today's gratitude

Where do I begin?

Well, all I'll have time to share today comes from my yoga practice.

At Shine in Hyde Park, the chant we intone at the beginning of each class is so beautiful that I want to share it with you. Today, since we were focusing on the second chakra, source of our personal sweetness, we chanted together while envisioning our words as honey dripping from our lips.

This reminded me of a Dan Nichols song my kids and I sing about the Torah: let us soak it up, let it all sink in, sweet words of Torah, sweet as honey on our tongues. But that's a whole other blog entry for another day ;)

Here, for right now, is the chant from Shine:
OM
Namah Shivaya Gurave
Saccidananada Murtaye
Nisprapancaya Shantaya
Niralambaya Tejase
OM

...which means "I offer myself to the Light, the True Teacher within and without, Who assumes the forms of Reality, Consciousness and Bliss, Who is never absent and full of peace. Independent in its existence; It is the vital essence of illumination."

Yeah!

Beautiful!

If you can, you should come and be part of that some time.

Anyway, according to the chakra system, our lower belly is the locus of the energy which connects us to other people, our center for giving, wanting and receiving love. The energy we radiate towards others comes from our second chakra, our root chakra, located between the navel and the pubic bone. Its Sanskrit name, which I've now forgotten, means sweetness. When we radiate sweetness, we invite sweetness; a good lesson.

I am grateful for this morning's gift of 90 minutes during which I was guided to learn about and focus my mind on this energy source while being led through some very beautiful and powerful poses by Wendy at Shine. A highlight for me was when we all held ourselves in "dancer's pose" (body horizontally balanced above one leg, with the opposite foot curled in the hand behind the back, while the hand on the balancing side extends forward) and another was a similar asana, rooted in triangle pose, from which we were instructed to tip over and visualize the self as a sugar cane bow, bending to launch an arrow of sweetness into the heart of one we love.

By the way, the bracelet I wear that facilitates my holding all these wonderful balancing asanas is from Power Balance Technology. So many people ask me about it that I thought I'd put that on here. You can buy it directly from the manufacturer or on ebay or amazon.com. I wear a size medium. It comes in many different colors, and basically, it enhances your body's cellular communication. I can't explain the patented science behind it, but if you have two minutes when you see me, ask for a brief demonstration and you can decide whether this is something you want to add to your basic wardrobe. No, they don't pay me to do this, but they SHOULD! ;)

Namaste, each and every one of you beautiful people, and have a great weekend.