Day 8! Turn it on its side, and its the symbol of Infinity!

I had a chiropractic adjustment yesterday, and today when I woke up I was so sooo stiff. Apparently, for 23 years my muscles have been holding up my entire cervical spine, and they don't want to let go. Doc suggested that I get a massage to release the muscles, so today I did just that. While the therapist was working on my back, she suggested that if I felt resistance in my spine to mentally direct my breath to the cervical spine and the sacrum, particularly toward the multifidus muscles. Interesting that I just read an article last night that discussed the multifidus muscles in the context of a better way to perform backbends without 'scooping' or 'tucking' the tailbone.

The article recommended engaging moola bhanda (contracting the pelvic floor at the perineum), engaging the transverse abdominals, and expanding the multifidus muscles that run along the sacrum. Even while I was in Physical Therapy school I never even heard of the multifidus muscles, but I can feel them. I feel them releasing, as I lengthen my spine. This practice is hard. As an aside to the ridiculousness of the recent Missouri legislation to "tax" Yoga classes, tell me that Yoga isn't a spiritual practice. It soooo is. To breath, to inspire, is to breathe in the spirit. This breath feeds my little personal demons, who don't want my body to change even it means it will be more healthy, with what they really need to let go. It heals. Breathing does. Its 'inspirational'. The word "inspire" comes from the Latin 'spiritas', the same root word for the word spiritual. As I say in many of my Yoga classes: "Everything in Yoga is optional, except breathing. You have to breathe." And when you breathe, you draw in spirit.

After stretching out, a friend took my picture in Bound Lotus. Pretty soon I'll post it here.

When I sat today my chest was considerably closer to the floor, and therefore my head as well. I was able to grasp my right big toe. My head felt considerably more in alignment, my hips much more deeply open. The change was dramatic from yesterday! I don't know whether it was the massage or the opportunity to forgive someone who stopped by my apartment building today and asked to be forgiven. I was angry at first, over something that happened last Winter, and contributed to the loss of a 12 year friendship with someone else...but even as I felt the anger rising, I felt it dissipate just as quickly. Was it purely coincidence that this person came by, asking for me only by first name and I just happened to be downstairs in the lobby? If I hadn't been, the doorman probably would have turned him away...they are very protective of me, and other residents, and I am grateful for that. I think the shift to forgiveness physically opened my heart, and therefore the pose deepened, and it felt like a breath of fresh air since I started this practice. It was a taste of what it might be like to luxuriate in Bound Lotus someday when my shoulders, hips and heart are more open.