Thank you all for joining me here on this beautiful new day of spring,
On the day of the vernal equinox,
Also referred to as the spring equinox.
It's a day in which our dark has been changed into the light.
The light will start dominating for the rest of this year as we begin to have today with the equal parts of day and night.
It marks a new beginning.
So thank you for joining me in this practice.
It's a day of setting intentions for what we want to see manifest in the course of this year.
So like a calendar year,
Like January 1st,
Like your lunar calendar new year,
This is also a significant time and any set of intentions that you put forth,
That you put out there to the universe will see yourself manifest.
My flow is going to be as follows.
I'm going to be doing a breath work,
A pranayama practice to open your heart,
To prepare your mind and your body to receive the deep work that we're going to be doing today,
Followed by the matters of the heart and understanding the spiritual significance of the spring equinox.
And I'll do some intention setting,
Some blessing,
And then give you some tips on how you want to be spending,
How I suggest that you spend the course of these next few days as we begin this astrological new year of the spring equinox.
So I ask that you go ahead and downshift your gaze,
Close your eyes as we prepare to go into this practice of pranayama that is going to help us to come into the state of presence into the here and now as we prepare our body,
Brain and mind and using the breath as a beautiful way to cultivate a sense of presence.
I ask that you please go ahead and put one palm on your anahata chakra,
Your heart,
And the other palm on your swadhishthana chakra,
Which is your sacral chakra just above the mooladhara,
So just below the nabi,
Which is your navel.
And I ask that you take in some nice,
Deep,
Comfortable breaths.
Breathing,
Using the dive from as you allow your navel to expand out and away from the spine and then squeezing it back in as if you're squeezing a bagpipe back towards the spine.
Now you could be doing this practice either sitting up or lying down,
It doesn't matter.
Just allow your eyes to close and let your attention be completely on the world inside.
And breath is a beautiful anchor to take that attention within,
To the place where it really matters.
Now if you're doing this right,
You should be observing the rise and collapse of the palm that's on your belly and not so much the one on the chest.
Intentionally allowing the belly to expand,
The nabi to go outwards and then squeezing it in.
Let's complete this a few more times.
This is the foundation of breathing well.
Breathing as if your life depends on it.
Breathing like this through the dive from helps you to send a signal to the brain that you are okay.
Everything is okay and that you're safe.
And the brain then in turn sends a signal to the body that it can relax,
That it can rest and rejuvenate.
Now after this next inhalation,
I want you to blow the air out through your mouth as if there is a mirror and you're trying to fog the mirror.
This mirror right in front of you can feel and gets fogged up.
Can your exhalation be slightly longer than your inhale?
Notice the sound like the one of an ocean coming out as you're exhaling this mist onto that mirror.
Breathing through the nostrils and exhaling from the mouth.
Inhale and then exhale for as long as you can.
Extend it as best as possible.
Now allow your palms to rest right at the Mooladhara.
What is your root chakra?
Let your left palm be below,
Palm facing up,
The right one laid on top of your left palm,
Both palms facing up.
Your elbows relaxed,
Your shoulders dropped,
Your jaw relaxed,
Eyeballs holding no tension,
Increasing your brow,
Allowing your belly to soften.
This next exercise,
Take an inhale and we're going to use the sound of the buzzing bee as we exhaling.
The mouth is closed.
It releases with the sound of a hum.
Make sure your eyes are closed for this practice.
That's very important.
Inhaling nice and deep,
Allowing the bagpipe to fill and as you're squeezing it out,
It comes out with a hum mouth closed.
Next third round.
Use your tongue to see if you can move that humming to different parts of your facial cavities.
Now I ask that you go ahead and close your ears,
Sealing your ear drum with your thumb and then go ahead and put the middle and the ring finger over your eyes,
Taking a deep inhale using just three fingers to seal the orifices of the ears and the eyes.
And then you're going to go ahead and release with a couple more hums.
Let's do this two more times.
Nice deep inhale and release with a hum mouth closed,
Eyes closed,
Ear drums closed.
Next round.
Go ahead and rest your hands.
Bring it back to that asana of putting the left palm below the right palm above it,
Both facing upwards towards your jaw.
Loving the breathing to reach a natural state of five in through the nostrils and five out through the nostrils.
And this last exercise,
If you're wondering if you had headphones on,
That's okay.
Just allowing your thumbs to be right next to your ear drum.
Your ear drums are already sealed.
Then that was that.
You can just close your eyes,
Close your mouth and you can feel the reverberation,
The resonance inside the sinus cavities in your head.
This is like an internal massage for the organs in your head.
Acknowledge how this Brahmarie exercise or the buzzing bee exercise has shifted your state of being and how you feel right now.
With this cycle of five in and five out.
Making sure you're barely breathing and not you're breathing from your chest.
I'll give you instructions for the next round.
And in this exercise,
We'll be doing extended holding or bandha where we will pause between the exhale and the inhale.
So what you'll do is you'll take a nice deep breath,
Filling your belly,
Letting all of that air out,
Squeezing every last ounce of air out and then holding for a count of 10.
I will do the counting.
You do the holding and then progressively we will increase the hold time.
So first round 10,
Then 12,
14,
16,
18 and the fifth round,
We'll get to 20 seconds of holding.
Believe me,
You can do it.
You have tremendous capacity and there is great benefits of this bandha exercise.
It helps to increase the oxygenation.
You need to be counterintuitive and saying how can holding be more beneficial than oxygenating the blood?
But indeed it does because it actually helps with the chemical balance where you're allowing the carbon dioxide buildup.
And that way when you do inhale,
You're creating a greater amount of transfer of oxygen from the air in through your lungs,
Lung tissue into the bloodstream.
So trust me,
It has tremendous benefits.
So let's go ahead and take in a deep breath into the belly,
Squeezing out.
And at the bottom of the lungs,
We're going to hold,
Hold till I tell you.
Five,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One,
And inhale.
Exhale and hold.
Five,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One,
And inhale.
Exhale,
Third round,
Count of 14.
I'll do the counting.
You do the holding and hold.
Five,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One,
And inhale.
Squeezing,
Letting every ounce of air out,
Letting go of what the body does not need and then holding.
Five,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One,
And inhale.
Both round,
Count of 18,
Squeeze the air out and hold.
Five,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One,
And inhale.
Exhale.
And this time we hold for the last time,
A little bit longer.
I'll do the counting,
You do the holding.
Five,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One,
And inhale.
Well done.
Allow your breathing to come back to the natural cadence of five in and five out.
Just even regular breathing from the belly,
Equal count of inhale and exhale.
And for this last pranayama practice,
What we'll do is that I will ask that you fill your belly nice and full.
And as we're exhaling,
We will release that with the chant of the word om.
And we'll do that three times.
Let's together inhale.
Om.
Inhale.
And second.
Om.
Om.
Om.
Om.
And allow yourself to drop into observing how your body,
Brain,
And breath,
Have changed in this last 30 minutes that we've been together.
Notice how you feel right now.
Acknowledge the slower pace of thoughts,
The ease of your breath,
And the lightness you may be feeling in your entire body.
Now welcome to this new beginning,
Into this new body,
This new breath,
In this new year of the astrological cycle.
Today is the spring equinox,
And it symbolizes a time of a new beginning.
It is the time of rebirth.
This vernal or the spring marks the freshness that is entering into the world,
Both inside and out.
And on this day of the equinox,
We experience a balance of the day and night,
Equal amounts of light and day.
And even as the days have been growing since the winter solstice in December,
Even after three months of lengthening of the days,
We still see less light than darkness over the course of the day.
And so this vernal equinox marks the turning point.
When daylight begins to overtake the darkness,
As we here in the Northern Hemisphere tend to lean towards the sun again,
This is the time of the year when we begin to experience more life force,
More creative energy,
Both with our minds and our bodies.
So what does that mean?
As the darkness diminishes and the light increases,
You may feel a building of creative energy,
Imaginative energy,
Like a lifting fog,
Like pulling out a sleepy blanket that you've been curled up under for the past few months.
This could be metaphoric blanket or a literal one.
In the darkest months of the year,
We were encouraged by energies to go within,
To be in silence,
Be in that inner darkness.
It's so soft of a death.
Now where you can go wrong is in fearing that our inner world has also gone dark and the light may never return.
Now just like the world turns around on its axis and it brings the return of the light,
We also have to realize that there's a returning of our own light,
Our own energy,
And bringing richness to our internal garden.
Now sometimes this is difficult to trust,
Difficult to trust that your life has a purpose and a meaning when you're not being very productive in the course of the day.
But it is the rhythms and the cycles of the earth that show us and encourage us to rest in darkness and our love for the light to unfold us and help us blossom without forcing or making things happen.
Imagine that you have an internal tide just like the sea.
Remember we do live on the earth after all and we're made up of 75% water.
So imagine that you are being influenced by all of these amazing forces at work in our universe.
Even the ones we have yet to understand and the ones that we will never see and may never be aware of.
You experience cycles just like the earth and the sun and the moon,
Though most of us do not realize how our internal states of being are influenced by these energies at hand.
Often we feel confused,
Restless,
Stuck or even powerless to change our mindset and state of being.
The return of the light presents us with an opportunity to take the time to release our fears and to surrender into new intentions for ourselves.
Most of us live our lives so disconnected from our internal guidance that when we feel the pull of our hearts become so strong and the voice inside has been muffled for so long,
The feeling that arises within us feels more like a life crisis than an emergence into something more beautiful.
Now is a time for celebrating the freshness of life and taking the time to raise our energy to regenerate abundance and manifest our dreams.
Physically we are experiencing more light right now and since the beginning of time our ancestors have marked this period with ritual and celebration.
As you probably know there are thousands of ancient sites created all over the world around this idea of the solstices and the equinoxes and they were built in honor of our connection to these celestial bodies,
To the sun which is our source of light and life force.
Now I invite you to do something to honor this auspicious new beginning in your life.
Say a blessing for your life and the life force living in your body.
Let every fiber in your body feel this blessing as you say this to yourself.
I love and accept myself.
I love and accept this body.
I will nourish it through loving thoughts in my daily meditations.
I am worthy of love,
Relaxation and joy.
My good intentions will become a reality.
I am not defined by my mistakes of the past.
I deserve a good life.
I am worthy of happiness.
I am learning.
I am growing and I'm excited for this new beginning.
I believe in myself.
I believe in myself.
And make a commitment to go within and be silent each day.
And I love your internal guidance and let us know that you are listening and intend to have open lines of communication from here on out.
Let your inner voice know that she's in fact very important in your life.
And you're going to listen a lot more and you have an intention to be in joy.
And when we shift into this wonder and curiosity,
You will find there is an opening to a deeper wisdom.
Your power is a shift from the perspective where not knowing could be seen as weakness or being powerless to a new way of being where wonder and curiosity are the ultimate source of power and strength.
Connecting with your deeper desires does not involve knowing the answers to all your questions.
Because it's only not knowing that you can truly be receptive.
And it's only in being receptive that you can truly discover,
Learn and evolve.
In becoming truly honest with yourself and learning the practice of unknowing and non-attachment to the outcome,
You are inviting new possibility and natural flow in your life.
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
You might find yourself asking,
But where do I start?
How do I begin?
Begin with answering the call within,
Listening to the voice of your inner guidance.
And fear is normal.
This fear of change is normal.
But there are ways to learn to overcome your fears and start acting on the guidance within that will lead you to your happiest life,
Lead you to your natural way of being in the world.
So in this next few days,
I invite you to do something fun.
Be playful.
Invite your own divine spirit to come out and play for a while.
It's springtime after all.
And in the words of Olav Haug,
It's your way.
No one has marked out the road you are to take,
Out into the unknown,
Out into the blue.
This is your road and only you will take it.
And there's no turning back.
And you haven't marked your road either.
And the wind smooths out your tracks on desolate hills.
As I bring this practice to a close,
I invite you to play with a few ideas in these first few days of spring.
Number one,
Bring each day to begin it with an open heart.
Allow yourself to open your heart to all the possibilities that are yours,
If you choose to take them.
Open your heart to loving kindness,
Gentleness and joy.
Allow your heart to wander in the dream of those possibilities.
And begin each day with a meditation.
Number two,
Plant your seeds of intention.
This is a time of creation,
So become a collaborator of creation by asking yourself,
What does the universe want to accomplish through me this year?
What talents are waiting to be surfaced?
How do I want to shine?
You can access all of this wisdom by reminding yourself,
I am light.
Number three,
Be kind to your body.
We hold so much tension in our bodies.
So take time at least one hour every day to treat yourself as a retreat.
And that could be a walk,
A hike,
A swim,
A workout,
A massage,
Mindfully eating your favorite dish or whatever.
Whatever it is,
Do it for yourself.
Number four,
Remove anything that does not serve you.
The Aries warrior energy that we are in right now says you have a choice.
So what areas in your life are you holding back?
What are you holding onto that no longer serves you?
Let go and let love flow.
Number five,
Actively seek and find gratitude.
In every moment,
Find something for which you can be grateful for,
However big or small.
It could be as simple as a hot cup of tea or as magnanimous as a promotion at work.
Use this mantra,
Let me be happy to bring more gratitude and you will become a conduit of energy that you wish to embody.
Number six,
Acceptance is the key.
Whatever walls you may feel limit you at this point in time,
Acceptance is the doorway to their transformation.
We can allow these walls to fall as we fully embrace what is here.
Dream big,
That's number seven.
You are your deepest driving desire.
Soon there will be a powerful conjunction of Jupiter and Neptune which supports making your biggest dreams possible.
Keep a dream journal,
Set daily intentions and meditate regularly to stay clear and deliberate in the direction that you wish to grow in.
Ask that you please bring your palms together at your heart center in prayer position.
And acknowledge for yourself how do you feel right now.
Ask that you please go and rub your palms against each other,
Invigorating,
Cultivating,
Generating chi.
The palms are an energy vortex and as you use abrasion to kindle this energy,
This life force,
You may notice a warm ball of energy rising,
Being created between your palms.
When you feel that ball of energy,
When you feel that chi,
I want you to cup both your eyes,
One with each palm and I love this light,
This energy,
This chi to percolate like a light wave through your body from your head all the way down.
Resiliting,
Rejuvenating and protecting you.
And I ask that you please bring your palms back together in prayer position at your heart center.
Let's find a moment of gratitude and grateful for someone or something that made this moment possible right now.
At your own pace,
I want you to drop your palms to a position of rest and open your eyes ever so gently.
And then whenever you feel ready,
I invite you to share the one word of how you feel right now in the chat.
Thank you for joining me in this practice.
