Week Four ~ Air and the Vayus

A Chairde,

Week Four already of our yoga term this Sunday! Thank you all for being there last week :) It was a lovely warming core practice to mark our theme of fire, agni. The vital spark. Digestive organs were moving. Muscle fibres were burning. Brain neurons firing and rewiring. Learning to move calmly and gracefully within struggle and challenge. 

This Sunday in our Hatha and Soft Stretch classes we will be considering the element of Air. I come from a windy place out on the Aran Islands, so when I think of air I naturally think of strong winds; forceful and inexhaustible energy that pushes and pulls you one way and the other. The kind of air that somehow tugs and shoves at great weights in the ocean long enough to create enormous waves. The kind of air that lifted my trampoline out of our garden when I was a child and flew it two miles east to land in my friend's cow field. 

This is one quality of air; to create anarchy. 

Of course, we also breathe air. Peacefully. Calmly. Automatically. We need it. The French word for drawing air into the lungs is 'inspirer'. To inhale is to inspire the body. That same anarchist energy that can steal your tent at a festival is also lifting your spirits throughout the day, creating literal and symbolic expansion within you. Air is giving you life; prana. 

The yogic word for breathing is pranayama. Here we have two words and two concepts put together; the first word - prana - refers to lifeforce, an aliveness flowing through your body via channels (nadis) that are simultaneously moving in the direction of your vayus, your inner currents. These vayus are often referred to in yoga as winds, the directions of your energy flow. 

The second part of pranayama is yama; which means to master or control. Yama is also the Hindu God of death and justice. So even here within this well known yogic word of pranayama, which simply means breathing technique, we have an understanding of balance between the anarchist, free, life-giving energy ~ to inspire, to breathe in ~ and the energy of restraint, control, and sacrifice ~ to breathe out, to release. Pranayama is a concept of life and death. The inhale and the exhale. Expansion and contraction. 

With Hatha yoga most of what we consider is how to get our energy moving again. How we might address what is blocked or stagnant within us and create shifts. The vayus are a wonderful topic of discussion and exploration for this - the idea that we have specific directions in which our energy moves around within our body; and that some channels may be more free and lively than others. For this week's practice, you might consider this one very important word: inspiration. Are you inspired? Can you feel that energy inside, pulling you towards ideas and people out in the world? If not, how might you free yourself from rigidity and create a shift?

I'll be honest ~ as I have been contemplating the element of air this week in preparation for our Sunday practice, I've realised how subdued the quality is for me personally. That feeling of purpose. The lightness of jumping out of bed in the morning, excited for what is to come. The spontaneity of having an idea and following it through, however bold or inpeteous it may be. I think when we have too much control, too much routine, too much yama in our lives - our natural inspiration can get smothered. Not enough prana. Our inhale can literally feel caught and restrained, because our diaphragm doesn't feel the permission to release. I've actually been feeling this! A muscular catch in my diaphragm that shortens my inhale. Coincidentally happening at the exact same time my life returns to its strict September school routine...

I had a beautiful conversation with a friend a few weeks ago. She is a newly trained breathwork facilitator and we were chatting about how intense experiences could be following a good pranayama practice. I remember we said that it felt like having an 'inside breeze', to sit still after creating all that shift within the body. An inside breeze! I love this idea so much. I'll put it on a t-shirt one day. Unlocking your vayus by intentionally creating a little storm within you, lighting the spark for a little anarchy. Then when it's all settled again, sitting and enjoying the pleasant sensation of an inside breeze. New experiences. New ideas.

So, air for me is BOLD. Air stirs things up. Air inspires. Air shifts. Air is free. Air moves. 

Please consider what you might want to move this week :) I have drop in spaces available in both classes, so just give me a shout to book your space! 

Le grá,

Macha

“Ode to the West Wind”

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until

Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)

With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

 By Percy Bysshe Shelley