Moving Toward Wholeness through Yoga & Plant Medicine
In this post, I will talk about how sacred plants and yoga can be complementary practices (providing access ultimately to the same experience of Unity Consciousness) and how yoga can also be a viable alternative to working with plant medicine, especially the holistic, transformational style of yoga that I teach. I offer Elemental Yoga as both an integrative complement to working with plant medicines and a viable alternative for those who are not able or not inclined to work with plant medicine. I describe specific integrative practices below, and will be offering plant medicine integration practices through a private online yoga group starting in January 2021.
What Is Kundalini?
Kundalini is arguably one of the most important concepts in yoga, and one that’s little understood in the West, especially if you’ve primarily been practicing postural yoga.
Like most ineffable experiences, something as profound and powerful as kundalini is hard to describe with mere words. You could say the same thing about kundalini that Lao Tzu said about the Tao: “The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” The concept is not the experience. But I will do my best nevertheless.
Elemental Yoga: Space Practices
S P A C E. Akasha. The fifth element. The power of the word, and the power of silence. The transmutation of ignorance into pure awareness. Self-expression. Speaking from the heart. Receptivity. The ability to truly listen. Access to theta and gamma brain states.
The Elemental Yoga practices associated with the element of space are the subtle kriyas and yogic meditation.
Elemental Yoga: Air Practices
A I R 🌬 Vibration. Mantra. The unstruck sound. Anahata. The heart-mind. Bhakti and jñāna yoga. Spiritual community and the study of the self.
There’s a lot to unpack in the air element. So in this fourth post in the series I’ll focus primarily on the mantra elements of the practice and the anahata chakra, leaving discussion of satsang, wisdom, spiritual community, and svadhyaya to later posts.
Elemental Yoga: Fire Practices
F I R E. Agni. 🔥 Purification. Passion. The transmutation of matter into energy. The burning away of impurities. Tapaha. Fire is both matter and energy: a mixture of incandescent gases (matter) and light and heat (energy).
The first mantra of the oldest yogic text — the Rig Veda — tells us that life begins with fire. In the Vedas agni represents all concepts of spiritual energy that permeates everything in the universe. In the Upanishads, agni becomes any energy or knowledge that dispels a state of darkness, that transforms and creates an enlightened state of existence.
In the Elemental Yoga practice, the fire element represents pranayama, warrior breaths, and the Himalayan kundalini kriyas that we practice.