Trikonasana (Triangle)
Ah, spring is arriving even at this moment. It is a time for the Earth to wake from her inward embrace and for the flora to unleash its joy by unfolding their amazing colorful blossoms and vibrant leaves. Even the animals are rubbing the sleep from their eyes to playfully join the dance of the universe.
In the practice of yoga, we decide to join in this dance, to celebrate life by unfolding and celebrating our own beauty and strength. It is a play where we move to the rhythm of our breath and playfully explore and find balance between effort and surrender. This play brings our mind and body into an equanimity that unveils our hearts, unveiling the essence of everything, which is love.
Take the next moments while standing comfortably to follow your breath. Watch it as it enters the nose, travels down the throat and then expands the lungs. Continue keeping your awareness with your breath as it leaves your body, from the lungs out the nose. Witness the breath flowing through your body, like a gently breeze flowing through the limbs of tree. Simply open your body to receive it. Then as it leaves the body, let go of your tensions. Allow your thoughts to float in and out of your mind like clouds crossing the sky. The rhythm of the breath flows like music through your body. Its song reverberates in every cell.
Stay tuned into the breath while we begin to move into Trikonasana. With an inhalation, separate your feet wide apart, at least 4 feet. Turn your left foot in slightly, then turn your right foot out pointing it away from the right side of your body. Extend your arms out to sides by opening from your heart, the luminous ocean of light and love, out through your fingers.
With an inhalation, energetically drag the heels of your feet towards each other. (The feet will not actually move very much, this is an isometric action.) Feel the legs muscles engage to lovingly embrace the bones and draw into the core lifting your heart upward. An additional subtle action for the legs is to allow the inner edges of your feet starting at your big toes slide back towards the inner heel, to soften the inner thighs and open the seat bones backwards. On a following inhalation, draw in from your fingers to your core to embrace the warm golden rays of your heart.
From this loving embrace, which allows us to connect with the boundless ocean of love and beauty in our hearts, we beginto unfold like a blossoming flower. While maintaining the muscular embrace, exhale and radiantly expand from pelvis down through the bones of legs, from the tailbone through the top of the head and out through bones of your arms and beyond the fingers. Shift the hips to the left, and fold over the right leg. Bring your hand to a block or to the floor, whichever allows the heart to remain open and radiant, not closing towards the floor.
Pulsate with the rhythm of the breath by embracing your self with every inhalation and expanding in celebration of life with your exhalation. We play in this joyful dance by keeping these opposite actions strong, but then softening with each breath resulting in using less and less muscular strength to keep the same action. As we learn this dance of embracing and joyful expansion while pulsating to the breath, our pose opens with radiant, soft strength. Ancient yogic teachings state effort and surrender are like wings of a bird. When in balance, the bird flies with beauty and grace.
Repeat on the other side, then come back to standing. Take a moment to notice and honor where you are now and how things have shifted in your body and mind. Enjoy the joyful celebration of spring and soar with grace in your yoga practice.
Mark Stevens