Vrikasana at Feathered Pipe
I had the pleasure of observing my cohorts practicing Vrikasana at Feathered Pipe. In honor of each of them, today we ware celebrating this profound yoga pose with all our friends at the Feathered Pipe Ranch and beyond! As you can see, there are so many stages of getting into this pose, Vrikasana, and because this is a balance posture, the final product fluid. A good mantra for this post is: “It’s the journey, not the destination”…where are we going in such a hurry anyways?
You don’t need to practice yoga to know that we are brainwashed or unconscious into wanting to “get there first”. Whether it be arriving at the red light first or become the first of your siblings to earn an advanced degree or the first person on the block to get Christmas lights put up, we are all racing towards something. And needless to say if you have ever been to just one yoga class, you have caught a glimpse of a massive flurry of flailing arms out of the corner of your eye getting into Warrior 2, just for example.
I recently blogged about a week long yoga retreat with Elena Brower which can be found here. In the course of the week, I actually found myself slowing down more than usual in class, taking my time transitioning from downward dog into plank and vise versa. In between these poses there was this amazing luxuriousness that allowed me to feel my hip sockets shift and my stomach muscles engage and my lower back expand. That’s what 5 hours a day of yoga can do for you but I’m convinced we can create these juicy spaces in our lives at any moment. How about slowing down to listen instead of talk? Or taking a deep breath while sitting in your car before jetting off into traffic!
For me, animals have been one of my biggest teachers and at present, I owe so much to my cat, Kirik. To be fair, my newly adopted humane society full grown kitty has been mentoring me on this luxuriousness. He’s a traditional Siamese cat with silky soft fur, a low hanging Buddha belly and a complete rollover gig that expose the entire underside which I have dubbed “little bear”. He goes into “little bear”, all 4 paws spread eagle on average between 25-40 times a day, spending most of his indoor life on his back. I’ll have to dedicate an entire post on his be luxurious teachings.
So in these photos I see friends basking in the sunlight, being present in their bodies and moving into the Tree Pose right for them, in that moment. Hands overhead and apart, hands in prayer, arms wide open overhead…What parts of your day can you slow down to experience the space between two events, here and there, the journey so to speak. Or where in your life are you yearning to design and cultivate your unique talents?
Where are we going to in such a hurry anyways?
Smiles and Sunshine from The BlissinGypsy xo