Earth Yoga

When our energetic roots go deep enough, we can fly even higher.

As a chill-susceptible woman accustomed to tropical climes, I am thanking the gods and goddesses for a warmer-than-average Indian Summer on the west coast of California.

Bring the heat, I say. Dose me, sweet Sun, with vitamin D and stoke the inner fires now in preparation for the coming cold.

It’s time for Earth Yoga.

With Surya’s golden rays still dappling the grass, penetrating the bones deeply, it is time to set the asana mat aside while we can and get down and dirty - body direct on the ground - with our yoga. Find a patch of sunlight on a lawn – mid-morning or mid-afternoon is best – and send your energetic roots down deep into the earth for some real healing.

I’ve always preferred to practice asana in Nature, especially on the beach. A few days ago, I was touched again at the brilliance of outdoor yoga. This particular day, I needed to get grounded, and quick. I’d been staying in San Francisco – lovely, to be sure – but I’d forgotten one of the main reasons I’d left the City four years ago: electromagnetic frequencies.

When you’re in a city, the sheer congestion of people, electricity, computers, radio and wireless, microwave, satellites, and other waves penetrate our system – especially if we’re in a location where we’re surrounded by antennas and there are lots of hills or structures bouncing waves right back into your brain. If you’re a highly-sensitive person, like me, it’s enough to make you super-scrambled. It can be quite disorienting, even painfully so.

One morning, after I’d been in the city for a week, I felt my third eye – the brain’s frontal lobe – totally clog up. It was like my forehead was filled with zip-zap substance, which translated into confusion and electrical fog. I couldn’t think clearly, for one. Then, the thoughts that started to come into my awareness were not my own. God knows, really, whose thoughts they were, with so much maya-mind stuff cluttering up the airwaves.

Finally, I realized, I was NOT GROUNDED. Even with breath awareness and regular exercise, I was like a live wire again. Oh, I remember THIS feeling! Psychic clutter alert! Get me into NATURE - now!

I marched myself over to the nearest urban park – a beautiful patch of green at the top of a sweet knoll on the city’s sunnier side – and sat my rear right down, right on the ground. Deep breath. The smell of freshly-cut grass. A whiff of soil. The feel of the sun – quite strong that day – piercing my skin. The soul soaking it all in.

AHHHHHHH….I closed my eyes, and started to “run energy,” up and down the spine, until I could finally get a clear column flowing, like a conduit, from the earth and out through the crown, and back down again, through the spinal column, down through the root chakra, the tailbone – deep, deep into the earth.

After about ten minutes, I felt a release of congestion from the head as the energy flowed like a river again. I was a big ol’, psychic beacon at the top of the hill – transmitting, receiving; receiving, transmitting – no longer ‘gunked up,’ stuck in the head. Going down, going down...

Much better, I determined, as I sauntered over to the playground and watched some daycare kids having a field day whooping it up with their sweet selves. Good. More grounding. Kids are really grounded.

Next, I hiked further up the hill and came upon a long-haired guy playing fetch with two adorable golden retrievers. The sunlight-colored dogs were half-brothers, frolicking with abandon. I gave both pups a good belly scratch and they smile-panted and lost themselves in ecstasy rolling around on the grass. Good. Animals are also grounding.

Last, I found a baseball field that was spiffy-manicured, no dogs allowed and hence no surprising ‘presents’ to step on, with the perfect balance of sun and shade.

Aha! I’d found it – my earth yoga oasis! My outdoor studio du jour. Didn’t even think twice about not having a mat – I was goin’ for the green grass itself. I bounded over the pitcher’s mound to the outfield lawn, tore off the tennies and dug the tootsies into center field. Oh, yeah…that’s what I’m talkin’ about! Out through the tiny chakras that lie on each sole, the feet poured electrical excess into the earth, and my soul purred as I plunged into a simple self-practice.

Starting out with a few yin passive poses, I soared through a short series of Surya Namaskar. From plank position – board-flat back – I chataranga’d down to the ground. Then, I deliberately let my forehead ever-so-slightly graze the earth – Bhooma Devi, Mother Earth. As my nose burrowed into the sweet grass, I took a deep inhale in through the nose, filling my lungs with healing prana, prana, prana.

Swooshing to push myself into upward dog, smiling face to the sky. In the delicious downward dog, all four appendages – two hands, two feet – sunk into the dirt, sucking it up – like little prana suction cups.

Post sun salutation, picking leaves of grass from my knees, inspired by the redwood grove canopy, I lingered long in tree poses. I mimicked the wind as I balanced and swayed my way into Natarajasana – Shiva’s graceful dancer’s pose. I finished with a few minutes of meditation and a very loud Oooooooommmmmmm that got even the ravens squawking in harmony. Complete, I could have meditated right there in center field all day.

Now, the body was supple, sultry and sweaty; grass-stained, good and gritty.

Now, the grounded mind could be – unfettered and free, calm and crystalline.

Smiling from the inside out, I opened my eyes and gazed with gratitude at this amazing yoga center – no-frills and free – founded right there, on the spot called “Earth.”

Om Shanti

I am considering offering a five-day yoga and meditation intensive for beginners or 'starting agains' (approx. three hours per day, non-residential) between Christmas and New Year's, December 27-31, in Marin. Seems like a fantastic way to prepare the 'ground' for the New Year, a New Beginning. Very small, six students. Might you be interested? Please reply so I know there's 'buzz.' Thanks, and namaste.

Like what you read?
Let us know.

Click the Tip Jar to share a little bit o' green love!