A short meditation with Bastrika pranayama and poetry to create space for gratitude. Open the meditation with a poem by John O’Donohue. Bastrika Breath follows to build heat and connect you to your body. This style of pranayama works to energize and clear slow or stagnant energy. Do this pranayama at any time of the day to clear the mind and body and stimulate the flow of Prana. Take seated meditation or savasana to close.
Style: Meditation
Duration: 12-mins
Level: open
Props: none
Focus: meditation, pranayama, and poetry.
Location: Lila Familia Production Studio, Vancouver, BC
Poem to anchor the meditation:
AT THE END OF THE YEAR
The particular mind of the ocean
Filling the coastline’s longing
With such brief harvest
Of elegant, vanishing waves
Is like the mind of time
Opening us shapes of days.
As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them.
The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.
Surprises that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectation seemed to have quenched.
The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.
The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of the dawn.
Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.
We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.
— John O’Donohue (To Bless The Space Between Us/Benedictus)
Bastrika Breath or Bellows Breath
This style of pranayama works to energize and clear slow or stagnant energy. Do this pranayama at any time of the day to clear the mind and body and stimulate the flow of Prana.
How to do it:
Do three rounds:
Benefits of Bastrika Pranayama:
