April showered me with a few body blows:
*a sinus exorcism that revealed I have esophagus cancer in left sinus area.
That discovery prompted a full body MRI that revealed that back strain that led me to Urgent Care last month,
* is actually also esophagus cancer in my 8th thoracic vertebrae area, very close to my spine.
My treatment plan is intense and complicated. When the fuck did I become a complicated health issue person?
Last night’s PM class I spoke about stretch and absorb.
Make a stretch with intention and directed energy and then remember to absorb that stirring of energy.
People currently experiencing able body yoga can really make the stretch and really take in the stretch with action. Although this able bodied stretch and absorb is wonderful, the wonder of it can sometimes confuse the essence of the what all the yoga is for.
Do not get me wrong. Smoke ’em if you got ’em. DO that asana. Work. Reach. Push. Pull. You make it and you take it.
Backbends have been my saving grace through my entire life.
My current backbend practice looks a bit more like this image below. I think it… And that is very powerful.
David Garrigues considers this thinking, this seeing the deepest inside of a pose, a yoga principle. He calls this principle Svarupa. <<<click to see his most recent Asana Kitchen about backbend and Svarupa.
“Svarupa. It the intrinsic essence of the pose. So it’s the very seed of it. Like if you remove everything extraneous or superficial what would you find at the very core of that. What is cool about the essence is you can find it at the most baby step of the pose to the most advance. That why you value the essence, because you don’t need to go all the way to the advanced stage of a pose to actually get its essence. It is elusive what is the essence. You have to hunt for it. it’s like hidden, beneath the surface.”
My practice is pretty much all Svarupa right now because I can’t really actually DO backbends right now. But I can access the very core of the ability to interact with my spine, to direct her, to pulsate her. To soothe her, to rest her in strength. To strength her in rest.To navigate and interact with her with my mind’s eye.
In a few weeks I will hopefully get to go to the resurrection hub and download an actual bending of my back into my backbend practice, but for now I am all essence.
peace and love, Suzanne Faulkner
Ashtanga Yoga Club Durham 