Conscious Footing

Pada Bhanda

Foot seal

Connecting all aspects of our feet to the earth is a sensation that feels grounding, stabilizing, and steady.

The practice of yoga allows for this awareness of conscious footing by exploring all the ways the foot, ankle, and lower leg can move, support, and strengthen.

Press into all four corners of each foot. Become aware of how the inner heel, outer heel, great toe pad, and small toe pad make contact with the surface you are standing upon. 

Once you feel into these areas, begin to lift the heel and press into the base of the toes.

Press into the heel and lift the toes.

Move the foot around and press into the outside aspect of the foot.

Press into the inside aspect of the foot.

Curl the toes under and lift the heel to feel into the top of the foot. 

Explore these various positions within each foot and notice how you feel before, during, and after. 

Increasing sensation around the foot heightens our awareness of how we step into our lives. It is possible to become more consciously connected to our feet, to stand with confidence, to leave an imprint with respect for the earth, and perhaps extend that connection as action into our world. 

Each month a FREE community class is offered as a resource that incorporates mindful breathing, movement, and meditation techniques. As a person who has anxiety, I have found these practices to be beneficial for coping, support, and connection. 

Community Class

Virtual Slow Flow Yoga

4/28/21

730p-845p ET

email: heronyoga@gmail.com for link

In addition to offering a free class, every month I highlight an organization that supports the needs of others and make a donation to their efforts. My hope is that others will donate $$ that would be spent on a yoga class to a cause that needs support. 

Together Rising is a non-profit organization that delivers help and aid directly to the communities in need. This month their dedication is to urgent COVID relief in India and around the globe. 

Back To Your Heart

 

"To breathe your air, tend to me. Tell me what you want and I will try to be. Everywhere, all the time.
 Think about the future, let the past unwind. Cause you are the shining sun.
The summer comes, I leave again for you. Back to your heart." 
Lou Barlow

What would happen if we listened to our hearts for just a few moments a day?

A moment being one full breath within the body. 

A moment with hands connected to heart space.

A moment where thoughts are kind, generous, and gracious.

What would happen if we spent a few moments honoring where we are in this moment? 

Would the grief and sadness lift? or would it remain? Maybe these emotions would stay, but move over to make space for both at the same time?

If I can create a moment of awareness for myself, can I create one for others too?

Moving, breathing, meditating is my therapy.

Sukhasana Garuda ~ Eagle arms in seated easy pose opens the shoulders and upper back.

This offering brings awareness to the breath while gently opening the back of the heart.

Imagine your wings extending out behind you, soaring as an eagle surveying the land below. 

What do you see? Is your vision more discerning when the view becomes clearer?

Change your position, change your view.

As you lift your elbows, find an arch in the upper spine. The shoulder blades slide down, tucking the chin toward the chest. 

Notice sensation. Notice your thoughts. Find a way back to your heart.

Enjoy this ~35 minute Slow Flow highlighting the head, neck, upper back, and shoulders.

Expansive Presence

"There are as many atoms in a single molecule of your DNA as there are stars in the typical galaxy. We are, each of us, a little universe."

Neil Degrasse Tyson

The picture 'Galactic Reflections', was taken by National Geographic photographer Babak Tafreshi. This gorgeous view of Mars (on the left), the Milky Way (center), Jupiter (on the right), and Saturn against the galactic center visible from a High Sierra lake in California, about 10,000 ft. away from light pollution is revealed by the camera lens in its natural color state. 

In the quote above, Neil Degrasse Tyson relates the concept of science to Tao philosophy; 'the human body is a microcosm of the universe'. Every system inside our body works together, constantly restoring balance and equilibrium. 

With exercise, curiosity, rest, and nourishment every cell in our body can thrive and shine, just like the stars in the sky. 

Yoga is about experience, observation, and connection, with ourselves, with others, our collective community, and beyond.

When we practice self care, we have the capacity to increase our compassion as action into the world.

We will move, breathe, and meditate into our expansive presence.  

Virtual Slow Flow Yoga 

Wednesday 

730p-845p ET

This is a pay-as-you-can class ($5-15).

Click here to sign up via Paypal.

*No class on 4/21/21

FREE Community Care class 4/28/21

If you are having issues with the link, or you don't have a Paypal account, please email me.

Once you pay for class, members of your family/household are welcome to attend. 

I'll send the zoom link by 6pm on Wednesday. 

If you have any questions/feedback or requests for practice please reach out. 

Feel free to share this offering with anyone who may be interested.

See you on the mat!

Michelle

The boys and I made fiery flower mandala in honor of the April New Moon.

Our monthly ceremony is sweet and simple, it is a process of remembering our connection to nature, ourselves, and each other. 

Spring Shifting

 

"You are the sky. Everything else - it's just the weather."

Pema Chodron

April is here with fragrant blossoms reaching toward the sun, robins searching for food from the softening ground, and buds forming on the trees (pollen!), but the cold winds of March are still in the air.

Season to season transitions unravel slowly, there is a constant quality of change. We can see and feel this as the weather shifts in spring, showing up as snow, rain, clouds, or sun as nature begins to wake up from winter. Just like the seasons, we awaken to these in-between moments of shifting within movement, breath awareness, or mindful concentration as we meet the daily fluctuations within our day. These changes can overwhelm us through our emotional reactions or steady us with the constancy of knowing that this too shall pass. 

When we take the time to notice these moments, we have the capacity to meet ourselves within all the shifts of life. 

April offerings from my home to yours...

Virtual Slow Flow Yoga

Wednesday evening

4/7/21 and 4/14/21

730p-845p Eastern Time

This is a pay as you can class ($5-$15)

Click here to sign up via Paypal

*NO class on 4/21/21

FREE Community Care class 4/28/21

I share virtual classes that focus on moving, breathing, and meditating. The style I teach is a mash-up of hands on meditation in the form of reiki, slower paced movement, longer held poses, breath awareness, and mindfulness. The classes I share are open to anyone who can move from lying to seated to standing positions. 

I offer free guided meditations on Insight Timer and free movement videos on YouTube. Once a month I teach a free community care class highlighting an organization that promotes equity, anti-violence, anti-oppression, environmental protection, social and racial justice. 

For April, I am supporting Stop AAPI Hate and Moms Demand Action.

In the past, I have supported other organizations and charities listed below in no particular order.

BEAM

Generosity

World Central Kitchen

Audre Lorde Project

Black Visions Collective

Black Lives Matter

Trans Justice Funding Project

Ocean Conservancy

I understand we all have different values, ethical standards, morals and wish to support various groups that align with our personal beliefs. There are so many causes to fight for, take time to consider what is important to you, your family, your neighbors, your community, and our world.