In yoga all I hear is “the breath” is everything. Well, yes, I know I need to breathe to keep my heart beating and stay alive, but the instructors say Prana is the breath – the life force, intimating something more – there is a force greater than the physical that must be attended to – a spiritual heart. It has taken me quite some time to realize that powerful feelings of anger, depression, and hurt must be not only allowed to surface, but to also move through me – like Prana – like the breath. This is necessary to keep the spiritual heart beating. My morning reading said it so well:
“There are dangers in not letting such feelings out. Once out, there are also dangers in not letting such feelings move through. For just as our lungs must stay clear for the next mouthful of air, our heart must stay unobstructed for the next feeling we encounter.” Mark Nepo ~ The Book of Awakening
Therein is the marriage of the physical and the spiritual. Therein is the yoga class – the marriage of the mind, body, and spirit. The daily clearing out of the old to make room for the new. Pranayama breathing begins the class, every pose centers around normal breathing through the nose, each savasana is breath in and out, the belly rises and falls, and class ends with another breathing exercise. Everything is carried forward by the breath. The heart and mind must be cleansed of sediment by the breath, just as the body is cleansed by sweat and elimination everyday.
And so, as another day goes by, it is essential to my well-being not to let hurt, anxiety, or depression “set up camp inside of me”*…. and… I have written.
*Nepo
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