Day 38: Twisting and Circling to come to Straight

Berkeley Rose Garden last Sunday

Sitting and twisting in a probably new way

Sit in a chair. Let one elbow and forearm, your left, say, rest on your left knee, so you are bent forward and holding yourself up a bit with this left arm and elbow combination. Now take your right hand and place in behind your head, if you can comfortably do that. If not, put the back of your right hand on your check to the left of your mouth.

Either way, tilt your right elbow up toward the air, toward the sky, toward the ceiling and begin to make circles with this elbow. Imagine a long pencil or pen or feather dipped in ink with which you can paint on the ceiling or the sky. Make a nice circle from the elbow.

Go so slowly that your feel your ribs moving, so slowly you feel this in your pelvis, and so slowly most of all, so that you feel this in your back. Feel an arching when the elbow reaches a certain part of the circle and a folding in your back when the elbow comes to the other side of the circle.

Go slowly enough to notice where your circle gets away from a really round shape. Find the tension or hurry at those points and try to go even slower and with even less effort and see if that will help you draw the circle.

Bring your hands both to your lap and sit up and rest. Feel any changes.

Now, same left elbow down, and right elbow up and make your slow and interesting and pleasurable circles in the other direction

Rest again;

Now, switch arms and do the circle one way a number of times, and then rest, and then the other way a number of times, and rest then.

Feel on this side to a way to feel and connect and as if direct these circles from deep in your lower back and pelvis. Don’t strain. Don’t hurry.

Learn and enjoy.

93: Upload your life: arch and round and twist with awareness, then do the Thich Nhat Hahn Meditation

Mind and body and learning: rounding and arching in sitting, with a twist.

Sit in a chair or on a log, or bench, near the front so both feet can be on the ground, and your back is not leaning on anything.

Interlace your hands and put them behind your head, and in this position, do the arching and rounding we have described several times. Do this for a bunch of pleasant and aware and waking and learning times.

Sometimes have your eyes going the way your head is going. Sometimes the opposite.

Go slowly.

Know how you are breathing.

Feel really good.

Rest.


Now try this, when you round, bring your elbows forward, as if they want to touch or straddle your knees. When you arch, widen your elbows out, and one time twist to the right and up with your right elbow, following it with your eyes. Then bring elbows forward, come down, round, and breathe out. Then go to the left, breathe out again (you figure that one out), push your belly out, and lift your left elbow up and backwards, feeling your whole back involved.

Do this a number of times.

Go slowly.

Feel the whole shifting that is going on in your spine.

Enjoy this.

For the rest of the day, simple be present to breathing and to being in your body. You might want to try a famous Thich Nhat Hahn meditation: breathing in, I sense my body; breathing out I smile.

This is a good one, and today, and do sense your spine when you sense your body.