WATER
Welcome to Water Element
When I was doing a shamanic journey in my 20’s, I saw the path my life would take in three places. One vision showed me walking along dry riverbeds all over a Hawaiian island. “What’s happening here?” I asked. The answer came in one word. “Loneliness.”
We’ve been conditioned to believe things that are not worthy of us. Without solitude, we might not have the opportunity to follow the pathways of the soul that lead through confusion or loneliness or grief or fear into areas that have dried up for lack of tender presence on our part. The unconscious must be explored and revealed in order for us to retrieve what we deserve: the healthy flow of life force and spirit, tumbling, bursting forth within us, waterfalls leading to mirror-like pools.
Water flowing is like our nervous systems unbound, allowing life force to course through us. We remember that it is safe to allow our energy to flow. We can feel good. What a subversive act. Pleasure, sensuality, play, spontaneous movement, laughter, joy, expression of all forms, frees us to experience the beauty in life.
For the Water Element, try the Yogic Principle of Madhu Vratam – the Vow of Sweetness. I love myself even when I fail. I luxuriate in the senses for a moment longer than I might normally, taking time to taste the food, see the beauty, listen for the birds, feel my body. I celebrate everything I have been through to get here; everything I am is just right. And when I forget this, I will keep coming back to cultivate sweetness in my “inner room” so that solitude becomes more and more enjoyable. Spending time with others does too, because I find I don’t need outside affirmation as much as I used to. I can enjoy people for who they are without needing them to give me a sense of inner sweetness..
What are three things you can do to increase your inner sweetness during the Water Element module? Here are some ideas:
Put on a song and move any way that feels good
Stop negative thoughts in their tracks
Take time to ask “what do i really want?” and give it to yourself, whether it is lying in bed reading a really good book, climbing a mountain outside, going for a swim, or making yourself something delicious and nourishing to eat
Choose not to eat something because you know you will feel better if you don’t have that in your system
Take the pressure off. Soften into your body the tiniest bit and say, “you are doing sooo well”
Affirmations for the Water Element
It is safe to feel
It is safe to run my energy
Sensuality is pleasure in the way my energy flows in the body
Shakti Bandha Pelvic Freeing Practice
This series of rhythmic postures unlock power (bandha=lock and sakti=power).
In yoga, sakti is seen as a feminine force, the dynamic creative energy through which consciousness manifests in the universe. The primary quality of sakti is to move. When she can flow freely, her power is restored. Sakti bandhas are effective at releasing power because they work rhythmically to restore fluidity of movement in the pelvis and build strength to support that movement through repetition.
- Uma Dinsmore Tuli
Yoni Namaskar
This gesture invites the loving, compassionate qualities of the heart to nourish the creative and fertile womb or hara space. It also offers the opportunity for the river of energy that flows between the heart and sacral center to flow down into the earth and up into the heavens.
The experience can be deepened by using Brahmari or chanting AUM on the exhale.
Chandra Namaskar
Moon Salutations allow you to find a new sequence of flow within a series of asanas.
Water Yoga
Adding fluidity to your yoga asana practice and deeply stretching the stiff muscles in the lower back and hips releases the flow of energy throughout the whole body. Strength, a quality of earth, supports this flow.
Pranayama for the Water Element
The breath anchors a connection to the flow of emotions, as you become aware of its motion as waves. Explore the 9-count breath here, beginning to work with inner and outer suspension of breath (kumbhaka), just like the pause of a wave as it foams onto the shore and the moment before the next crest of the wave appears.
Water Element Pranayama Part II
The humming bee’s breath, Brahmari, induces a state of tranquility.
Mudra for Water Element
Mini Sensual Yoga practice
Take sensual yoga breaks throughout the day to stay connected to your life force. You can use the oracle of shuffle on your music device and play one to five songs, letting your body respond to the music in any way that feels natural to you.
Here’s a sample practice to inspire your own flow.
Herb Walk and Intro to Pelvic Steaming and Prayers with Plants
Take a walk through an herb garden in Maui and learn how to gather herbs for and prepare a pelvic steam. The benefits of pelvic steaming are numerous, and you will feel so nourished when you try it.
Pelvic Steam Written Instructions
You will also learn about clearing energy and space by praying with plants and water.
Water Ceremony
Start with a glass of water. Breathe prayers into the water and drink it consciously. Feel your feet on the earth as you walk to a nearby river, lake, or ocean. Open to the visual beauty, the texture, the sound of water. Move with it. Immerse yourself and let it wash you back to wholeness. Water is a part of you and you can release your worries and the flow of your emotions into her to carry, allowing you to float free.
Here’s a poem from one of my grad school poetry teachers, expressing water’s relationship to her:
I will enter you as hope enters me,
through blinding liquid, light of rain, and I
will stay inside until you send me out;
I will stay inside until you ground me.
We cannot outrun the rain. So many
summers I have tried. So many summers.
But when the rumble calls after the spark
there can be no escape. No outstripping
the drench soak, the wet sheath, the water caul.
This is more than you want to hear. Much more
than I want to tell you. Tabernacle
transporting my life from the desert, you,
the faith I am born and reborn into,
you, rescuer, deliverer of rain.
Ark, by Camille Dungy
When you look at the surface of the ocean, you can see waves coming up and going down. You can describe these waves in terms of high or low, big or small, more vigorous or less vigorous, more beautiful or less beautiful. You can describe a wave in terms of beginning and end, birth and death. Looking deeply, we can also see that the waves are at the same time water. A wave may like to seek its own true nature. The wave might suffer from fear, from complexes. A wave may say, ‘I am not as big as the other waves,’ ‘I am oppressed,’ ‘I am not as beautiful as the other waves,’ ‘I have been born and I have to die.’ The wave may suffer from these things, these ideas. But if the wave bends down and touches her true nature she will realize that she is water. Then her fear and complexes will disappear.
Thich Nhat Hanh