Full Moon in Libra
Libra invites balance. The world is rebalancing right now. Do you feel the pause we’re experiencing in the atmosphere, in our bodies, during this cosmic shift? Have you noticed the birds singing, the bees dancing? The way the waters in Venice became crystal clear and the air in China cleared of pollution. What happens when we give everything a moment to settle, and to breathe?
Breathing restores balance, not only to the external ecosystem but to our own internal ecosystems as well. There are many ways we can use pranayama breathing practices to cultivate balance and harmony, such as the nadi shodhana breath we have been working with recently. Or deeply cleansing and energising our lungs through the full yogic breath.
Breathing deeply into your belly, ribs and chest then exhaling chest, ribs and belly. Completely filling your lungs in this gentle yet powerful way brings a boost of oxygen into your blood to refresh every cell and organ in your body. Exhaling completely releases stagnant carbon dioxide that accumulates at the base of your lungs. This balanced breathing technique not only harmonises and regulates your breath, it can bring greater physical energy and mental clarity.
Breathing into the parts of your lungs that you do not usually pay attention to – such as the base of your lungs, right down by your abdominal diaphragm, the backs of your lungs and the top of your lungs expanding beneath your collar bones – you give loving awareness to the second largest organs in your body (the largest is the skin). These are the organs that literally keep you alive. Have you considered that?
Your lungs are located within the energetic space of your heart chakra, so breathing love into your lungs can help you breathe love out, too. Balance. Harmony.
Many people are focused on the health of their lungs at the moment – with awareness on the respiratory system and the impact of Coronavirus. Wearing protective masks to help stop the spread through breathing.
While people’s lungs are receiving so much new and necessary attention, we can choose to give love both to and through our lungs, to bring ourselves and our Earth into balance and harmony. Mother Earth has lungs too. Recently we witnessed the deadly burning of the world’s lungs in fires that ravaged the Amazon rainforest. Lungs need our love and attention right now. We need to love, nurture and protect the lungs that give us life – our own, each other’s, and the Earth’s.
Energetically and emotionally, the lungs are related to grief. Have you felt it? The outpouring of grief and emotion that has accompanied these global catastrophes.
The recent Jupiter-Pluto conjunction brought expansion to our depths – the grief of leaving the old world behind as we transition through this portal into the new and unknown. What have you left behind in that world? And can you live without it?
There is a time for grief. A time to acknowledge what has passed and what has been left behind. What could not be carried forward. Breathe that grief into and out of your lungs – feel the fullness and the emptiness, allowing any tears or sensations to arise as you breathe. This may trigger deep emotional feeling. Sit with it if you can. Just breathe. Notice how it feels to let go. To grieve what is lost. Keep breathing until you feel ready to continue.
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Through the grief and the outpouring of emotion, the energy of the Full Moon invites you to celebrate. You can celebrate the rebalancing, the rebirthing, even as you grieve the loss, mourn the death of what has passed. Perhaps you have lost loved ones.
Is there a space, however small, within which you can find love in this situation? To celebrate the life that has passed, to give thanks for all that has been.
To celebrate the rebalancing, as you experience this within your own body through your breath.
To breathe love and gratitude and forgiveness for all that is.
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Libra’s moon invites a connection with your sacral chakra – particularly working with your kidneys and sexual glands. These areas may be feeling triggered with stress (adrenaline is produced in your kidneys) or trauma (many people carry past trauma in their sexual organs). Breathing into these areas of your body can give you the space to feel and release some of these stuck or challenging emotions. Exhaling through the mouth with a sigh can support you with letting go what needs to be released.
During lockdown it’s important to keep your body moving, too. Stay connected to your physical foundations. Lying on the floor or on your yoga mat (or outside on the grass if circumstances allow), take dwi pada pitham, two-foot support. This can be practiced as a dynamic asana for grounding into the earth through your feet and opening up your chest and lungs for expansion and growth. Moving with the breath. With both feet flat on the floor, hip width apart, arms down by your sides, gently raise your pelvis from the floor as you inhale and lower it back down as you exhale. Taking care to be gentle with your spine, feeling into the backs of your lungs and the full capacity of your ribs.
When you have completed ten rounds, keep your knees bent with feet flat on the floor and take yoni mudra, placing your hands flat onto your pelvis with index fingers and thumbs touching – an open triangle of space in between. Breathe here, into your sacral chakra. Yoni means womb or source. Feel your breath connecting you to your inner source of love.
The bija mantra for the sacral chakra is VAM. Close your practice by chanting VAM three times.
Give gratitude to yourself, to your lungs and your breath. Breathe love in and breathe love out.
Notice where you feel balance in your life and celebrate it.
In love,
Diana
Breathe with Me: Join me live on Facebook for a breathing practice every day at 11am.