deep green yoga

E L A I N E I . P I E R C E

Deep Deep Deep Deep Deep Deep Deep Deep Green Green Green Green Green Deep Green Green Green Deep Green Deep Green Deep Deep Deep Green Deep Green Deep Green Deep Deep Deep Green Deep

YogaYogaYogaYogaYogaYogaYoga

Copyright © by Elaine PierceAll rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright A� of , no part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a data-base or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Elaine Pierce P.O. Box Duncans Mills, CA www.deepgreenyoga.com

Cover & book design, photoediting, annotations, and illustrations by Fifth Street Design, Bozeman, Montana.

Book produ�ion by Design A�ion Colle�ive, Oakland, California.

Model photography by Kevin Bond, San Francisco, California.

Editing by Dalya Massachi, Oakland, California.

Yoga model: Elaine Pierce, pregnant model: Charity Kahn

�e publisher is not re�onsible for websites or their content that are not owned by the publisher.

First edition

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Printed in the United States of America with union labor, on recycled paper, with soy-based inks.

Table of Contents

About the Author • 7Acknowledgments • 8Dedication • 9Introduction • 13

The “Point” of Our Poses • 13Nature’s Unifying Principles as a Guide to Yoga • 14My Own Exploration of Universal Principles • 16Four Premises on Which This Study Is Based & the “Inconvenient Truth” to Which They Point • 19

: The Circle: Unity • 23

Circular Stretch • 24Postural Unity: Becoming Whole by Embodying Our Evolutionary History • 27Holding Ourselves Upright as Vertical Four-Leggeds • 29

Duality: Doorway to Possibility • 31

To Be “Split” Is a Fact of Life • 32“Two” Presents Possibilities for Healing or for Destruction • 32Rules of Engagement: Balancing Resistance & Surrender • 33Division Is Illusion: Two Is One • 36

The Triangle: Unity In Diversity • 39

The Dynamics of the Architectural A-Frame as It Informs Yoga • 40The Three Main Postural Triangles • 41The Postural Keystones • 43Every Pose Is Energetically Triangular • 45�e Plié Principle: Engaging Postural Oppositions in Support of the Point • 47

The Square: Diagonal Traction • 51

Our Posture as a Vertically, Horizontally, & Diagonally Balanced Square • 52Two Evenly Stretched Diagonals: The Most Accessible Reference for Ordering Our Poses • 53An Internal Compass Is Key to Full Extension in Any “Twist” • 55Ancient Teachings about the Four Elements Applied to the Microcosm of Our Posture • 59Engaging Muscle/Bone Opposition: Bones Turn In; Muscles Turn Out • 61

DEEP GREEN YOGA

The Pentagon Star: The Spiral • 65

The Human Form: A Self-Replicating Five-Pointed Star • 66The Spiral: The Initiator of the Twist • 67Spiraling Forms Expressed Through the Aligned Body & Pose • 68Pregnancy: An Inwardly-Replicating Five-Pointed Star • 74

The Six-Pointed Star: Skeletal Stability • 77

Involution Precedes Evolution: The Message of the Hexagon Star’s Two Triangles • 78Alternating Contraction & Extension: Strengthening the Ability to Lift the Bones Toward the Back • 80Maintaining Equal Horizontal Axes: Balance as Essential to Hexagonal Stability • 82Restraining Postural Leaks: Conservation as a Hallmark of Hexagonal Stability • 85

The Heptagon Star: Energy • 87

The Shifting Shape of Seven • 88Seven as Both Link & Chasm • 89Seven as an Energy Cone • 90The Center of the Head: Why It’s Important & How to Find It • 91Postural Wrapping: Every Move Is an Opportunity to Raise Our Energy • 93Energy Flow, Posture, Movement, & the Preservation of Our Sanity • 94

The Octagon: Resistance & Radiance • 97

The Power of Eight: Circular Stretch & the Figure 8 • 98Engaging the Lengthwise Half-Loops of the Figure 8: Sculpting the Glutes, Legs & Arms • 102Depolarization: “The Way You Do Anything Is the Way You Do Everything” • 105Engaging the Hands & Feet Enlivens the Whole Pose • 108

e Nonagon: e Nth Step • 111

Mystery #1: Nine Rarely Occurs in Nature, &When It Does, It Isn’t Seen with the Naked Eye • 112Mystery #2: The Nonagon, as Three Times Three, Is Completely Dependent on the Triangle to Materialize • 115Mystery #3: Nine, the Symbol of “Immutable Truth,” Relates to All Numbers • 117The Mother & Father of All Poses: Balancing the Feminine & Masculine Aspects of the Body • 120

The Decagon: Humility • 125

The Two Hands in Namaste: A Symbol of Humility & a Reference for Alignment Integrity • 126Practicing Yoga as a Vertical Four-Legged • 127Encircling the Square: Checking the Tendency of Matter to Disengage & Multiply • 131The Point at the Top of the Pyramid: Holding the Square Base to Its Center • 132

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: Deep Green Kosmetics • 137

: The Case for Exercising the Face • 139

The “Green” Option for Facial Sustainability • 139Facial Features, Fingers, Toes: Small Parts Play Big Roles • 140Sculpting the Face to the Bones —The Nose’s Key Role • 141Facial Aging: A Breakdown of Circular Integrity • 142

:Basic Exercises that Locate the Face’s Muscular Web • 145

Strengthening the Sense of the Head as the Peak of Our Vertical Center • 145Strengthening the Sense of the Nose as the Center of the Face • 147Strengthening the Ability to Stretch the Facial Features • 150Eyes • 150Mouth • 151Ears • 152

Accessing the Magical Power of Simple Shapes • 155

Two Key Isometric Exercises • 155Exercise 1: Isometrically Preparing the Face So We Can Locate the Seven Patterns • 156Exercise 2: Seven Smiles that Squeeze the Skull • 157

Completing the Circle • 161

Engaging the Face’s Embroidered Patterns • 161Eight Quick & Simple, Feel-Good Exercises • 163

Supplemental Reading & Bibliography • 165

Glossary • 167

Index • 172

About the Author

I took my first yoga “class” as the sole student of a chair-seated guru in a tiny room in Greenwich Village. �at was in , when serious classes in this country were virtually nonexistent, when Jess Stern’s Yoga, Youth, and Reincarnation and Richard Hittelman’s Yoga: Day Exercise Program had yet to inspire spiritual seekers to gather for Sun Salutes. Who knew then that yoga studios would soon become a neighborhood staple, with a potpourri of venues and styles, that teaching yoga would become a prominent career path? No more tiny rooms; no more teachers in chairs.

In I graduated from the San Francisco Iyengar Yoga Institute Teacher Training Program, the first of its kind in the U.S., and began teaching pregnant and post-natal women, seniors, children, and open classes in a variety of venues. Long a student of modern dance at Colorado College and Cal Arts, I also ran competitively, and in was among the early women to break three hours in the marathon. Dance and running have profoundly informed my yoga pra�ice, helping me understand that even when movement patterns appear very different, the underlying principles remain the same.

My story is not unusual: a sickly childhood in�ired a lifelong interest in health, e�ecially in my case the importance of a centered posture. From the age of seven I �ent three years at a Catholic convent boarding school in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), where the word “body” was a four-letter word, where physical exercise was pretty much limited to the gymnastics required to manage enforced dressing under the sheets, and to marching

silently in pairs down the dingy halls. Stepping out of line (literally) meant a whipping with a self-fetched ruler. Among my greatest comforts, besides rare secret midnight whi�ering sessions on a dorm-mates bed, were three tiny fish I secretly kept in a can in the back of my clothes shelf and a baby bat who lived in one of my shoes.

�is book is in�ired less by a desire to promote physical fitness per se than by a larger desire to help turn the national malady of “nature deficit disorder” toward an urgently-needed life-supporting identification with the natural world, reinforced by experiencing how nature’s universal principles express through yoga postures. I share my discoveries through the text and through photos of my pra�ice, which is organized entirely by the described principles. A minimalist by nature, I currently live in a -square-foot “tiny house” near the north-ern California coast.

DEEP GREEN YOGA

Acknowledgments

Without the teaching lineage of BKS Iyengar, whose flawless poses and book Light On Yoga are recognized as the epitome of alignment perfection, this book could not exist. In no way are the ideas presented here intended to add to that legacy or to imply any endorsement or acceptance by Mr. Iyengar or his teaching lineage. By my good fortune to have personally studied with the great dancers Hanya Holm, Mia Slavenska, and Bella Lewitzky, I have had a muscle-memory context that enabled whatever I have gleaned of the wisdom of BKS Iyengar, as taught at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco. To my teachers there I am greatly indebted.I am also indebted to the yoga enthusiasts whose receptivity and enthusiasm enabled me to develop the context for communicating my ideas: students at What A Racquet in Daly City, the Presidio YMCA in San Francisco, and San Francisco Kaiser Ho�ital Prenatal Yoga Education. Outstanding among these are Vaike Broderick, Delia Malloy, Martha Kropf, Carol Leonard, Deborah Pruitt, Meredith Tennent, Fiona McDonald, Lourdes Livingston, Stephanie Noon and daughter Eliana who modeled for �e Face, the Kaiser “Yoga Moms,” who created an ongoing family-centered community, and my wonderful boss at Kaiser, Vera Grab.

It’s difficult to separate pra�ical mentoring from the broader web of support I’ve been given, enabling me to follow my path. Notable among those I would like to thank are Leo Hamalian, Kenneth Burton, Gilbert Pimental, Jean E�ey, Barbara Day, Alice and Fred Deweese, Margaret Anthon, John Pierce, Gene Ivaldi, Pat Liskey, Janet Akolt Daily, Margaret Livingston, Joan Verdi, Warren Miller, Mo and Jen, Christina Journey and Rosemary Salinas. Gratitude to Reverend Laura Hopper of Psychic Horizons School of Meditation. �anks to my daughters Alice Pierce, who took the cover photo, and Emilee Pierce for her editorial critiques. I also thank my best virtual friend, KPFA radio, the “university of the air,” for keeping my brain exercised and introducing me to the work of Michael Schneider. Without Schneider’s book mine certainly could not have taken shape.

�anks to Derrick Jensen, whose passion for the planet and all life forms is a constant in�iration, for giv-ing me the first two words of this book’s title.

Special thanks to pregnant model Charity Kahn, editor Dalya Massachi, photographer Kevin Bond and designer Jerry Clifton Meek for their considerable efforts on my behalf. And thanks to Nadia Khastagir of Design A�ion Colle�ive for final produ�ion assistance, making this book a reality.

For Alice and Emilee

❝A universal beauty showed its face; The invisible deep-fraught significances, Here sheltered behind form’s insensible screen, Uncovered to him their deathless harmony And the key to the wonder-book of common things. In their uniting law stood up revealed The multiple measures of the uplifting force, The lines of the World-Geometer’s technique, The enchantments that uphold the cosmic web And the magic underlying simple shapes.❞

— Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) Indian Yogi, Guru, Poet

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Introdu�ion

❝�e cosmos is a harmony of tensions.❞ — Heraclitus

❝One cannot understand the stru�ure of human beings unless one understands that of the universe, and one cannot understand the stru�ure of the universe unless one understands that of human beings.❞

— Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

�e “Point” of Our Poses�e single greatest obstacle in learning yoga, I believe, is not that we’re too stiff, too weak, too strong, or (the most difficult to overcome, ironically) too flexible. �e greatest obstacle is lack of clarity about the point, about what exa�ly we’re trying to do. �e point is not to see how far forward or backward we can bend, whether we can stand on one foot, our heads, our hands, or sit in Lotus. �e point we’ll be explor-ing throughout this book is developing, strengthening, and testing our ability to stay centered, to hold our parts in relationship to that center and to the whole body. �e outer pose is merely a situation, something to work with. Everything depends on the internal dynamics which, without a clear reference are difficult — unnecessarily difficult, as we’ll see — to locate.

Poses like those pi�ured below, for example, mimic the outer shapes day after day in countless yoga classes.

�ey aren’t bad or wrong so much as they miss the point, within the context of the ideas presented in this book. �ese ideas are summarized by the two quotations at the top of the page, describing the universe as a “harmony of tensions” and the human body as a microcosm of the universe. Following this logic, Hatha Yoga (a term referring to the entire pra�ice of physical postures, no matter in what style) involves a�ively harmonizing tension — not just trying to be free of it, as is the more common perception.

Without tension there can be no tra�ion, and without tra�ion all is just �inning of wheels, a rule as evident on yoga mats as on icy roads. Lack of tra�ion is the issue in the poses above, as they fall apart and into gravity rather than rising from it. We may know this to be true without knowing how to corre� it. �e whole of Nature shows us how — if we know how to recognize and apply the principles that hold the universe together — to pull ourselves together.

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You may have felt confused, even after years of pra�ice, about how to focus on keeping one knee and foot aligned without wreaking havoc in the other. You may have been mystified or frustrated by your failure to improve, or about your lack of clarity as a teacher. Looking to Nature for answers can open new doors.

Seven patterns that reveal the inner ordering dynamics — how Nature “pulls it together” — are clues to aligning our bodies the way Nature intended. �e patterns I refer to are only seven: seven that Nature sur-rounds us with every day but which few of us even notice, let alone contemplate. When applied to yoga, these patterns teach us how to engage the dynamics of stretch — the instin�ive, preverbal, internal trac-tion patterns — that pull the whole body into alignment. Your teacher is your internal blueprint, to which most of us lost access once it moved us from limp infancy to the upright position.

Nature’s Unifying Principles as a Guide to Yoga❝�e circle is the parent of all shapes.❞

— Michael Schneider

�e study of Nature’s unifying principles is as old as cave paintings. Many people throughout history have pointed to them, one of the more famous being Leonardo da Vinci. His most well-known drawing (Vitruvian Man) survives because of its mysterious allusions and innuendos. �e patterns are shown here superimposed over the torso primarily, although as we’ll see, they do express in different ways as we move.

The Circle: The One

The Seven

Only the application of these patterns to yoga postures is new, as far as I know. While I’ve seen magazine articles about finding the �iral in a pose, about working with opposites and stretching into a circle, I haven’t seen any writings relating the stru�ure of all yoga poses to the seven geometries that hold the circle of creation in balance. �e study of Nature’s geometry comprises a huge body of knowledge that’s been described by philosophers, astronomers, mathematicians, archite�s, astrologers, and every manner of

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truth-seeker across the continents and through the ages. Today, however, most of us know little or nothing of this elegant natural system.

While at first glance the concept of Nature as teacher might appear complicated, the complexity is superfi-cial. �e principles are:

� Few: Seven, compared to thousands of yoga poses, is a small number.

� Holistic: We’re working only with whole poses, not parts of poses, so the poses don’t need to be taken apart in hopes of putting them back together.

� Universal: �e principles apply to the whole pra�ice, to all poses. �ey’re not about a single pose or set of poses.

Once we glimpse that each yoga pose is a unique expression of the same principles that apply to all poses, the whole pra�ice shifts. We begin to appreciate how every pose deepens our understanding and ability to do every other pose. When we pra�ice, for example, a pose standing on one foot with the other up in the air, the point is not to stand on one foot with the other lifted, as challenging and fun as that might be. �e point is to learn how to engage, balance, and uplift every shape we assume, in our daily life as much as on the mat. When the tra�ion patterns are engaged — when we’re centered — no matter what we’re doing, we’re far less likely — unlikely — to cause injury. Our blueprint can be trusted to care for us.

Among students I’ve taught who’ve been attra�ed to this information, I’ve seen rapid advancement. I’ve rarely seen poses I didn’t feel could be improved by applying these principles. Sometimes I’m asked: “Who told you this?” Usually, the questioner is wondering who’s given me authority to �eak. Authority comes only from the truth one finds in what I point to, that the whole of Nature refle�s, that untold numbers of people in many fields have been in�ired by. �e answer as to how I learned is a long story, but I’ll keep it short.

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My Own Exploration of Universal Principles�e idea began — now close to thirty years ago — during instru�ion in the shoulder stand. I had an over-whelming sense of su�ension, one that coincided with the sense of the diagonals I’d first felt as a long-time student of dance and as a competitive distance runner. �e only difference was that those diagonals were now turned upside down.

Photo

: Jan S

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As the class progressed that day, no matter what pose we pra�iced, I found I could organize it according to this one principle. In the poses below, those on the right are diagonally stretched and ordered. �ose on the left lack tra�ion, and without guiding principles, are disordered and potentially injurious.

No Traction Traction

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No question, I was in�ired. To discover more about what already seemed to be a universal integrating principle, I cut out photos from new�apers of high divers, basketball players, �rinters, and jockeys, com-paring and studying the internal cohesive patterns, which I found to be always the same. Everywhere I saw the same constantly stretched diagonal lines. I watched and re-watched tapes of elite athletes ranging from golfers, swimmers, and wheelchair racers to cyclists and ice skaters. In every case I saw the same patterns. Baseball players, with the perfe�ly balanced �iraling twists that power their throws, catches, and hits, particularly fascinated me.

For years I experimented in yoga poses with the theory of diagonal tra�ion and became convinced, as far as I could tell, that this principle could be applied to the teaching or pra�ice of every yogic posture. I was working also with the principles of the triangle and the pentagon �iral, but I’d yet to recognize the full sequence of seven patterns: the geometries of the numbers three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine.

Triangle Square (Diagonal Balance) Pentagon (Spiral)

“Universal” principles hadn’t been discussed in any yoga class I’d attended. Instead, the focus in most classes ranged between one extreme of vagueness to the other extreme of overwhelmingly fragmented and complex instru�ions relevant �ecifically to the pose and body parts in question. On my own, I continued to work with what I believed to be the over-arching principles, applying them to each pose in lieu of the teacher’s instru�ions. I found that by working in this way, the isolated pieces of the pose under discussion were always pulled into place as a consequence of the total tra�ion pattern. �ere was no need for frag-mented analysis. Misaligned knees and hips are merely symptoms; the cause is lack of a �ecific reference for engaging the whole body.

�e Study of Nature’s Patterns as “Mystery Teaching”Later, as a teacher, I found myself increasingly able to recognize fragmentation patterns in my students’ poses. I also quickly learned that I had to deliberate about when and with whom I shared my observations, lest I alienate new students by introducing too much unusual information. I found it impossible to offer this teaching to drop-in students. By nature, drop-in gym-format classes must be somewhat generic. Just as it would be absurd to teach physics, for example, on a drop-in basis, or to coach a committed athlete as a drop-in, this study isn’t suited to that format.

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It helped me to recognize that the study of Nature’s geometry has from ancient times been considered a “mystery teaching.” Only those who proved themselves truly committed to these studies were “initi-ated;” hence the ancient name “Initiates.” �e great twentieth century Bulgarian mystic, Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov, whose books were extremely informative and in�irational to me, and to which I refer all read-ers, made it his life work to disseminate this previously-secret knowledge.

To explain these teachings as they apply to yoga I found that students had also, in some sense, to be “initi-ated.” �at is, they had — and had a right — to know what they were getting into, to have some context for the material offered, and to be sufficiently attra�ed to this approach to work with it consistently. And I needed students who would give me the �ace to teach what I feel to be true. I also found that I needed a reference book to explain the principles as they fit into this huge panoply of knowledge that has slipped out of common awareness. �is book is that reference.

�e proje� has evolved through years of daily questioning and testing of theories, whether through study-ing my own poses, the poses of other students, or watching athletes, dancers, animals, or people on the streets. I took a major step forward when, by chance, I heard a radio interview with Michael Schneider, author of A Beginner’s Guide to Constru�ing the Universe. I’d been struck during the interview by the implications of his book for my sensed geometry of posture and movement. Now I had a context, the com-plete shape sequence that charts the path away from unity and back again, which Schneider so thoroughly describes. He writes:

“Nature labels everything with a cosmic calligraphy, but we generally don’t su�e� even the existence of the language. It is an open secret, fully in view but usually unnoticed. Like consonants and vowels — like building blocks and growth patterns — numbers, shapes, and their patterns symbolize omnipresent principles, including wholeness, polarity, stru�ure, balance, cycles, rhythm, and harmony. Each shape represents a different problem-solving strategy in the cosmic economy. To see more deeply into this design alphabet, we must be conversant in nature’s native tongue, the language of symbolic mathematics.” (Italics my own.)

Schneider points out that in every field of study the current cultural tendency has been to denature and devitalize learning by fragmenting knowledge into “�ecialties” rather than “commonalities,” thus gener-ating a gargantuan, generally unintegrated body of fa�s. In contrast, if imaginatively taught, Schneider elaborates, the study of math can engage and enthuse, filling us with awe as it makes us aware of the unify-ing “patterns with which the world and we are made.”

�ese unifying patterns form the fundamental concept of this book, as they apply not only to yoga postures, but to the human posture in general. Simply naming and categorizing the a�ions of particular muscles and bones, in my experience, has very little to do with being able to move with gravitationally grounded grace, to understand, feel, or do beautiful poses. �ose who’ve �ecialized in the sciences of anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology — unless they have some strong athletic or artistic movement back-ground — are no more centered or stru�urally engaged than other students.

As you begin to sense the geometry of an aligned stance, you’ll be able to examine any pose and, recogniz-ing the principles, understand — and feel — precisely the shifts that would bring balance and order to the pose. �is is the essence of awakening your inner teacher. No matter what pose you find yourself pra�ic-ing, your primary reference will be the organizing principles that apply to all body positions, no matter how apparently different their external forms. Here I apply the principle of the triangle, symbolizing the relationship of the hipbones to the sternum, although any pattern could have been sele�ed. (Note: I’ve used Sanskrit and English alternately, depending on which name is more commonly used. Tadasana, for example, isn’t easily translated, while Adho Mukha Svanasana — Downward Dog — clearly is.)

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Four Premises on Which �is Study Is Based & the “Inconvenient Truth” to Which �ey Point�e study of geometry is based on the acceptance of certain postulates, or premises. With this in mind, listed below are four postulates that I assume to be true, as we approach Hatha Yoga from the per�e�ive of aligning ourselves with the ordering principles of the universe.

� “Yoga” means “Union,” for which the geometric symbol is the circle. �e pra�ice of Hatha Yoga promotes postural unity as the stru�ural oppositions unique to each pose are engaged to create one unified circular stretch.

� Because our physical bodies are by nature polarized — we have right and left sides, fronts and backs, tops and bottoms, limbs, �ines and heads — the tendency over time is for our posture to fall apart, to become more fragmented and compressed by gravitational forces.

� �e effe�iveness of yoga pra�ice as a way of pulling and holding ourselves together is compli-cated by the lack of clear reference for exa�ly what we’re trying to do. In �ort, the reference for developing skill is refle�ed, for example, in the precision of a throw, a leap or a dive, or the �eed with which we run, ski, or swim. Because yoga lacks such a reference, we can �end a great deal of time imitating the perceived outer shape of the pose, which in fa� can’t be achieved without a sense of the internal order.

� Nature’s patterns provide a clear reference for evaluating the accuracy of a pose’s alignment. Each of these patterns uniquely reinforces our sense of “circular stretch,” of embodying each pose as a whole. �e “point” of Hatha Yoga pra�ice is that all poses are united. All poses are unique expressions of the same principles, ultimately One. Pra�icing any one pose enhances our understanding of all poses.

�e pra�ice of aligning ourselves with the natural Order is simple (in contrast to our own peculiarly human fascination with complexity), but it’s not easy and it’s never-ending. �e willingness to study and surrender to Nature’s patterns through yoga pra�ice requires humility first and foremost, surrendering to an order we didn’t create and upon which we can’t improve, but with which we can choose to cooperate.

DEEP GREEN YOGA

I believe the pra�ice of yoga can help us make this choice. Physically surrendering our time, energy, and bodies to this profoundly healing but often inconvenient, undeniably uncomfortable pra�ice, invites us to reconsider the priority upon which we most insist — and for which the Natural world pays a monumental price — that our lives be comfortable and convenient. Surrendering our bodies on the mat can, I believe, help us surrender off the mat to “inconvenient truths” that are increasingly difficult to deny.

�at the Natural World is disappearing before our eyes while few of us are looking or listening is a terrify-ing truth. “Nature Deficit Disorder” is a pandemic. In support of our call to healing, before it’s too late, I’ve written this book.

� Heraclitus, “Fragment” Aivanhov, Omraam Mikhael. �e Symbolic Language of Geometrical Figures, p. , Schneider, Michael S., A Beginner’s Guide to Constru�ing the Universe, p. , Schneider, Michael S., A Beginner’s Guide to Constru�ing the Universe, p. xxii, Schneider, Michael S., A Beginner’s Guide to Constru�ing the Universe, p. xx, Louv, Richard. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder (Title),

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PART

�e Body

DEEP GREEN YOGA p a r t 1 — t h e B o d y

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�e Circle: Unity

❝Creating one central point from which to radiate a circle is the beginning of all geometric constru�ion, no matter how complex it becomes.❞


Point Line Circle

The “Circular stretch” is the unifying pattern that creates physical integrity. Many of us attracted to yoga have long since lost the sense of our centers, largely because our lifestyles don’t support structural integrity. As we mature, our physical sense of wholeness tends to DIS-integrate. �at is, having lost the sense of our whole structure — each part aligned in relation to the efficient alignment of every other — we experience our body parts (arms, legs, torso, head) as separately moving.One approach in the teaching of yoga is to “just do it,” as though the issue of broken conne�ions doesn’t exist. Another approach is to take the pose apart even further, giving instru�ions that apply to a knee, say, or a hip. Unfortunately, that — in my experience — doesn’t work: taking a pose apart never creates a sense of the whole pose. Attempting to corre� any one issue separately inevitably causes an equal and opposite compensating rea�ion in another body part. In so doing, we further distance ourselves physically and psychologically from the very sense of union we hope to achieve through our pra�ice. Rather than altering the way we experience our bodies and the world around us, our yoga pra�ice mirrors and even reinforces the fragmented sense of self we bring with us.

�e study of the way we move as an expression of natural patterns presents a different possibility: recon-stru�ing the sense of center in relation to the whole body and whole pose. Working holistically frees us from trying to pull ourselves together by taking ourselves apart. We’re �ared, to paraphrase Albert Einstein, trying to heal our fragmentation with the same approach that brought it about in the first place.

DEEP GREEN YOGA P A R T T H E B O D Y

Circular Stretch❝When the center does not hold, the entire affair collapses.❞


�e center point from which the circle’s circumference extends as it’s drawn on paper is symbolic for the Origin of creation. In our posture, too, the center is the origin of alignment. In every pose, the goal is to stretch evenly into the whole pose from our gravitational center. Yet this instru�ion, though often given, is confusing: the vast majority of yoga students lack a sense of center, let alone a sense of how the center holds the parts in relationship. Experiencing the pose in pieces feels normal; what you don’t know you’ve lost you’re not likely to seek.

Why is something as natural as centering so difficult? As preverbal babies — without instru�ion — we instin�ively build a strong center so we can roll over, sit, crawl, and eventually stand. But once we’re up, and as our body/head ratio changes, it becomes easy to compensate for misaligned posture, a luxury a baby with its huge head doesn’t have. As adults, we certainly do, as shown in the photo on the right.

Wild animals, like human babies, have an unfailingly perfe� sense of center. But the animals’ sense lasts a lifetime. For them, survival depends upon being able to move efficiently. One reason present-day human bodies so easily fall apart is that unlike other animals, we generally don’t get killed or starve as a result. We merely develop physical limitations and discomfort over time: feedback we’ve learned to accept as inevi-table, to either medicate or ignore until our pain becomes intolerable. Our “civilized” lifestyles — no longer including the rigors of self-locomotion, hunting, gathering, and tribal dancing, for example — have allowed us to step outside the natural order of our relationship to gravity.

Disorderly Posture Orderly Posture

Another reason we tend to fall apart: the stru�ural geometry of the human body is the most difficult to maintain. We alone can imitate the stretches of every other vertebrate: snakes can’t imitate horses; birds can’t imitate dogs. We can imitate them all, as evidenced by the incredible variety of yoga poses. �is range of possibility offers both a blessing and a burden. Yoga is one pra�ice that helps us call in the blessings, but it’s far more effe�ive if we have a reference for what we’re trying to do, a reference for the accuracy of our circular stretch.

C O T C : U

So we can more clearly visualize the difference between centered and uncentered poses, I’m including exam-ples of poses we’ll see in any public yoga class. �ese poses reveal patterns of disorder and disintegration we can clearly �ot once we have a system to which we can refer.

: �e poses shown in this book represent my best effort, are relatively centered and relatively whole. Perfe�ion is not the point: rather, it’s that we know what we’re trying to do and are going in the right dire�ion.

Fragmented: Uncentered and Falling Apart

Whole: Centered and Pulling Together

�e photos below show how a fragmented pose can be pulled together by engaging a circular stretch. We can corre� the misaligned poses on the left by engaging the gravitational center, locating the circumfer-ence (hands, feet, and head), and finally stretching into the full circle of the pose.

Fragmented/Uncentered Creating a Whole Pose by Engaging Circular Stretch

Fragmented/Uncentered Creating a Whole Pose by Engaging Circular Stretch


Wherever there’s a circle, the seven healing geometries are implied. While the first pose below doesn’t engage any of the seven patterns, the second one — as a circular stretch — embodies them all.engage any of the seven patterns, the second one — as a circular stretch — embodies them all.

In the chapters that follow we’ll be exploring these seven patterns to see how we can use them in our yoga pra�ice to reconstru� the sense of center and circular stretch. Any single pattern, if deeply engaged, is suf-ficient to a�ivate circular stretch. Each one offers a different route, taking us to the circle and, ultimately, its point. On these pages, therefore, we’ll see the same poses referenced again and again to illustrate different patterns. By considering all of them we develop alternative plans, double checks, reinforcements, doing all we can to ensure — even in the face of intense gravitational and positional pulls — that the center will hold.

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Postural Unity: Becoming Whole by Embodying Our Evolutionary HistoryOur evolutionary unity with other life forms is revealed as much through the similarity of our movement patterns as it is by our DNA and the similarity of our bony patterns. Paleontologist Neil Shubin describes the unifying principles of our shared evolution in Your Inner Fish, when he writes of a “DNA recipe that is virtually identical in every creature that has limbs.” He describes one common ancestor that crawled out of the ocean and then branched in three dire�ions. One branch evolved into birds; one evolved into four-legged animals; one went back to the water as sea mammals. �e evolutionary unity of these three groups could be diagrammed:

the ocean and then branched in three dire�ions. One branch evolved into birds; one evolved into four-legged animals; one went back to the water as sea mammals. �e evolutionary unity of these three groups could be

All of these very different-appearing animals, Shubin shows, have limbs with the same bony patterns as ours.

Long bone two bones many bones digits

�e similarity of the movement patterns, while to most of us less obvious than the bony patterns, is also clear, We can diagram them as follows:

. Our arms fun�ionally begin at our bellies, like wings.

. Our legs fun�ionally begin just below the sternum, like a whale tail.

. Both patterns inter-relate in the pattern of the four-leggeds to create whole-body tra�ion.

arms

legs

. birds . whales . four-leggeds


If, dynamically, our arms begin at the belly and our legs begin just below the sternum, the tra�ion created through the engagement of the abdominal muscles that conne� the two points forms the full pattern. �is tra�ion pattern supports the upright human posture as indicated, although it’s easier to see in the horizon-tal, more obviously “four-legged” downward and upward cat sequence shown below.

Downward Cat engages belly muscles, lifting the �ine high on the arms and legs by the power of two tucks that a�ivate the snake-like integrity of the entire �ine: the tailbone and pelvic floor at one end and the neck and throat at the other. [NOTE: I refer throughout this book to the tuck of the chin. Energetically, the arms, neck, and head are inseparable. �erefore, any reference to the “chin” tuck refers to a total a�ion that includes stretching the shoulder blades apart, widening the neck and the back of the throat. �e chin tuck does not refer to neck flexion. (Shown in poses below) To simplify, I will from now on simply refer to the upper �inal tuck as the chin tuck.] In the first of the two cat poses shown below, the tailbone and chin are tucked and the belly muscles contra�ed. In the second pose this dynamic is opposed by the backward pull of the arms and legs to create a stretch of the �ine.

Two Tucks Stretch

Downward Cat Engaging Belly

Upward Cat Four-Legged Traction

�is is the basic four-legged pattern, clearly evident in the real cat stretches pi�ured below. �e tuck engages the belly muscles in preparation for the second phase, when the pelvis pulls forward. Tra�ion is created by the resistive oppositional a�ion of the fore and hind legs.

�is same tra�ion pattern underlies every aligned move (and yoga pose) we make — whether vertical, hori-zontal, or upside-down — even if we’re not conscious of the dynamics. In the four-legged Plank Pose on the left, for example, we can see the postural collapse that results when the tra�ion pattern of the four-leggeds is absent. Lacking a unifying “harmony of tensions,” the arms, legs, �ine, and head all separate into discon-ne�ed parts. With no support through the belly and no tuck at the chin and tailbone, the buttock, thigh, and upper arm muscles can’t engage to propel the �ine forward. �is pose offers a very simple example of a com-monly seen error that’s easy to corre� once we have a reference for making the pose whole.

No TucksNo TucksNo TucksNo TucksNo TucksTucksTucksTucksTucks

Four-Legged Traction Pattern Disengaged Four Legged Traction Pattern Engaged

Two TucksTwo TucksTwo TucksTwo Tucks

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�is tra�ion pattern is a�ive in all aligned poses, no matter how different their outer appearances. �e point here is that once we know how to engage the pattern, we can use it as a reference to unify and align every yoga pose from the inside.

Belly Muscles Pull Pelvis Toward Sternum; Thighs and Arms Resist

Holding Ourselves Upright as Vertical Four-Leggeds�e sense of ourselves as vertical four-leggeds gives a feeling of rock-solid stability to our otherwise precari-ous, even flimsy, two-legged stance. We have the support — whether or not we’ve appreciated and developed it — of our arms as well as our legs. As our bodies become resensitized to the patterns of our inner cat and dog, this evolutionary conne�ion can inform our every yoga pose, whether it be horizontal, vertical, or upside-down.

We’ll return to this principle, more prepared to embody its simplicity, in Chapter , after completing what Michael Schneider calls the circular journey from unity, through duality (the subje� of the next chapter) and finally back to unity.

� Schneider, Michael S., A Beginner’s Guide to Constru�ing the Universe, p. , Shubin, Neil. Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the . -Billion-Year History of the Human Body, p. , As taught by Ballerina Mia Slavenska, California Institute of the Arts

DEEP GREEN YOGA p a r t 1 — t h e B o d y

30

Duality: Doorway to Possibility

❝�e Cosmos, desiring to manifest itself, divided its nature into two opposing forces. From the oscillating dichotomy in its nature (negative yin and positive yang), all of that which exists is being produced.❞

— R. L. Wing

We live in polarized bodies in a polarized universe, where all things imply their opposites and, as Paul Simon sings, “Everything put together sooner or later falls apart.” �is is our situation, over which we have no control. But we do have more control over what we do with the time before entropy prevails than many of us consciously take. �e Initiatic view is that duality presents human beings with a portal to possibility: we have the power to create harmony or destruction — the choice is ours. Specifically, as far as our stance is concerned, few of us see — or have been encouraged to see — the possibilities over which we have power to choose.We live in a culture where the masculine values are emphasized, so it’s not surprising that by the time we’ve done our stint in a school desk and all that implies, most of us live in the “masculine” tops and fronts of our bodies — most �ecifically the fronts of our foreheads. �e “feminine” a�e�s, the backs and bot-tom halves are less consciously occupied. �e effe�s of this �lit multiply; the pattern of fragmentation is refle�ed on every level throughout our stance. Multiplicity, opposition, division: these are our givens. Whether and how we work with the givens determines everything.

DEEP GREEN YOGA

To Be “Split” Is a Fa� of Life❝Twoness is the hole or lens through which Unity becomes and balances with

the Many.❞ — Michael Schneider

On this material plane, without opposites there can be no existence. �is is the fundamental fa� of life. To “birth” the material world the circle had to separate. On paper this �litting is symbolized by the geometric drawing at the start of this chapter. �e vesica piscis, where the two circles overlap — or engage — is the opening through which the seven geometries that reconstru� — or “heal” — the circle are “birthed.”

�e universe tells us this story — first of unity, then the fall into polarity as the material world manifests, followed by a circular journey that returns to where it began. We symbolically describe this path every time we count from and end with : One, greater by ten, then One greater by twenty, greater by thirty . . .

Circle of counting to

“Two” Presents Possibilities for Healing or for Destru�ion❝Two is the most formidable of all numbers, because it contains the seeds of all

division and divergence and it is in division and divergence that evil begins…[but] when one understands it and is capable of working with it, [two] is the number of order, harmony and constru�ion.❞


Given our situation, it might be that students of yoga would be better served by �ending less time dis-cussing “Samadhi” and “Union” and more time considering the difficulty of living in a world and body of opposites. Do we work a�ively to heal and harmonize our polarities or do we hang out in the familiar state of fragmentation, accepting the status quo? Does the way we pra�ice our poses refle� our commitment to becoming whole? �ese are our possibilities, our “doorway” to the kind of experience we want to create. �ere’s no easy path; it’s a choice between difficulties with no third option. On one hand there’s the dif-ficulty of the work to heal; on the other the destru�ive consequences of opting out.

Following are two examples of commonly seen poses that refle� our inwardly divided state. Pra�icing poses like the first ones do nothing to bring about change; they merely reiterate and reinforce our particu-lar postural habits. �e “possibility” is to back up, engage the tra�ion patterns that align the �ine, then

C T D : D P

extend into the whole pose. �us is order established. If we don’t play by nature’s principles of engagement — whether consciously or unconsciously, and de�ite our fondest dreams, pra�icing yoga poses won’t lead us to the experience of Unity.

Split Engaging Whole

Split Engaging Whole

Yoga poses in themselves are neutral. Pra�icing them can either bring about transformation or not, be healing or not, even harmful, depending on how they’re approached.

Rules of Engagement: Balancing Resistance & Surrender❝�e opposite is beneficial; from things that differ comes the fairest attunement;

all things are born through strife.❞ — Heraclitus

In yoga circles, the word “resistance” has a very bad rep. Many of us think that becoming �iritual is all about “surrender” and overcoming our resistances. Resistance can be detrimental, but so can surrender. Everything depends on our ability to discriminate, to know when to do what. One extreme — more com-mon in men — is to try to force our bodies into position. �e other extreme — more common in women — is to flop into the pose. Both are destru�ive; both avoid “engagement,” the primary lesson of “” as it applies to yoga. We need to engage both polarities if our pra�ice is going to be transformative. �is is the situation a yoga pose presents: will we fall to the right, to the left, toward the top or into the bottom, or will we engage the opposing postural forces to create an internally sensed and externally visible unified stance?

DEEP GREEN YOGA

A yoga stretch is like a web of rubber bands stretched between two resistive points, each band neither too tight nor too loose.

Lax Band = Surrender Only

Rigid Band = Resistance Only

Harmony of Tensions = Resistance + Surrender = Stretch.

�e pose Vasisthasana, for example, illustrates the importance of discrimination. If we resist where we should surrender, we cause the pose to fall apart. Likewise, if we surrender where we should resist, the same thing happens. Either can be the cause; either can be the effe�. In Group , on the left, inappropriate surrender negates the harmony of tension that defines a stretch, creating a pose that — ironically — a�u-ally compresses the body. In the second pose, harmony is established as the arms and legs make the effort to resist so the �ine can surrender to that support.

Group 1

Arms & Legs: Inappropriate Surrender Fragmented Pose

Arms & Legs: Appropriate Resistance Unified Pose

In Group , on the left, we approach the issue from the opposite per�e�ive: the �ine resists inappropri-ately, forcing the arms and legs to surrender, again destroying the pose as a stretch.

Group 2

Spine: Inappropriate Resistance Fragmented Pose

Spine: Appropriate Surrender: Unified Pose

Michael Schneider describes in general terms the consequences of failing to engage both polarities appro-priately: “Shunning one [extreme] while chasing its opposite only invokes and strengthens the one we are trying to avoid.”

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In our poses, when we lack appropriate resistance, the result is tension — of the wrong kind. In this case, instead of pulling ourselves together from within, we allow ourselves to be pulled apart — by gravity and positional forces — the opposite of what we’re hoping to achieve.

Warrior II from the Back

Pulled Apart by External Forces Pulled Together from Within

Of course, when we come to yoga class, we “bring ourselves with us.” We may bring tendencies to opt out or to use force when confronted with difficulty, or beliefs about surrender being “good” and resistance being “bad” — ideas or habits that diminish our ability to receive many of yoga’s benefits. Drawing paral-lels between integrity of chara�er and integrity of the stance can illustrate this point. Yehuda Berg, in �e Power of Kaballah, writes: “Transforming is the purpose of our lives and only an obstacle can give us that opportunity.”

Great artists have described how obstacles strengthened their chara�ers. Poet Ranier Rilke, for example, wrote: “One does not achieve greatness by success but by wrestling with ever greater obstacles and confu-sions.” �e San Francisco sculptress, Ruth Osawa, who was interred in the U. S. Japanese concentration camps during World War II, shares this view. She states that she bears no ill will against those who impris-oned her, recognizing that without them she wouldn’t have become who she is.

Not all of us are so heroic in our commitment to resist the temptation to give up (to surrender) in the face of difficulty. “Most people,” continues Kabbalist Berg, “tend to choose the path of least resistance in life… But staying comfortable doesn’t generate lasting light. We must learn to flee our comfort zones and plunge headfirst into uncomfortable situations.” A yoga posture, generously, provides us with a readily-available uncomfortable situation that, if consciously accepted, creates the �ace for developing our powers to dis-criminate precisely where to resist and where to surrender, to engage an ordered, unifying pattern of trac-tion. Facing difficulty is always uncomfortable, but nowhere near as uncomfortable as the consequences of taking the easy way out. In the end, there’s no escape from difficulty, as Kahlil Gibran says so simply:

“Verily, the lust for comfort leads to the grave.”

DEEP GREEN YOGA

To seek comfort is to seek the ease of surrender without its opposite, the consequences of which are evident in the pose on the left, which doesn’t express any pattern found in the natural world. �e pose on the right, on the other hand, requiring considerably more acceptance of a difficult situation, embodies all seven patterns.

Surrender without Resistance = No Traction Surrender + Resistance = Traction

We aren’t puppets on strings. Just as there’s no external force that can create our chara�ers, there’s no external force that can lighten the loads on our compressed and obje�ing joints as we move through life. �at the power — the skill to balance resistance and surrender — required to establish and maintain equi-librium has to come from within, to be generated by us, is as true on the mat as off.

Division Is Illusion: Two Is One❝Whether it be in creation as a whole or in individual creatures, all a�e�s of life

are governed by the number Two. But it is possible to understand the Two only if one remains constantly aware of the One.❞


Mathematically �eaking, and are separate numbers, but to the Initiates and are inseparable. �e origin of the number , according to these teachings, is two parallel lines linked by a diagonal line, indicat-ing the fundamental principle of the number two: two lines are in reality one line.

2�is pattern is mirrored by the Earth’s wind currents, where at the level of the ground winds blow in one dire�ion and at the level of the clouds the winds blow in the opposite dire�ion. From the Initiatic per�ec-tive, “two is as illusory as the clouds . . . the two currents are neither separate nor contradi�ory, they are in reality one and the same current circulating on two different planes.” Just as the circle implies division and separation between center and periphery — so does the number two imply unity.

How does this teaching affe� our yoga pra�ice? It has to do with kharma, the yogic term for “cause and effe�.” �e Law of Kharma implies that even though in the short run it may appear otherwise, there’s only One Order, which ultimately proves to be non-negotiable. Human beings, it’s becoming more obvious, don’t live outside the law. �e fa� that we always experience “unexpe�ed” consequences to every a�ion tells us that we’re never fully in charge, that we can never create situations that are removed from the whole pi�ure we don’t see: even the best laid plans are subje� to the larger laws. It behooves us, therefore,

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to learn the rules of the game, about which Nature is a very good teacher and the yoga mat is a very good classroom. �e rule in yoga: Principle first, then pose.

With this in mind, we move to the triangle, the most principled — because it lacks a third dimension and is therefore in its pure form not of this world — of all geometries.

� Wing, R. L., �e I Ching Workbook, p. , Aivanhov, Omraam Mikhael, Cosmic Balance: Secrets of Polarity, p. , , Schneider, Michael S., A Beginner’s Guide to Constru�ing the Universe, p. , Aivanhov, Omraam Mikhael, Cosmic Balance: Secrets of Polarity, p. , Schneider, Michael S. A Beginner’s Guide to Constru�ing the Universe, p. , Berg, Yehuda. �e Power of Kaballah, p. , KPFA “Morning Show,” �ursday, December , Gibran, Kahlil. �e Prophet, p. . Aivanhov, Omraam Mikhael, Cosmic Balance: Secrets of Polarity, p. , Ibid., p. ,

DEEP GREEN YOGA

38

�e Triangle: Unity In Diversity

❝Unlike any other shape, the three sides of a triangle resolve opposite tensions into one solid, stable whole needing no support from without. A triangle is self-sufficient.❞


It’s thanks to the triangle that our two opposing sides together form one unified, stable stance. Just as clearly — if not as visibly — as the delicate steel web of triangles upholds the signal tower pictured below, triangles integrate our potentially disparate parts, making our movements efficient and us self-sufficient. If we make it through life without needing joint replacements, we have our triangular integrity to thank. When dancers practice plié’s at the barre every day, they’re taking on the unending task of maintaining the human structure’s triangular supports for peak performance. For we yogis who have simpler demands the discipline is less rigorous. Nonetheless, studying the plié enables us to develop the insight and strength we need to practice unified poses, to in turn reap the many benefits that come with upholding a principled posture.Stru�urally similar to a three-floor building or tower, the human body has three main postural triangles. One triangle conne�s the legs with the pelvis, one the two sides of the pelvis with the chest, and another the two sides of the chest with the head. We have no external supports for standing upright: the strength to hold our stru�ure together must come from inside. Without this strength — whether or not consciously developed — we fall apart a lot faster than we need to.

Yoga gives us an infinitely portable format for pra�icing the engagement of our postural triangles. We can pra�ice anywhere, and we don’t need to buy or tran�ort expensive equipment. With just enough �ace to lay down a mat we can make the choice to resist gravitational forces, to rise su�ended between Earth and sky, to live in accord — as do the archite�ural wonders we constru� — with the principles by which the natural world works.

deep green yoga

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