Rainbow Spine

Hi, today let's do a practice for our spine. The spine is sometimes called the Tree of Life, and it's great to stretch your spine everyday, so let's start in dog pose. Let's bring our paws to the earth, spread our fingers wide, and stretch your legs back, bend one knee, bend the other knee. Take a few breathes there, feel the strength and the stretch in your spine. It feels good to stretch, deep inhale, exhale.

Perfect, from here, come forward, and let's come onto our bellies, and let's do snake pose. Snake is a back bend, a really great pose for your back, your spine, so bring your forehead to the earth, press into your fingers, and slowly inhale up. Pretend your body is a snake, rock a little from side-to-side, you can look up, do what feels good for your body. You might even take a deep inhale and stick your tongue out. Hiss. (hissing) From here, let's come into dolphin pose, dolphins love to play.

This is a great pose for your spine, and it also makes your arms really strong. Bring your forearms down on the earth, and clasp your fingers, that's your dolphin snout. From here, press into your feet, inhale you're legs straight and pretend you're a dolphin swimming in the ocean. Feel how good that feels on your dolphin spine. You can rock to one side, you can rock to the other side, and then pause for a moment, push back towards your feet.

Take a deep inhale and feel all that length and space in your spine, deep inhale. Exhale, and then drop to your knees, come into armadillo pose and rest. It's really important to rest and notice how you feel. Breathe in, breathe into your back body and feel your spine lift with your inhale, and drop with your exhale. (exhales deeply) Then from here, let's inhale up, and we'll roll onto our backs, let's do a rainbow body meditation.

So rolling down, feel your spine supported by the earth. You stay here, I'll go ahead and sit up, and what I'd like you to do is to close your eyes, and picture each part of your body as I talk about it. So first, bring your attention down to your root. The very bottom of your spine, the tailbone, picture the color red. Your root is about grounding, and feeling the earth underneath you, and feel her support.

Close your eyes, breathe into that area, and picture the color red in your body. Then bring your attention a little higher up, right around your belly button, keep your eyes closed, picture the color orange. This is the center of your creativity, you're imagination, so as you breathe into this space, make sure the color orange flowing through your body like a river. Breathe into it. Bring your attention up to the center of your chest, the color is yellow.

This is your self-confidence, your power, so as you breathe into this place, feel how strong you are. Picture the color yellow, flowing through your body, breathing. Then bringing your attention up to your heart, the color is green, this is the center of love, compassion, courage, so keep your eyes closed. Breathe into your heart and picture the color green, flowing through your body, a beautiful river. And now bring your attention up to your throat.

The color is blue like the sky. This is the center of your communication, listening and speaking. Close your eyes, take a deep breathe, see the color blue flowing through your body, breathing. Now bring your attention up to your forehead, your third eye, the color is indigo, a dark blue. This is the center of your higher intelligence, so close your eyes, take a few deep breathes.

Feel how smart you are, connected, breathe into this space, and see the color indigo flowing through your body, a river. Now bring your attention up to your crown, the top of your head. This is your connect to all there is. The sky, the heavens, the earth, all the animals, all the people, all the trees. The color is violet, close your eyes, and feel your connection to everything around you.

See the color violet flowing through you body, around your body, breathing. And now feel your rainbow body, all the colors of the rainbow flowing freely up and down your spine, feel yourself connected, a beautiful rainbow at peace.