Wrapping the Body: A Meditation on Surrender
I had the benefit last week, of a class with my teacher Marti Yura. Following her Prajna tradition, Ms. Marti spends a good amount of time at the beginning of each class getting students settled into a a comfortable seat, providing us with the wisdom of her carefully considered dharma talk, and then leading us into meditation before our yoga asana practice. I like that she has continued with this practice despite the distance we all feel now, given our remote yoga practice and livestream learning environment during this COVID-19 outbreak. It is a commitment to the intimacy of a yoga center, to continue this practice.
This past week, she led us into a meditation on our own energy and the energy surrounding us, encouraging us to cultivate a sense of a golden light wrapping around us (she credits Elesa Commerce for introducing her to this meditation many years ago). She guided us as we sat: notice it coming up the right side and down the left, and up the back body and down the front. A golden, wrapping light. And as I breathed the wrapping of light over my body, I became an egg. I felt myself as raw, newly lain, a bare egg, and I began to feel the energy of God’s love, of the Universal, wrap itself around me, up and down each side, wrapping back and front, too. I could feel the energy encircling me. It was a powerful experience of God’s love, a luminescent energy, protective, encasing.
As I meditated, and the wrapping around my body began to take shape (layers of energy laid over one another), I had an image come to mind of Easter eggs in Italy: I saw them about 15 years ago when my husband and I inadvertently travelled to Genova over Easter. Everything was shutting down for the holiday, but we found the sweet shops open, still selling their last Easter eggs. And these are not American Easter eggs, small and sugary; neither are they English Easter eggs, boxed and branded, lined up in the supermarket: these Italian eggs are huge, singular, and hang from the ceiling and sit atop high shelves, displayed. They are ornately wrapped in cellophane and then wide ribbon that comes up one side and down the other, up the front and back, meeting at the top in an elaborate bow. They are ostentatious in their display of celebration: He is risen (and…chocolate)!
I love this time of year: in so many religions, we are reminded of the promise of God’s love, of the need to humble ourselves, to limit our own ego. The yoga practice meets our belief systems and encourages us to surrender to a higher power: this is part of our personal call, as we take up a yogic path, and it is part of how we are encouraged to ease suffering: Ishvara pranidhana. As Sofi Dillof writes, of the possibility for surrender inherent in each yoga class: “With each forward bending posture, we bow down to God in some form that has meaning to us, and with each back-bending posture, we offer up our hearts, so that we may carry out the will of the universe with every thought, word and action we take.” Too often this part of the yoga practice is glossed over, or missed out, but this time of year inspires me to remind others, that surrender is an integral part of the yoga practice.
OFFERING: A Meditation on Wrapping Oneself in Light (inspired by Marti Yura, and Elesa Commerce)
Come to a comfortable seat: take a little height under your pelvis and sit cross-legged, if your hips and knees allow. Allow the arms to rest, for the elbow creases to soften. Be somewhere you can stay.
Begin to notice the breath, cultivating an equal inhalation and exhalation. Notice the pause at the top of the inhalation, the pause at the bottom of the exhalation. Over the next few rounds, connect to the natural rhythm of your breath.
As you sit with your breath, begin to imagine the breath energy draw up the right side body, and flow down the left. Notice the breath energy flow up the back body, and then down the front.
Continue to breathe your breath energy in this pattern, wrapping the body, noticing the layering of energy (prana), perhaps a luminescent light or covering. Stay with your breath.
You may notice sensation in the body, or that certain parts of your body take the forefront of your awareness. Allow this to happen. Continue to stay with the breath.
After a reasonable amount of time, begin to allow the space between the eyebrows, behind your forehead, even the crown of your head to take this breath energy. Stay with this sensation for a little while longer.
When you are ready, you’ll release this meditation, awakening your awareness just enough, and allowing the energy, the sensation of energy wrapping the body, to fall away. You might imagine your un-adorned self. Close your meditation with an offering. Close your practice for this time.
