Luscious Lightwave

Luscious Lightwave 💖

Send your heart out through your mouth so it can be heard by other hearts.

My hands are in Shakh (or Shankha) Mudra. Shankh is the Sanskrit word for "shell," specifically a conch shell. You know the ones you pick up on the beach and hold up to your ear to hear the sounds of the ocean. The conch shell is played ceremoniously every morning at the opening of Hindu temple doors. This mudra symbolizes opening your inner sanctuary to hear the wisdom of your own heart. Because the thumb (fire) is connecting to the middle finger (ether or space), it is also activating and clearing for the throat chakra - especially when practiced in conjunction with chanting OM.  As I taught and practiced this mudra last week, I found its real significance for me was making a pathway for my heart to make its way out through my mouth. This mudra tends to clear away the coverings - anger, fear, blame, shame, guilt, self-justification - that often obscure pure heart-communication. Interesting too that the Sanskrit word for the throat chakra - Visshuddha means "purity." Imagine a world where everyone was speaking their heart and it was being heard and felt by the hearts of others. Wow. Now that's something to imagine. Shankh Mudra is practiced by holding the left thumb with the right hand and touching the tip of the right thumb and left middle finger.

Alison Bristow
Lightwave Healing & Yoga
#lusciouslightwave #dailylightwave
#shankhmudra #heartwords #heartsounds #heartcommunication #visshudha

Luscious Lightwave

Luscious Lightwave 💖

My life is fueled by the same force that moves planets; therefore it is a magnificently, holy experience. Whether I'm cleaning the refrigerator or sitting in a church pew, my life is a living prayer.

I said something of this nature to a client yesterday and it helped me too. This is the essence of the Bhakti yoga tradition and rings of the zen proverb: "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." Saint Paul's instruction to "pray without ceasing" also describes this way of being. I call it visceral spirituality. It's real, tangible, nitty gritty, and alchemical. To me, any other way of being leaves us to move through the human experience trying to gratify the senses until our being ends or suffer through until we die off to eternal bliss in a place called heaven. Both, being turning into non-being, and death serving as an instant gateway into bliss, are impossible as far as I can see. To merge the human and divine here and now is heaven on earth. When the ego-mind is transcended there's nothing to desire and the grass is never greener over there.

Alison Bristow
Lightwave Healing & Yoga
#lusciouslightwave #dailylightwave #bhakti #visceralspirituality #heavenonearth #zenproverb

Luscious Lightwave

Luscious Lightwave

The mind loves to label because then it no longer has to try to really see what's before it.

There's a Pratyahara practice given in one of BKS Iyengar's books that focuses on withdrawing from the labels the senses put on everything. The second something is labeled the journey of discovery is over. This is very comforting to the complacent mind but debilitating to the soul. It cuts us off from expanding and imprisons us in the same pattern of perception. Try not labeling for a day. Even simple things like flowers, road signs, bodily sensations. What would you realize about these things if you approached them with a spirit of inquiry? The more familiar, the more challenging it is to do this. Try it close, long-term relationships. What's there to perceive is never-ending. Things only seem limited when we cease to SEE them.

Alison Bristow
Lightwave Healing & Yoga
#lusciouslightwave #pratyahara #labelslimit #expansion #discernment  #viveka #vidya #dontjustlooksee

Luscious Lightwave

Luscious Lightwave 💖

Once upon a time I crossed the bridge from a life of self-service to a life of service and I'm never going back.

I was watching an interview with master yoga teacher Richard Miller recently and a comment he made about happiness really grabbed me. He said, "The way to make yourself happy is to make others happy; the way to make yourself sad is to try to make yourself happy." This rang so true to me because I've experienced both sides of the spectrum and their effects. Never have I been as miserable and dissatisfied as when I was trying to gratify the ego needs of the little self...the conditioned personality. And never have I been as consistently and genuinely joyful and satisfied as when I'm using what I have to lift others up. This doesn't mean aestheticism or martyrdom but there is self-denial and a surrendering of a narrow-minded sense of selfhood involved. This can be a hard won battle these days in our culture of instant gratification, but the rewards of this way of being have sealed it into to my psyche as the only way of life for me.

Alison Bristow
Lightwave Healing & Yoga
#lusciouslightwave#dailylightwave #vajrapradamamudra #servicecenteredlife