It’s autumn and soon enough the holidays are upon us again. What’s the first sign for you? Changes in the weather? The first leaves turning on the trees? Scary jack o’ lanterns and bonfires? Changing seasons cause us to pay attention to what our senses are registering in us, perhaps more at this time of the year than any other. Why is it that so many people love the seasons of spring and fall so much? The senses are fully, actively engaged; almost overwhelmed.
One of the surest signs for me (and my husband) is in what we want to cook and eat at home. Big bowls or plates of warm, comforting stewed things; or an impulse to bake rises up. I begin tagging recipes in the holiday issues of my food magazines.
One thing that’s different for me this year though is a deepening awareness of how my body reacts to food. I was born thin and have been blessed with a very high-functioning metabolism for most of life. My body literally burned with digestive energy at night and my weight hasn’t fluctuated more than 3-4 pounds over the past 20 years. I’ve always been very conscious about what I eat and have for years leaned much more toward a whole foods diet, but have been able to eat pretty much what I want without worrying about calorie-counting. Classic pitta constitution.
Manipura Chakra
Then I turned 40 and almost immediately I noticed changes. Many of them were normal, natural, but some have noticeably altered the way I feel and move. My digestive system is becoming more sensitively attuned to what I’m feeding it and in some instances has strongly resisted my desires to keep giving it the strong, spicy, acidic diet I’ve always loved. It’s as if the fires of digestion have smoldered to the point where they create only acrid smoke that has nowhere to go but back up the digestive tract! When I pull out my Ayurvedic cookbook and start actively reducing the pitta elements in my diet, I feel so much better, and not just in my belly!
Let’s look, too for a moment, at the belly in psychological terms. In Kundalini yoga (the most psychically [i.e., psyche]-oriented of all of the schools of yoga), the belly is the location of the manipura chakra, the center of transformative fires. At least symbolically, engaging a strong manipura energy (through the practice of Kundalini Yoga) is a positive force and necessary for continued growth and transformation. In Carl Jung’s interpretation, manipura is where we burn through our passions and desires in order to begin to realize our individual nature. In the wisdom of the chakras, manipura is where we put forth ambition, where we exercise power and is sometimes associated with the years when we are forging (to use another heat-related metaphor) our careers and defining who we want to be.
Around the time of my most recent bout with these uncomfortable changes to my system, I dreamt intensely for two or three nights in a row, twice a recurring dream where I was trying to teach yoga in my studio but was constantly thwarted, interrupted or otherwise distracted by people and things and activity. I’ve decided to work with the imagery in these dreams in terms of who I am in the scheme of my own life at this moment. What is it that I think I want and what’s still in the way that I have ignored or repressed? In other words, it’s perhaps not enough that I changed my life to pursue a path I felt would bring me a deeper sense of satisfaction along with the opportunity to really give something of value to people (and that desire came relatively late in my life). That alone will not bring me to a fuller realization of myself. There are still boxes full, rooms full of stuff and relationships to unpack that in my dreams, are literally, in my way.
Following the course of kundalini, I might consider that becoming a yoga teacher is still (unconsciously) bound up with the ego’s desires and “burning through” that want could create the space to more deeply connect with what my yoga practice means to me, and how I can take that deepening awareness – that more genuine relationship of my self to myself – to my students. Through yoga we become more real to ourselves. It follows necessarily that we become more real to those around us.
Which is all to say I’m very focused on the mid-region, in my own practice, but in my teaching too; especially at a time when we’ll feel compelled to overindulge a bit here and there. I always assumed my yoga practice alone would keep me fit physically and mentally but as I get older I want to bring more practices into my life that benefit the whole person: Ayurveda, restorative yoga, pranayama and meditation. These practices enhance the equanimity, the sense of balance and calm I get from yoga and give me the energy, the joy to pursue all the things in my life that keep me sane and present and help me to grow and stay creative: my teaching, music, art, food, home, family and friends.
Be extra aware of and nice to your “belly” this season – both with what you put in it that will help keep your agni, your digestive fires, balanced and active, but also, give some thought to the psychic force of the manipura chakra. What’s vivid, burning, and intensely alive for you right now and what does it mean for your own, unique sense of personhood? What’s the fire in your belly?