Agni, the alchemical fire

I am sore. Am I sick? I seriously hope not. I believe this is just a reaction of the agni practice we had this morning.

I had a nice long night of sleep, and woke up very rested, which is nice. We went for meditation, and then Shiva announced that today was an Agni practice. I knew that we were entering the first day of our Fire practice, after Earth and Water, but did not know there would be a particular ritual to it. And there was.

We started with an om and mantra to Ganesha in Ganesha mudra, which was both new and powerful. Then, Shiva made an offering of fire, burning some incense and oils in a beautiful Indian metal plate. We chanted a different mantra 9 times, and finished in a sea of oms. And then the practice started. OH MY GOD! Facing the sun, she announced to us that we were going through a very simple practice designed to activate the fire within us. In the core. In Manipura Chakra.

We did rounds of nines :-) 9 uddiyana bandha Kriya (and I had had Mexican again the night before, CONTRAINDICATION, TRUST ME!!!), and then variations on surya namaskar, the main one being that each round involved 12 repetitions of the movement between plank and chaturanga dandasana. And that occurred 9 times in the practice. We then did various repetitions and variations on lunge, vira 1... I managed to bind in revolved parsvakonasana with the back foot down without bringing the knee to the floor on both sides. Yeah :)

After what seemed a VERY long flow with too many chaturanga, I realised that I had finally surrendered. I was so much in my head at the beginning of the Flow, and in the first chaturanga s, that I had mentally given up already. Then I moved into the heart and the core, and Manipura took over. I finished very strongly, forgetting where we were in the counts, and remaining in each breath, without anticipating the next. What an experience. We finished in a strong core activation peak pose, hold the first set 1 breath, up to the 9th set for nine breaths, legs and arms in the air, seat bones and shoulder blades of the floor... We ended with a kriya of our choice, a cleansing practice with either baddha konasana, bhujangasana, upward dog, danurasana or urdhva danurasana. As my Manipura chakra was so strongly activated, I went for upward bow, and that was very powerful, we did a krama over 9 breaths, and that was a very releasing experience. Wow. The fire was BURNING at the end of this flow. Most beautiful sivasana of course...

I then finally got the courage to get started working on all my projects, including the global mama project, which i will organise in Singapore. By chance, I ran into my dear dear mentor Coral, and we talked a lot. she is adorable. In a way, she reassured me on the fact that I am seen as an anchor my Shiva and the assistants, and that they expect me to go far with them in Shiva's steps. We connected a lot about our personal lives and other things. She really supported me with my plans to talk and write to Shiva, and I know she will circle back with Shiva regularly on my behalf.

Most beautiful day, thus. Though I feel strange now. Almost sick, but let's hope it's just the agni.

Trance dance in an hour, I will let you know.

IY