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Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, United States
Karen is a yogini, writer, student, teacher and meditator. She founded Garden Street School of Yoga in 2000. Karen lives with her husband Chris. They have two amazing sons, Eli and Leo (both of them young men).

Sep 17, 2009

To the Summit and Back Again

This week in my studio classes I am teaching Inner Spiral and Outer Spiral - with more focus on Inner Spiral. I used to teach both spirals together and sometimes even do upper and lower body spirals together because that's how I experience it - a living breathing dynamic of the entire body expanding and contracting - being breathed. But for my students who are new to the principles it is un-mapped territory and can easily become TOO MUCH INFORMATION. So now I take it more slowly. We climb on the bus together at base camp - THE MOUND OF THE BIG TOE. I am the guide. I describe in detail the entire journey from the mound of the big toe up through the exotic and - for many - never before mapped geography of bone, muscle and fascia to the mythic destination of THE PELVIS. And then we make the journey togethre. Once we reach THE PELVIS we stop there to do a little ritualistic sacrifice of a goat or whatever is handy. And then we climb back in the bus to outer spiral back down that crazy mountain road like going down the back side of one of those famous deadly south American roads. A lot of the students don't make it up to the summit of THE PELVIS fully conscious. I lose them along the way. they check out and hallucinate about what's for dinner. But that's OK because, sure enough, I will get them back on that bus next time and they will make it a little further before losing consciousness. Finally one day they will make it all the way up to the dazzlingly high altitude of THE PELVIS, fully conscious. Usually, for the first several journeys from THE PELVIS back down to THE MOUND OF THE BIG TOE , they fall over the side of the road, lose consciousness and start hallucinating about what's for dinner. This is dangerous work, this Yoga trekking.

2 comments:

  1. Hilarious! As soon as you said "goat" I knew we were in South America.

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  2. wow, Karen, I sooooo needed this for my teaching and rememberance of my own journey of inner and outer spiral, heehee. Base camp!! I love that stuff!!

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