Day 2: Tasting

Hi, welcome to day two. In this practice we're going to move through some familiar asana postures, maybe some new movements, and we'll bring our attention towards the sense of taste and our mouths. So let's get started in a seated position. You'll want to be comfortable so sitting up on a blanket, a bolster, a block, and begin to move your tongue around your mouth. Explore your teeth, explore the backside of your cheeks, explore your upper palate, and explore with curiosity. So there's one way to do this that's a little more task-oriented like you're trying to get something out of your teeth. There's another way to do this, which sometimes makes me feel more like I'm an infant. I'm like, what is this? It makes me laugh. What is this mouth? Feel into the wetness of your mouth, the life of your mouth, and let your tongue rest and find a few breaths and begin to notice the relationship between your nose and your mouth. So embryologically these develop together like your right and left arm, and 80% of your taste is smell. Gently begin to move your head, so you're going to turn your face to the right, come back to center, and turn to the left. Continue to do that, turning your head to the right, and turning your head towards the left. Now as you do it, bring your attention to your mouth and move towards the right, and move towards the left, almost like you're reaching with your mouth. And we've been doing that move since we were infants, moving towards nourishment. And now continue to move your head side to side, move your head to the left and to the right, and now notice what it's like to move away. What are you moving away from? And again, a little more attention to your mouth, moving away, moving away. Okay, and then we'll come back to center and transition to all fours. Begin to move through some cat-cows. So as you inhale, lengthening the front of your spine, and as you exhale, lengthening the back of your spine. And again, bringing your attention to your face, your mouth, your lips. Feel the movement towards the ceiling, towards the sky, towards the ground, towards the shadow of your own body. Inhaling, lengthening the front of your spine, exhale, lengthening the back of your spine. And now make your way back to downward facing dog. Again, move your tongue around your mouth a bit. Notice all of the wetness. Follow that wetness into your interior. Your body is very, very wet. Feel into your contents. As you're ready, we'll step the feet forward behind the hands, turn your toes out and your heels in, and begin to bend your knees to come into your version of squat. So staying up as high as you need. Root down into the earth, and as you're ready, rise up to stand. You can turn your palms up, standing tall, and then turn your palms down and begin to come back down to your version of squat. We'll do that several times. So root down through your feet to come up, and then turn your palms down to travel down. And again, noticing the movement towards. So as you rise, we're going up, getting closer to the ceiling or the sky, and then the palms turn down and we're getting closer to the ground. Feeling that movement towards. It's like there's a little reach. And now notice what it's like as you go up to move away. And as you go down, feel that movement away. Rising on the inhale to feel the away from the ground, traveling down to feel the away, what's above you. And the next time you rise to stand, we'll pause, bring the legs towards parallel and release your hands down. Notice your feet touching the ground and simultaneously notice the space around you and behind you. Inhale, reach your arms up towards the sky and allow your face to move up like a little reach in your mouth. And as you exhale, fold forward. As you inhale, lengthen halfway. And again, allowing for movement towards a little reach. And as you exhale, fold again. Inhale, rise all the way up to stand, reaching as you rise and release your arms down. We'll do that again. So inhale, allow your arms to rise. Again with this curiosity of what am I moving towards? What am I turning towards as I fold? Lengthen halfway and fold. Rise all the way up to stand. We root down to rise. We move towards the sky. We reach and release your arms down. One more time with the noticing of what are we moving away from? Lift your arms up. As the face goes up towards the sky, what are you moving away from? And fold. Feel that movement away. Inhale, we're lengthening halfway, moving away from the legs. Exhale, fold a movement away. Inhale, rise to stand, root down, rise up. And exhale, release your arms down. Moving on, inhale, lift your arms up towards the sky. Exhale, fold forward. Inhale, lengthen halfway. And exhale, transition to downward facing dog.

Inhale breath, come forward to plank and lower down to your belly. Rise up into a low cobra and turn your head to the right and keep turning your head like you're curiously going to look back towards your right heel and then come back to center. And again, bring some attention to your mouth. So you're going to look over your left shoulder, keep reaching with your mouth, just this intention to look back towards your left heel and we'll come back to center. And then again, doing that again. Again, we've been playing with this since we were infants, a little reaching in the mouth, moving towards nourishment or what we desire. Looking to the right heel, come back to center and then look over your left shoulder towards your left heel. Come back to center, lower down, stack your hands, rest your forehead on your hands and a moment to rest here. Relax the muscles of your face, letting your head release and surrender to gravity. Bring your hands underneath your shoulders, press up to plank and back to downward facing dog. Inhale here, exhale bend your knees and step your feet behind your hands. Feel that movement towards. Inhale, lengthen halfway, turn your toes out a bit and then again come into your squat. Rise up to stand, you feel that movement towards and travel down to squat. A couple more times like that. So our senses are playing in this moment to moment. What am I moving towards and what am I moving away? What am I moving towards, rising up to stand? What am I moving away from? The next time you're up to stand, pause, bring your legs towards parallel and pause in tadasana. One more time, sansalut, inhale arms rise. Exhale fold forward. Inhale lengthen halfway and exhale step back to a downward facing dog. Inhale breath, come forward to plank and transition down to your belly. Rise into a low cobra and then again turn your head to the right and back to center and turn your head to the left and back to center. Again with this curiosity of movement towards and movement away. The next time you're back to center and low cobra pause for a full round of breath. Lower down, this time press back to a child's pose. Again release the muscles of your face. Allow for a surrendering to gravity. Walk your hands in so that you can roll up, sit on your heels or rise up onto your shins if that doesn't work for you. We'll bring the hands back just to touch and then lengthen the whole front of the body. Come back to all fours and press back to a downward facing dog. I'm going to add a couple more words here. Approaching and withdrawing. On an inhale come forward to plank with this sense of approaching. What is it like to approach? And then travel back to downward facing dog again with this idea of approaching. Do that a couple more times. Feeling into this word approaching. To me this is like you're on a first date or you are wanting to make a new friend. You're approaching them. You're checking it out, coming forward to plank.

Approaching and heading back to down dog. Approaching, checking it out. We're going to do that same movement but what would it be like to withdraw? I'm going to sneak out of here. Coming forward to plank with this sense of withdrawing. And then back to downward facing dog withdrawing. Forward to plank, what are you withdrawing from? Back to down dog withdrawing. And it's interesting, these postures that we know so well, they can really change just by changing the intention. Once in down dog we'll pause, find a few grounding breaths. What's it like to approach your breath? To be in a curious relationship with breath. And as you're ready let's bend the knees, step the feet behind the hands, turn the toes out a bit, lengthen the spine, bend both knees, traveling into your squat and then push into the ground. Come up to stand, turn the palms down and head back down into your squat. Two more times like that. Feel into the approaching the sky as you rise and approach the earth as you lower. Rise up to stand and feel withdrawing, withdrawing to rise and then withdrawing to lower. Rise up to stand, bring your legs to parallel, moment to pause. Lift your arms up towards the sky, so towards, fold forward, moving towards the earth. Lengthen halfway, feeling that movement towards to what's in front of you. Fold forward, folding into yourself, moving towards your own body. Rise up to stand, reach your arms up towards the sky and bend both knees, travel into utkatasana, lengthening from the sideways to each fingertip, rooting down into the bottom of each foot. Fold forward, uttanasana and step back to a plank. Widen your feet so they're wider than your outer hips and turn both of your heels to the right, move down through the pinky toe side of the right foot, the big toe side of the left foot, push into both hands. Find some heat, strength, slowly shift your weight into your right hand, peel your left hand up off the floor, reach your left arm up towards the sky, approach the sky. Slowly let your left hand approach the floor, bring your left hand down, come back to plank, bring both of your heels over to the left, let your right hand approach the sky and slowly bring your right hand down to approach the floor. Come back to plank, one more time each side, heels to the right, lift your left arm up and feel the withdrawing away from the ground. Vashisthasana and slowly release your left hand down again like you're withdrawing the hand and placing it back on the earth. Bring both of your heels to the left, keep pushing through your right hand a moment here and then lifting it up to the sky, feeling that quality of withdrawing. Lift your right arm up and place your right hand down, lower your knees down and transition to your belly. Rise up to low cobra and then again bring your attention to your mouth and again turn your head to the right, feel into that approaching, what's over there? And come back to center, turn your head to the left, again this quality of approaching, what's there? Come back to center and lower down. Place into your hands, find a child's pose. A couple breaths here, releasing the muscles of your face, release your lips and relax the hinge of your jaw. Gently walk your hands in, this time we're going to shift just slightly forward to tuck the toes under for toe pose and then rise on up to bring some weight onto your feet here. If this is too much you can always bring your hands to the floor in front of your knees or of course always modify as needed. Notice with all of this sensation in the feet, what is happening to your mouth? What is it like to be in the sensation of the feet and to be easy in the lips and easy in the jaw and curious in your tongue? Your tongue is very, very creative. Let your tongue be free. What is it like to be in the sensation that's happening in your feet but to also be with all of your skin, all of your skin, all at once, like you're widening the map of sensation? What is it like to be in the sensation in your feet and to also be with your breath? Bring your hands to the floor right alongside your knees. You're down through your hands to hover your knees up off the floor, walk your hands back a bit and experiment with hovering, bringing your hands to your heart. Feel that drawing into your midline, a little rise through the pelvic floor. Keep rooting through the balls of your feet and then slowly begin to rise up to stand on the balls of your feet. Release your heels down. Here we are standing, lift your arms up towards the sky, reaching, looking up and fold forward, moving towards your legs, folding into your own body. Inhale, lengthening halfway, approaching what is in front of you and exhale we fold, moving towards. Inhale, rise to stand, lift your arms skyward, exhale back to utkatasana, knees coming forward, sitting bones drawing back, reaching sideways to fingertips and then fold forward again. Make your way towards a downward facing dog and then we're going to take our down dog for a little walk. So I know this is bear crawls or what I know is it's called bear crawl. So a little walk forward and then a little walk back. I'm staying on my mat but you're free. You could walk around your room in this bear crawl and connect here to your animal body. Once again, returning to being a four legged animal. Notice there's spirals in your body to move yourself forward, little twists, adjustments of weight. Just one more minute with this, little movement forward, little movement back. Again, connecting to your animal body. I feel like when I do work with my senses, it reminds me that I am an animal. My sense is making sure that I am safe. Constantly making choices around what to move towards, what to move away from.

All right, and then we'll find our way to downward facing dog. Come forward to plank. Once again, transitioning down to your belly. Rise up into a low cobra and then again turning your head to the right. Coming back to center and turning your head to the left and back to center. Lower down. Again, make a little pillow with your hands. So one hand stacks on top of the other. Lower down to rest your forehead on your hands. I'd like to introduce another word here, bond to bond, bonding. In this moment, we'll feel that with our relationship with the ground. Right now, we are touching and being touched by this ground. In order to bond, we need to feel safe. We need to feel physically supported and emotionally supported to allow for our bodies to touch and then to be touched. So for yourself right now, what would it be like to offer yourself to this ground? And what would it be like to let it come all the way in? It's like the earth is rising up to meet you and then we let it even move through us. Bring your hands underneath your shoulders and head back to a child's pose. Again, considering this, this word and then placing it in your body and in your own experience, bonding to bond. Notice how your whole body feels when you bond with ground. Gently, you start to roll up to sit on your heels or you can rise up onto your shins and notice that feeling here. So when we eat and when we drink, we bring it all the way in. It bonds with our interior body and nourishes our wholeness. That's happening all of the time. Notice what it's like here to bond, connecting with everything that's beneath you. Bring your hands back and begin to lengthen the front of your spine wide in your upper chest. Come forward to all fours and then once again moving through your cat cow. As you inhale, lengthen the front of your spine and as you exhale, lengthen the back of your spine. A few more times like that. Placing in some of these words of towards changing, withdrawing and bonding. And our sense organs are moving through this and so much more moment to moment. Mostly, we're unconscious of it. And then when you're ready, back to a downward facing dog. And back to a standing forward fold. Lengthen halfway Arda Uttanasana. Exhale, fold forward. Rise all the way up to stand. Lift your arms up towards the sky. Pause here and what would it be like to reach up towards the sky while still bonding with the ground? And release your arms down. For this next movement, we're going to step the legs out wide, wider than the outer hips and then bring both of your toes to the left. So this posture has come to me through the study of the Qigong Tiger form and it's called protecting the vulnerable heart. And I'm going to use it to offer up another word, defending. So to bond and then to defend. So a very strong, quite profound really can feel like a strong no to protect what is vulnerable and to protect what is sacred. So with this move, your left foot will be slightly in front of you and your right arm will rise. And I'm imagining that my arms are like swords and I'm going to protect and defend my sacred, vulnerable heart. So the right arm is expanding up. The feet are rooting and with a strong exhale, both knees will bend. The right arm slices through the air and it moves past the left leg and the arms will come up. So it's casual. So do it in your own way. The arms will extend with a strong exhale. The right arm slices through. Most important is that intention. Defending. Defending what is sacred. Rising up. Defending your heart. Again, rooting down through both feet. Reach the right arm up. Strong exhale. Knees bend. The right arm slices through the air. Two more times. We rise and the right arm slices. We rise and the right arm slices. And then we'll pause. Bring both legs to parallel. As your arms reach out and feel into your standing star again. Opening up. Noticing what that feels like after that strong movement. And then we'll find the second side. So all of your toes will turn to face a little bit to the right diagonal. The right foot is in front of the left and then the left arm will rise and the right arm will come down. So we'll find a nice big inhale. And then with a strong exhale, both knees bend. The left hand slices through the air. And then the left arm rises. And then again, left hand slices. Protecting. Defending. What is sacred to you? Slicing. And then we rise. This always feels like learning boundaries. Learning how to say no. A couple more times. So we inhale, we feel into our length, our power, our strength. And as we exhale, the arm slices through the air in this defending gesture, this protecting gesture. And again. And we'll rise. One more time. And we rise and come back to standing star. Moment to pause and to all of this expanse while still embodying some of that strength and power. Our capacity to defend and say no. Create boundaries. And release your arms down. Turn your toes out, your heels in for a brief moment in Goddess. Send your arms out wide to the side and up towards the sky.

And as you exhale, turn your hands down and let them pass down in front of your midline. Just a few more times like that. So inhale, the arms will go out wide to the side and up. And exhale, the hands will pass down in front of the midline. And again, inhale. And exhale. This time we're going to bring our hands all the way down to the floor and rock yourself out a little bit side to side. Your hands can be down to the floor or maybe your forearms come down to the floor. Shifting side to side. Come back to center. Bring your hands to your thighs and come all the way up to stand. Extend both legs. Back to your standing star. One more moment here. Release your hands down and come back with the legs underneath you into Tadasana. Notice, be inside your sensations. And as you're ready, lift your arms up towards the sky. We're going to head back to a downward facing dog. Fold forward. Lengthen halfway and step back to your downward facing dog. One more time, we'll come forward to plank and back to downward facing dog. And again, do that a few times for yourself. Forward and back. And as you do that, play with some of these words of moving towards and moving away. Approaching. What's it like to approach plank? What's it like to approach downward facing dog? What's it like to withdraw from down dog and come into plank? What's it like to withdraw from plank and move to down dog? Come forward to plank and feel a bonding. Like when you bring food or water in, comes all the way in. And then go back to downward facing dog and feel a bonding. Bonding with the posture. Bonding with the earth. Now come forward to plank and feel that movement of defending. What's that like? Protecting back to down dog. I don't know. They just have really different qualities, which certainly help me wake up into these postures as we do them year after year. And then knees come down, travel down to your belly, rise up into a little cobra. And one more time, turn your head to the right and bring your attention once again to your mouth and then back to center and then to the left. It's like when we smell something good that we want to eat, our mouth start to salivate. Turn your head to the right and let there be a curiosity there like, and then back to center and to the left. What's over there? And back to center.

Lower all the way down, touching and being touched by this earth. Considering that bonding again and dropping in that sweet relationship that's available for us all the time. Bring your hands underneath your shoulders and find your child's pose. Walk your hands in, roll up to sit on your heels, walk your fingertips back, lengthen the front of your spine, turning your face up towards the sky. And come back to center, find neutral and make your way to your seat. I'm going to sit back on my cushion and once you're seated, bring your right shin in front of your left shin and take a moment and make sure that you can move your hips. So can you rock your hips a little bit front to back? And if you can't, then come up on a little bit more support so that you're sure to be sitting on your pelvis rather than your spine. And then move your tongue around your mouth again, just waking up, refreshing your sensations here in your mouth. And then when you're ready, you can tip your hips forward, bring your hands out in front of you, maybe fold forward. And then again, just checking in, can you release your lips? Can you release the hinge of your jaw? Can you soften your tongue? And notice how that is in relationship to the bottom of your pelvis. When we were growing ourselves, there was one point in our development that we were tubes. One side of that tube was your mouth and the other side would one day be your anus. So there's a very clear relationship here between mouth and then the portals at the bottom of the pelvis towards and away. As you're ready, we're slowly going to come up, bring your hands just slightly behind you. And then again, opening up the front of the spine, looking up, feeling that movement of your mouth up towards the sky. And we'll come back to center and switch what leg is in front. And just checking in, making sure there's some movement here available in your pelvis. And then if you like, you can begin to tip your hips, bring your hands to the floor, maybe begin to fold forward. And again, just checking in with your mouth. Oftentimes when I first move into these seated forward folds, I can feel how there's some tension in my mouth and my tongue and my jaw and my teeth. I'm just going in there and relaxing, resting, and I feel how there's a direct relationship to my pelvis. And we'll slowly start to rise and pause when you're seated. And then one more time, just moving your tongue around your mouth. All of our senses developed based on our experiences. So what kind of foods were you offered? What kind of touch did you receive? And they developed like that. So I'm in an ongoing question of how can I refresh the action of tasting, of having choice around what I'm moving towards and away, approaching, withdrawing, bonding and defending. How can I widen my map of sensation? From here, we'll slowly transition to our backs. So you'll bend both knees. Let's take our time with this. So bring your feet to the floor, reach your hands forward and slowly begin to descend towards the earth. Pause once your sacrum has touched the floor, the base of your spine, and let's slowly come back up. Find that a couple more times. So rolling down. So here's that approaching, movement towards, then coming up, like withdrawing, moving away from the earth. And again, we'll slowly come down and rise up and lower down this time, lowering all the way down onto your back. Pause. Feel into the bonding with the earth. Notice your mouth. We'll find a big sound here. And ah, oh, mmm. And we'll do it continuously. Notice the vibration in your body and notice the feelings inside of your mouth. So as you're ready, find a nice big inhale. Ah, oh, mmm. And again, like that. So inhaling. Ah, oh, mmm. Gently turn your head to the right and to the left. Come back to center. Hug your knees into your chest and send your legs over to one side for a supine twist. And we'll come back through center and find the twist to the other side. A brief moment to be here. Gently travel back to center. So you might settle into shavasana, laying down and finding rest there. Or you can transition up to your seat and close with me in a brief seated meditation.

And to pause here and to listen. Drop into your sensations. And be with the wisdom of your sensing body. If you're laying down and you'd like to join me to close then please rise up to a comfortable seat. Bring your hands together and let's close with a bow. Thank you so much for practicing with me. For your homework suggestion this week, try drinking or eating and closing your eyes and being inside the sensation of taste without already knowing. Be in the surprise of taste. Thank you.