“Make visible what, without you, may never have been.” — Robert Bresson
Weekly Focus: Svadisthana — second chakra, creativity, manifested desire, courage, confidence
You may feel inspiration abound at this time of the year, when nature is budding and expanding. How can you not? Everywhere we look during the spring season we see flowers and nature teeming with life! How do we use this creative energy to manifest our deepest desires with courage and confidence? Svadisthana is our second chakra, located in the center of the abdomen, and associated with the color orange. Orange is a color associated with heat, energy and action. Sitting at the cusp of summer, this call to action may ignite our creative fires! Tap into the abundance that may be budding within you — how you will you stoke this creative fire? What desires have remained buried away during the cold weather that you can now attend to, as we sit on the threshold of summer? How does creativity show up in our life outside of the most common considerations such as art or music? In what other ways are we called to be creative? To manifest our desires we must act, so we tap into the resources of svadisthana to create and to blossom.
Passive Pose of the Week: Supported Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (supported bridge pose)
Allow your svadisthana chakra to soften and spread open, tapping into it’s creative energies in this supported posture. Start on your back with your knees bent and your feet placed just in front of your seat for bridge pose. Have a prop within arms reach, such as a bolster, a pillow, a folded towel or block. Lift your hips and slide your chosen prop to the sacrum (the very top of the butt or the very base of the low back). Allow your body to relax onto the prop. From here, you can keep the legs bent or allow the legs to extend away from you. As you breathe here, close your eyes and think about the color orange.
Active Pose of the Week: Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (bridge pose)
Activate your svadisthana chakra with this strong back bend. Lay down on your back and bend the knees with the feet on the floor. Press your feet into the floor as you begin to lift your hips up towards the ceiling above you. Once the hips have lifted you can begin to walk one shoulder at a time beneath you so that the upper back may begin to arch and lift. Consider bringing the sternum towards the chin. Take about seven breaths here before slowly unraveling the spine to the floor. It may feel good once touching down to hug the knees in towards the belly and take a small rock side to side or back and forth.