Wednesday, December 9, 2009

From Liz: All the way to my finger-tips.

It's funny that you mention lengthening your toes. I just got a pair of those toe-stretcher things (they look like this, but are a cheaper drugstore version). I put them on once, found them excruciating. I'm not sure my feet are built for them. I'll give them another whirl.

I have noticed that after years of yoga, I have prehensile toes. I can write my own name with both feet. I'm bi-pedextrous, dude. How's that for a siddhi?

But I'm on to a new trip: my finger tips. I've been imagining them as antennae, little vibration receptors/deflectors. They are the extremes of my extremities. They are the final frontier of my annamaya kosha. Coming up onto my finger-tips in a lunge, obviously the classic place to access their power. Not that these fleshy pads are magic in themselves. It has less to do with their own inherent sensitivity, and more to do with how lightening up on the finger-tips forces a re-distribution of weight. Instead of collapsing into palms (outer-palms, at that), I hold from my core, extend through my limbs, while plugging them into their bone-sockets. My shoulder-blades are on my back, my heart is open and lengthening forward.

Most importantly: meditating on my fingers prompts me to distribute my energy more evenly. One of my patterns is to huddle into my core. I obsessively tend to my center, my limbs are the neglected step-child in my practice. So in the interest of sparking the full length of my nadis, I breathe down my arms, into my fingers. It makes for a tastier savasana, a cleaner sweep of the energetic body.

No comments:

Post a Comment