Whew!  Between traveling, having guests, being sick - it's been good to get back to normal... whatever THAT means.

I finally have been able to get back into yoga class, as a student, with Amy Likins.  I don't know how she does it.  She teaches nonstop, and never has time to be a student.  I know she has a dedicated home practice (as we all should), but home practice means YOU are still the instructor.  It's priceless to let someone else take the lead, not knowing where you might end up.

So in class last night, Amy concluded the practice with bija mantra.  The bijas are seed sounds, each associated with the primal energy of a particular chakra.  Root chakra is lam, sacral chakra is vam, solar plexus chakra is ram, heart chakra is yam, throat chakra is ham, third eye chakra is om.  The crown chakra is described as the sound at the end of om, or a silent om.

As we sounded these bijas, an interesting thing happened.  First, let me say that all my babies seemed to like yoga.  They normally became very still during practice.  However, Peanut was very active in class last night, shifting and moving.  Peanut settled in during the restorative end poses, however.

So as we are sounding the bijas, I noticed Peanut's behavior changing.  It wasn't random.  Peanut was alternatively very still and very active as we moved from one bija, from one chakra, to the next.  Particularly active were heart and sacral.  Particularly calm were solar plexus and root.  This is interesting because the energy vibrations of the chakras alternate between ida nadi (the feminine, lunar, receptive, yin energy) and pingala nadi (the male, solar, expressive, yang quality).  Since we don't know if Peanut is a boy or a girl... wonder what THAT means???
 
A few days before my normally scheduled Saturday yoga, I start to feel around for inspiration.  Sometimes it's bright and shiny, easy to find.  Sometimes it's part of an ongoing chain.  Sometimes it's a thought or phrase that gets stuck like a skipping record in my head.  Such was the case last week.

I had a snippet of a song stuck in my head:  "I've got the hippy hippy shake!"  I kept trying to let it go, but it persisted.  So I embraced it!  We spent Saturday with lots of hip openers.  Our second chakra, svadisthana, is a creative, go-with-the-flow energy.  I went with the song in my head. 

The hips can hold a lot of residue and baggage.  Hip openers are detoxifying, both physically and mentally.  Often we are overwhelmed by the negative effects of detoxification.  For those of us with tight, stubborn hips, it's easy to get frustrated, and begin acting with force and criticism.  On Saturday I challenged my class, and myself, to let go with joy - to dance.

I was stressed about Cade's birthday.  Instead of focusing on what I couldn't do - I joyfully embraced a fun-filled weekend with him and the whole family.  He thought it was "awesome."

In the words of the poet Hafiz:
Every child has known God.  Not the God of names, not the God of don'ts, not the God who ever does anything weird.  But the God who knows only four words and keeps repeating them, saying "Come, dance with me.  Come dance."

It's really no mystery that "dog" is "god" in the mirror.  Wag your tail!