Week Three - Manomaya Kosha - The Mental/Emotional Body

Hello everyone,

Thank you to all who flowed with me last week for our exploration of the pranayamaya kosha, the energetic body. It was an invigorating practice, offering an invitation for release and renewal - just like the beautiful full moon last night! The May flower moon is a threshold time, potent, mysterious, and deeply regenerative. As the sunny days grow longer and more delightful, a moon-lit sky asks us quietly: what are you willing to let go of? 

A negative belief pattern? A hard-held, stubborn goal? An over-packed schedule? A need to control? Write it down on a piece of paper and burn it. Or bury it. Turn it into compost and watch what grows. I know a teacher who says that a thing cannot be released if you continue to hold it with your attention. Forgive it to let it die, and turn your mind to what can take its place.

This week we are returning to the element of fire, but in a very different way than last term! Now we are incorporating the layer of the mind - manoymaya kosha, into our journey through the koshas. The mind body is linked to the element of fire for obvious reasons. Fast. Controlling. Destructive. Powerful. Transformative. Busy. Wild. Purposeful. Emphatic. Clarifying. Whereas in March last term we utilised the fire element to ignite energy, agni, in the body - give a spring to our step, if you will - this week, in light of a steady summer flow, we'll instead use the awareness of fire to calm, cool, and focus the mind.

If you've ever watched the movie 'Kung Fu Panda' (yes, Kung Fu Panda), you may remember the scene where grand master oogway, the tortoise, tells Po that your mind is like a shallow pond of water through which you are trying to see your own reflection. When the water is agitated, all you see is illusion. But if you can still the water, allow it to grow calm, the answer becomes clear. 

When we work with the manomaya kosha, which is to say; when we work with the mental/emotional perception of our reality, this is the wise way forward. Calm the busy mind. Allow the likes and the dislikes, the worries and agitations, the futile resentments, the obsession with identity, the desire to be understood, accepted, validated - let it all relax, and observe through clear water that you are something far more and far deeper. 

Yoga teaches us that the only way to quiet the mind is by consciously returning your focus to something that is happening in the present moment. Your breath. The noise in the room. The space around you. A mantra. A mudra. A sensation. A feeling. But sometimes, when the momentum of the mind is truly strong, the easiest way to come into presence is with a bit of swift, structured movement. A balancing pose where we can focus our dristi, gaze, on the floor, and rise up by rooting deep. If you light a fire of awareness in the body, it takes that energy away from the mind. That's why people love to run, go to the gym, seek adventures climbing rocks and jumping off tall things - the mandatory attention to the present moment allows space in the mind, and if there is space in the mind, there is clarity in life. And also a great, buoyant relief. 

So, all that to say that this Sunday May 18th, the name of the game is stress relief! It will be a good one. Expect to breathe deeply, move camly, find balance, and enjoy a special invitation for a guided meditation, taught to me by my loveliest teacher ever, Sadhu Shri. 

If you haven't booked in, feel free to send a little message to save your space :) Class is as always at 6:30pm at Thrive, Greystones. Wishing you lots of ease and light! 

The Peace of Wild Things 

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

By Wendell Berry

Le grá,

Macha