For weeks, everywhere I looked, the word “root” caught my eye.
“Hmmm… Interesting,”
I thought, as I was well aware that we were shifting from Summer to Autumn. The Late Summer, or Long Summer, as the Taoists refer to this time, is a time to root down into the Earth’s Essence: grounding the fiery heart energy of Summer, before the Autumnal winds of change come upon us like a storm.
So naturally, as I volunteered to teach a class at my yoga studio’s Open House Event, the class that came out of me was a Grounding Late Summer practice.
I guided everyone to lie back, and to take their thumb and ring finger into Prithvi Mudra:
Tapping into a Shamanic Practice, we saw our hidden repressions as neither positive or negative, but as Energy. And we could easily send this energy to the earth to be taken away.
The class couldn’t have gone better. Let’s just say by the time we came out of the final Namaste, we were all totally hit. Instead of a Group Om I felt the Group “Whoah!” Apparently, we all needed to be grounded, and boy were we grounded.
I shared with the class that I used to suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, that I used to fall into a deep depression each winter, but once I started practicing Taoism, I began to fully enjoy what each season had to offer.
Winter was no longer the “dark, cold days, where the trees have no leaves,” but had become an ultimate place of stillness to conserve my energy for the year ahead.
I left the class with this beautiful quote I saw at the local arboretum:
I could feel the shift in the room: from darkness to Light.
Along with the word root, another Theme of Awareness I had been experiencing was the practice of Reiki:
“a healing technique based on the principle that the therapist can channel energy into the patient by means of touch, to activate the natural healing processes of the patient’s body and restore physical and emotional well-being.” -Thank you, Google.
I’m more of a Skeptic-Yogi than say a I-Believe-Anything-That-Comes-My-Way-Yogi, so I was never quite sure about Reiki. Really, I was being irrational, and kept considering Reiki as “a training local yogis went through rather than committing to doing the real work and research of Self-Realization.”
Why go out, when that time could be spent going In?
So when Reiki kept appearing to me, I knew something was about to happen.
I looked around locally, “Am I supposed to get trained in this?” And as I looked, I read that it was a Japanese art. “Ohhhhhhh yeah. I forgot this is Japanese! Why did I think it was some sort of made up, middle aged, hippy woman shit?”
It all started to come together, the last spot for a free, 10 minute Reiki session was now completely open at this Open House event. “Go. You do it,” another teacher practically pushed me in.
I’ve had Reiki performed on me by my doctor yearrrrrs ago, with a great effect. When I left her office, I called everyone I knew from the rooftop parking lot, “I feel like I was just touched by an angel!”
When one approaches a Reiki Master, one must be completely open. You must clear the mind, the doubts, and prepare to receive.
As she was beginning the session she asked if I had anything she should be aware about.
“Well, I have chronic pain… and last night I had a dream,” I saw myself explain. “It may have been because I was teaching a Grounding Class today, but it was powerful. I have never Seen chakras before, but in my dream there was a girl in the room I just taught in. I could See her Second and Third Chakra, her Sacral and Solar Plexus Chakras glowing Orange and Yellow, but I could not see her Grounding Root Chakra glowing Red. I was very nervous for her, as it is important for the Root to be there First. Once I woke up, I assumed that girl was me.”
Little did I know that my Grounding Class was exactly what I needed before the experience that was about to take place.
As the Master performed her art over me, all I could think of was, “How shamanic?!” Her gestures and breathing: breathing in the air, blowing it out past me. I felt as if I should completely surrender into her. This Mother Spirit. This Healing Spirit.
I let go.
I saw a green wash within my mind’s eye. I could see the color green swirling in the darkness. “The Heart Chakra!” I thought.
I felt a space shift, and release from deep within. As I did, I felt that it was very deep, it had been completely untouched for years.That it was best to not look at it, but to let her just take it away. I focused my mind intensely on my Third Eye Chakra, with an intense feeling of surrendering to her. Whoah, I watched it as it went.
If I wasn’t so centered, I may have broken down.
The Centered Meditation Stone in the Zen Garden at the Arboretum
She kindly bowed toward my ear and whispered, “Do you mind rolling over onto your belly?”
I slowly took the posture she granted.
Her hands hovered near my head and shoulders, and I felt this slow spinning at my Root Chakra. I knew exactly what was happening. I thought, “The Kundalini snake!” but I was in such a surrendered state, that I did not allow myself to get caught in it.
The slow spinning unleashed an Energy that traveled up my spine, slow and steady, and made it’s way past the Second Chakra, to the Third Chakra, and then Stopped. Her hands left their hovering, and went directly to where this Energy stopped. The Energy released throughout my body.
The session ended, she told me to take my time getting up. As soon as I got up she pushed back in her chair and said, “Whoah.”
I waited. I wasn’t sure why exactly she said “Whoah.”
“That isn’t in the protocol. I was not trained to do that.”
All I could think of was “What? What wasn’t in the protocol,” but I kept silent.
“Not one person today. I don’t do that. I don’t flip people over like that. Something told me to tell you to flip over.”
I knew exactly what had happened, and I explained my perspective.
The Master and I had a chat for quite some time, as her Spidey Senses spoke to her that I was a type that was few and far between, and that she could be completely open with me about her Spiritual side. I felt as if this was only the beginning of our relationship, but it would be a while until we crossed paths in such a deep way again.
She laid into me that my breath was quite shallow, not good for a yogi, but I briefly explained, “I know it was. I saw that it was, but something told me to let it be shallow, to not do anything about it.”
Upon leaving the room, my awareness was completely on my breath. How shallow it was! How strange that my Voice told me to keep it shallow?
I instantly dropped my breath down to expand my belly with each inhale,
and I’ve been resting in this lower energetic area ever since.
Grounding down:tailbone down.
Big belly breath: expanding the space between each thought.
Mmm…
Ground down. Clear out. Let go.
Now that you know, welcome the flow.
the gluten free yogi 