by Monica Voss
In Chinese medicine, eating pears helps clear the thorax and lungs of heat and excess moisture. Many of us experience dryness and tightness as we endeavour to breathe deeply or slowly in a yoga class. The air in Canada in December is almost always cold. How do we mitigate the effects of these seasonal contrasts and the variable states of mind inhibited breathing creates?
Learning a little bit about the bio-dynamics of breathing will help us conceptualize, act and embody the realities within. For example, if we practise visualizing the diaphragm as a thin, stretchy double dome, sensitive, resilient, mushroom shaped, parachute-like, with jelly-fish pulsations, we’ll develop greater flexibility – and awe, gratitude and enjoyment – with every breath. When the diaphragm, abdominals and pelvic floor muscles communicate – pressure from the solar plexus down on the in breath creating release below in the abdomen, and contraction of the pelvic floor and abdominals up and back on the out breath relaxing and softening the diaphragm – then the complex and beautiful cause and effect of breathing becomes soothing and satisfying and an effective antidote to stress, worry, sadness, frigid air outdoors and dry centrally-heated/closed window air indoors.***
So many parts of the body are protagonists in the cyclical action of breathing. Vigorous kriya and pranayama, such as Kapalabhati, Bhastrika, and Agni Sara trigger spontaneous response in the diaphragm, ribs, spine, organs and soft tissues. These exercises feel wonderful! They’re vitalizing and integrative and funny and they expand lungs, throat, nostrils and sinuses. Now, choose some part of you not on the ‘first responder’ breathing list, and study movement and sensation there as you breathe, perhaps in kneecaps or scalp.
To stimulate fullness and ease, explore the perceptions of the breath cycle when touching the sternum and belly. Investigate hand positions and their relationship to respiration. Practise the Tibetan technique of ‘skygazing’, simply stepping outside, looking out, looking up, opening yourself to the infinite atmosphere, imagining the breath coming to you from far, far away.
‘don’t go to so much trouble
the sky belongs to us all…’
– Jean Cocteau
Make sighing sounds, laugh, sing and hum. Recite stream of consciousness poetry (or the run-on sentence above marked ***) out loud. And gorge on delicious bronze and golden Canadian winter pears.
Image: Chaumontelle Pear, William Hooker, 1779-1832