebra, following the lead of your head down toward your feet while you exhale deeply (as deeply as you previously inhaled until your hands, then your palms touch the ground. Your arms up to this moment have been dangling freely. Now you will use your arms to support your body and rest here on all focus, weight equally distributed between your hands and feet while you let your uterus hand loose. Bend your knee to avoid placing any stress on the back on your knees. Now you are inhaling deeply through your nose, and when you have finished, begin to lower yourself, in to a squat by bending your knees.

End up in a squat knees in your armpits, legs open as you are open. Feet as parallel as possible. 

Squat Passive
Feel the life flow, for this posture is a bio genetic one - the natural grooving position. Soon your hands and feet will be warm to the touch, warm with the flow of energy. Focus on your heartbeat and allow blood to permeate all your tissue. Imagine blood now carries oxygen to your baby and that you have a window in your womb and see pulsing placenta nourish and sustain, blood bringing life to baby .. a totally together universe manifested in the space of your uterus.

Squatting is the natural posture of rest and composure. People all over the world squat easily and women all over the world have babies easily and painlessly. Western pregnant women tend to sit in chairs, often with legs crossed, thus strengthening sets of ligaments that are an opposite of an open pelvis. If you must sit in chairs, draw your legs up in the half lotus posture of hatha yoga or “tailor style” or comfortably up higher than your hips with your pelvic floor open. Sitting in a chair with your legs crossed is psychologically the posture of “closed” ladies and to have a baby, one must be an open woman.

Now place your thumbs ever so lightly on either side of the bridge of your nose. Slowly apply pressure by bringing your thumbs toward one another. This open ups your sixth chakra, and if you extend your fingers somewhat like antennae, you will stimulate the 72,00 nadis - sort of the nerve network of your aura (some call it soul others call it an elector-magnetic field) that surrounds and complements and corresponds with the nervous system of your physical bodies.  This mudra reportedly relieves headaches sometimes by allowing tears to flow. Place your palms over your eyes wide open so that you see darkness - heels of hands placed on cheekbones, fingers holding forehead.  Rest your eyes, the muscles around your eyes. This is a mudra that can be integrated into the yoga of living daily, between chapters of books upon awakening (especially good for unravelling dreams).

Dreams: stories with secrets essentially for you to discover. As the hormone of pregnancy, progesterone, alters your consciousness, so do your dreams take on new levels of meaning. Dream about having your baby-women dream all situations for their upcoming childbirth experience, giving birth magically, realistically in colour and naturally giving birth to kittens, chimpanzees, avatars, our mothers, monsters, and a loaf of French bread all buttered and sliced. Listen to your dreams, dance them, paint them, play with them, finish them, live them - then go on to bigger things.

You have been squatting for a long time now. Good. Don’t bend over anymore, squat instead - another yoga of daily living benefit. Squat when you take a shit.

Adjust your spine with great respect and tenderness for the central Mt. Meru of your being.  Trust your head to your hands and twist carefully. Probably you will release more tension in the form of crackling sounds. Exhale and relax as you turn your head.

This is a point of transition. The next posture is a standing posture. Rise from the squat in slow movements, the reversed folding to squat with coordinated breath i.e. inhaling with the beginning unfolding movement, then exhaling at the all-fours-dangling uterus movement. The inhalation as you stack each vertebra, one-by-one by your spinal column movement is a good solid transitional movement.  However, you can make up your own - something that makes you feel centered and ready for the next posture.

to be continued…

Read Part I