Sensual Shamanic Yoga

Sensual Shamanic Yoga -

(image by Susan Seddon Boulet)

It was an intimate gathering this past Monday evening, the final class in Sensual Shamanic Yoga. Five of us gathered and held space for ourselves and the practice. I had been getting the hit for a week now to move deeper into animal spirit energy with the class. We began our class by heightening our five senses and moving deeper into scent, taste, skin sensation, sight without eyes and acute awareness to the subtle frequencies of sound.

We then journeyed to receive the animal that was most useful to merge with during the first part of class. Mother Spider appeared to me. We bowed and acknowledged each other and then merged into each other making the connection, linking our nervous systems. My legs spun inwards and energy surged up through my eight limbs and deep into the spindles of my belly. My hands were delicate but strong and four additional etheric legs spun out of my body giving me supreme balance held up by an octahedron of energy and many eyes. The animal body is confident and aware of the totality of her presence at all times. She never ceases to exist in any part of herself. There is never a removed sense of consciousness from any part of the body, she and the body have become one. Nature demands this unwavering presence for survival – to merge fully with the body, to align the body / spirit relationship with nature because the elements and the food chain demand existing in a constant state of oneness. The animal kingdom exists in constant meditation, fully in every present moment and hyper-aware of everything around it. It does not forget how to find food or build nests or migrate to warmer climates. It remembers; it opens to its truest state of being.

Shamanic Yoga Journey:

Getting in touch with the animal body ~

Tools, eye coverings, yoga mat, blanket

Lie down on your yoga mat in an area of your home you consider sacred and that allows for movement. Feel your body against the Earth. Begin to deepen your breath and settle into the body. Once you have settled begin to visualize yourself in place you feel to be sacred. This could be the room your are currently in, a place from your childhood, a place in nature or a magical place you’ve just created. Feel yourself in this new surrounding. Once you feel in a calm space in your new sacred surrounding, put out a call to your animal spirit, holding the intention that the animal spirit most appropriate for this embodiment journey will appear to you. Be open to receive whatever animal spirit shows up without judgment. Acknowledge each other with a bow and ask permission to merge with your animal spirit. When permission is granted feel yourself inside its body, its legs, its eyes, its heartbeat, its energy. Once the connection has been made, slowly begin to rise up off your reclining positioning on your yoga mat and move to your hands and knees maintaining the connection with you animal spirit. Begin to allow the freedom of movement and the merging of your energy inside the animal blueprint of energy to influence how you move.

If you have a yoga practice try two rounds of Sun Salutes in the energy of this animal to give your movement structure and be open to how the animal’s energy influences your yoga routine. After the Sun Salutes return to a gentle movement meditation on your mat in your animal body. Allow any new or intuited yoga poses of this animal spirit to rise up form within you and express themselves through movement and sound on your mat. When that feels complete, come to a resting pose and release the connection with your animal spirit. Ask your animal spirit if it has anymore information that is useful to share with you at this time. Acknowledge your animal spirit with a bow or other gesture of gratitude and journey back fully to your human body. Move through two rounds of Sun Salutes on your mat intending your human body and human energy. Close your practice with Savasana or seated meditation.

Earth My Body

Earth My Body is a sensual movement meditation on the physical body as a microcosom to the Earth Body Macrocosom. The low phonations pitches in the music were channelled when directly connecting to the Earth Bodies internal moans. May we continue to expand our understanding and deepen our awareness and relationship with our holy bodies and Her holy body.

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Earth My Body ~ A Sensual Movement Meditation

Love & Blessings,

ISIS

The Keening

The Keening is a movement meditation on Grief; a journey from heartbreak to healing. It is only when we can fully sit in our grief, to embody and feel it completely that we can then move through it. Without conscious acknowledgement and embodiment, grief lurks in the collective shadow and clings to us mercilessly. A week after the Haiti Earthquake, I was attending a yoga class at the studio in midtown I frequent. I was on my menstrual cycle, usually a woman's most psychic, powerful and empathic time of the month. As such, I had been offering healing meditations to people of Haiti earlier that day. When we sat in the beginning of the yoga class, our hands in prayer pose to join in the sound of Om, my wrists began to experience pain they had never felt. The pain was so severe that tears began to stream down my face as we chanted. I felt the grief of Haiti in my wrists. The heightened empathy of my menstrual cycle plugged me into the collective pain body and global suffering from the Earthquake. A week after the quake, I felt our disjointed movement of aid, hands giving and hands unable to receive, the disjointed flow of energy as mothers reached for children, children for parents, long distance relatives for missing family. The flow of life form one hand, not reaching the other. A flood of grief moved through my body. I felt the desperation of the Haitian people, the grief of those trying to support a community in chaos and the grief of the Haitian people not being able to receive aid due to the unstable environment. I offer this short film as a meditation. To move through the places in the physical body where grief is being held and to move through the collective pain body where our ancient and collective grief is held. May we all experience universal healing.

The Keening