November's Theme: 11th Chakra - "I CONVERT"

November * Thanksgiving *  * Daylight Savings * 11th Chakra*

November's Studio Theme: "I CONVERT"

Ah, so THOSE are the chakras in the hands and the feet! I remember in my own yoga teacher training hearing talk about these "minor" chakras, but never learning anything more about them. Yet they are so important in understanding energy. This is where we feel energy between one source and another. Take a pose as simple as Downward Facing Dog. What are your hands and feet doing in this posture? Do you know that there is a specific way to connect them to the earth? Not doing so, leaves you disconnected to energy and unable to convert it towards optimum vitality in the postures.  Yoga Mudras are also an importation component of energy conversion. We take the energy associated with each finger, manipulate their positions, and thus create new energy patterns within us. Mudras are so simple and yet so misunderstood and underused! Yet Yogis will tell you to sit with a particular mudra for a length of time can actually "cure" different issues in the body and mind.  Anyone who is an energy practitioner (this includes yoga teachers) has a deep sense of this energy in his/her hands. If not, then I suggest getting to some expert classes to reconnect. And the more that you work with your healing gifts, the more sensitive you are to the energy here. We are all healers, we just have not all awakened to these gifts. But, why not start with your own self? Put your hands on a part of your body that needs healing, focus and breathe. Just hold space for the healing to occur. Be patient, and notice. You will feel something if you do. And then you will be more inclined to go deeper into this practice.  In your yoga practice this month, pay particular attention to the cues given for the hands and the feet and the bandhas or locks there to focus on. So let's do it! 11th Chakra Basics: Name(s): Hasta and Pada Chakras Location: Around the hands and the feet Color: Pink Issues: Energy Transference, Transmutation of physical energy Physical Connection: Hands and Feet Things to Ponder about the 11th Chakra: Do you feel energy or heat in your hands? Feet? Are you an energy worker/healer? Do you feel energy coming from the earth? When you shake someone's hands, can you feel their energy? Do you like to hug? Do you love to touch living things to feel the connection? Do you ever feel electrical charge in your hands? Have you been able to heal or change energy with hands-on intentions to do so? Some things to do this month to work with the 11th Chakra: Walk barefoot on the earth  Hold crystals in the palms of your hands - Meditate on what you feel Try hands on healing with intention Take Reiki or other energy healing trainings involving use of hands Mudra work Get a Reflexology treatment Care for your feet with a pedicure or new shoes with good support Yoga Practice So what type of things should you practice for your 11th Chakra? Asanas - Any postures where feet or hands touch the ground and root down. Work a lot with pada (foot) and hasta (hand) bandhas, the locks in the foot and hands when in the postures. Ask your teacher for assistance with the location in various postures if we do not refer to them. Mudra- Mudras are particular positions of the hands (and the feet), whereby touching one part of the hand to another you create particular healing energy. Mudras relate to the energy of the planets and the elements. For instance, the thumb represents the planet Mars and the fire element. The index finger represents the air element and the planter jupiter. The planet Mars is often called the "Task Master" and with fire and the 3rd chakra being bold and ego strength, this is a highly charged energy in the thumb. The index finger's association with the heart charka and energy of love, combined with the planet Jupiter known as the "Planet of Luck." When we bring the index finger and thumb together in a yoga posture, it is called the Gyan Mudra, and it allows the active energy of Mars to come in tune with the air element energy of love and balance. Immediately the mind is calmer. This is often a great mudra for meditation. There are many, many mudras, and the benefits of using them are endless. For research look at Gertrud Hirschi's book Mudras - Yoga in Your Hands. Breathing - Place the right hand on the heart and the left hand on the solar plexus. Allow the feet to be flat on the earth, so you may need to sit in a chair. This creates a balance to the forces of the right/left side of the body (male/female, respectively) and the solar plexus and heart chakra. Then, inhale filly the abdomen up to the chest. Pause/Hold. Then exhale relaxing the chest and squeezing the belly in towards the spine. Repeat, focusing on the energy in the hands.  Meditation - Pranic Ball. Stand in Mountain pose with feet flat on earth. Connect/earth down. Cup hands at waist, fingers touching, imagining that you are holding onto a ball of Prana. Inhale the ball upwards, keeping elbows in towards ribs and relaxed. Exhale ball downward. Repeat. Then, play with the ball if you like by imagining holding it between both hands. Slowly move hands further apart but continue to feel connection to the energy ball. See you far you can move hands apart or take ball from your body to still feel the energy.  Reiki Level I is Sunday November 10th! Start your journey as a healer this month. Love & Light, Tracey & the Teachers at One Yoga & Wellness Center!

Stone of the Month: Selenite Selenite is one of the only crystals that cleanses and charges other stones without needing to be recharged and cleansed itself, making it the ultimate healer! Our Natural Healer shop has Selenite wands and pendants for sale now!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * pecial Message from Tracey for November... For the longest time the chakras in the hands and feet felt like secret places that no yoga teacher wanted me to know about! These chakras were referred to but never discussed in depth, so they always had an heir of mystery about them. Even today, try to google hand or foot chakra, and you don't get a lot of information through reputable yoga sites. So, I have to say, "thank goodness" to the holistic healers of the world who are starting to discuss these chakras, which, by the way, are NOT "minor" in any way! How sensitive are your hands? Is this something that you've even discovered? When you shake someone's hand, do you pause to feel the connection? Or, is it a another quick thing you do mindlessly? What about your feet? Do you feel the connection that your feet make with the earth and actually feel the energy there? Or, do you hurry around, disconnected, constantly covered with socks and shoes? Yogis, just like babies, like to explore the energy in the hands and the feet. Watch a baby. They are fascinated by their appendages! They appear to even see the energy coming off of them. This is a "beginner" mindset that yoga teachers often refer to. In the beginning, you were amazed by what you felt here...and now? Many of you already know that I started my Reiki healer journey over twenty years ago. I took Reiki I and II and just didn't "get it." I didn't see anything like other people said that they did. I couldn't remember where my hands needed to be or how to hold them. I wasn't even sure what I was supposed to be feeling. I became a massage therapist and for years felt the physical - muscle tension. Last year I completed my Reiki Master with Michele Granberg because I was finally ready to. My hands are on fire, often. Whenever someone comes into the studio who needs healing, it's like they wake up. My feet also need to be connected. I don't like socks like I used to. I want to feel things with my feet. My hands and feet used to be terribly cold when I was a teenager and even into my twenties. Now that I work with this energy on a daily basis, they are rarely so, and no, it is not menopause! The 11th Chakra is not just the hands and feet, however. It is also the skin, muscles and connective tissues, in general. We take in and give out energy through all of those tissues. While particular vortexes exist in the hands and feet, it is not uncommon when you start to connect deeper to this energy to feel forces of energy in all parts of your body. Being a yoga practitioner is an energy worker. You are working on your own energy healing and conversion every time you step onto the yoga mat. Even if you never take a Reiki class, you will still hone these centers and start to notice greater healing gifts that you can use for yourself or share with others. And isn't that why we are here? To help ourselves and others heal in any way that we can?  This month focus on loving your hands and feet more and be receptive to the energy centers here. The world needs healing, and it does start with each one of us.  In Love & Light, Tracey