the movement
honor ancestors, serve descendants, nourish all
What do you call lifeforce?
My nieces take to sidewalk chalk like fish take to water. With color of choice in hand, any outdoor surface is a canvas. The above photo is the five-year old’s rendering of a peach. I ask, “Why is the peach smiling?” My question is met with a monetary expression of confusion at my inquiry. Emmeline’s big brown eyes sparkle as her little chubby hand indicates to the friendly fruit and she patiently explains “The peach is smiling because it is a peach.” Noted, little one, thank you.
Emmeline perceives an animating energy in a peach and shares her awareness of the world through her creative expression. The roots of yoga teach us the animating force in all life (animal, mineral, vegetable, astral and beyond) is Prana. The Chinese call it Chi. The Japanese call it Ki. The Maori in Australia call it Mana. There are probably at least thousand more names from a thousand more traditions I have yet to learn.
I wonder, can the same notion be translated from this pictorial peach to humans? Humans smile because we are human. Humans laugh, learn, hop, huddle, climb, compose, run, relate, dance, dream, (you fill in the blank) because we are human. Perhaps all the possibilities of human experience and expression are simply the myriad of ways prana is moving through us.
The moment passes, and we are swept into the next backyard adventure. Ever curious she is in a low crouch with her face (literally) less than an inch away from a centipede. I chuckle to myself as I observe her inquisitive form follow the insect as it treks hundreds of tiny steps. Humans are creative and curious creatures.
If the youngest among us sees a canvas in concrete and prana in a peach, might we (adults) allow ourselves to recognize our own cellular structure (body) as a canvas, and allow vital winds (prana) to play through us?
Mana in the Music.
With the longer days of summer upon us there are plenty of hours to wander outside and see people at play. In the city park I hear an acoustic guitar and follow the woody vibrations to the source. An elder is resting in the shade of a tree, his eyes are closed, no need to see the strings as he strums. A breeze rustles the leaves, the dappled sunlight dances around the elder. For a spell it is as if the wind whispers mana through the tree, the elder, and the guitar emerging as music to float in the air once again. Wind is a cherished reminder that as manifest energy (prana) moves through us, the through is the key. Rather than viewing our human bodies as lock boxes of a scarce resource of energy to fuel our lives, can we appreciate our form as a channel for the infinite flow of prana? The roots of yoga teach us the nature of prana is flow and ebb, expansion and contraction rather than a fixed entity. I am grateful to have witnessed the elder simply playing to play. It is a powerful lesson to hear in the music. The sound is sweeter when we act without need for personal pride or external praise.
Here one day gone the next
On an outing at the beach, we come across this great sand person. This costal creation was there one day and gone the next. Even though the sand artists knew the tides would roll in and wash away their work, they did not stop their collective scraping, piling, gathering, and amassing this giant-jolly-beach-buddy. What a potent reminder for me to witness group effort without attachment to the outcome. The roots of yoga teach us that all action is to be taken without attachment to results. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna explains to Arjuna, you have the right to your work but not to the fruits of your work. The sun-kissed sand sculptors were unperturbed the tides would dissolve their happy hustle. I am reminded of the effort in each daily movement practice. As the sidewalk chalk is washed away with rain, my own daily practice dissolves into space as I chant Om to close the practice. And yet, like the sand sculptors, I do it anyway. Why?
To cultivate inner awareness.
In my personal experience a daily movement practice enables me to be a better conduit. Breath and movement exercises help to remove obstacles for the physical flow of bodily fluids like blood and lymph and set up the conditions within us for the stream of intelligent life force (prana) through heart-mind-body-spirit. Like my fellow creative creatures, when I release my tight grasp on the outcome of any endeavor, I am releasing my need for success and the fear of failure. I release inner distractions in my mind like self-judgement and doubt which are stubborn obstacles to creative expression. Mindful movement practices, meditation, and breath work all cultivate inner awareness.
As our mindful movement practice matures, we become more adept at recognizing subtle shifts and distinguishing what aids in the continuity of prana and where we can dissipate blockages. For example, while maintaining a yoga asana (posture) we become more perceptive to the feeling of alignment, the sensation of breath in and out, and the fluctuations of mind. Inner awareness becomes a valuable tool on and off the mat. The alignment we gain in the practice shows up in our functional movement in activities of daily living. More importantly the subtle awareness of mind-emotion-body-spirit aids us in the act of getting out of our own way and letting the prana flow.
The invitation is to move and breathe. May we honor the prana in the peach, the mana in the music, the chi in the jolly giant sand person, and realize that same life force is flowing through one and all. For however long we get to exist together on this precious blue planet, our role in the vast universal flow is channel rather than attempt to capture.
July 2023