I'm sure we all begin our week with the best of intentions! Sankalpa is the Sanskrit word for 'Intention'. Normally a Sankalpa is personal, your choice, relating to what you yourself need or want to find from your Yoga practice. It is a vow to yourself or perhaps a call to action! However, as our sense of being a community at MBY is strong, I adopted the Musketeers motto 'All for One and One for All' and decided we could voice some common intentions in our Pop Up classes this week!
Sound is a powerful energy. As a Scot and the sister of a excellent Piper, I know that energetic power. I also know the bagpipes may not be everyone's cup of tea, it's just my example here! A lone piper stirs Scottish hearts....a full Pipe Band will have us dancing as if spellbound, crying with turbulent Celtic emotions, following them through streets like in the Hamlin fairy story or even into battle - perhaps all of these at once!
Sadly, my talented brother can no longer play for me. The sound of the pipes though still stirs my soul. Below is a link to a fabulous Andre Rieu You Tube video of a lone female piper starting the wonderful Highland Cathedral, a great haunting beauty in the sound. Then wait for the full Pipe Band to join in and whether you appreciate the music or not, you cannot fail to recognise the palpable immense power of the joint energy of that sound!
This is like putting our voices together in our collective Sankalpa to sow the seed of our intention as a joint force......
These Sankalpas/Intentions are turned into statements of what we want from each class. On Monday morning it was 'Openess' to the possibilities of the week ahead. By resolutely repeating our intention of finding this we began our commitment to it by sinking it into our subconscious, thus planting the seed to grow. At Yoga Nidra on Monday evening our intention was that we would find Stillness, which doesn't always come automatically when we lie down in our space ready for practice. For some being still is a huge challenge both physically and mentally. Yoga Nidra takes us to a place between conscious awareness and sleep, moving us from the 'fight and flight' of our sympathetic nervous system to the 'rest and digest' of the parasympathetic nervous system. By focussing on ourselves externally and then drawing inwards this guided practice steers us into stillness. Just like the bagpipes though, Yoga Nidra is not for everyone and you have to be open to being still in your own space. The huge benefits to your health though, by releasing anxiety and stress and inducing deeper, better sleep patterns are scientifically proven ( unlike the bagpipes!).
If you've read this far, whether you're an MBY Yogi or not, you are already showing an interest in learning more about what goes on in our classes. These Blogs sometimes may seem quite heavy. Our daily weekly practices are definitely not!
We have great fun whilst enjoying each other's company, starting the day with positivity, sometimes energetically and dynamically, sometimes using easeful stretching. You don't have to be told how to connect with yourself, it just happens, and by getting to know yourself better through experience you get to learn what it really is you need or want in life. Sankalpas come naturally and when you know what to ask for it's much more likely that you'll find it.
The first intention we make together at the beginning of each monthly Pop Up is to help others through donating to Charities in the UK and around the globe. I am incredibly grateful for the voice of each person who has come to the mat with MBY since November and given more energy to our collective Sankalpa, 'Your Yoga for Others'. Here's the proof of its power so far...
We start the next Pop Up this coming Tuesday,4th June ( see on the Charity Pop Up page!) in aid of the Lifeline Express Hospital in India. If you want to become part of our 'collective force' book in now - the more voices we have, the stronger we sound!
Namaste X
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