Grounding Earth

Hi, friends. Welcome. Let's take a deep breath together in through the nose, fill up. Out the mouth, let it go. We'll begin on the back. Go ahead and come down.

Land your feet on the earth a little bit wider apart, almost to the edges of your mat. Let your knees tepee together one hand on the belly, one hand on the heart. Just feel yourself landing here on the earth, grounding into the soles of your feet, grounding into the back of your pelvis. Grounding into the backs of your shoulders in the back of your head. And just let the earth hold you as we take three rounds of slower, deeper breaths.

Go ahead and exhale everything out. Inhale slowly, fill up the belly, fill up the ribs, hold the breath in. Long exhale, let it all go. And then do it again. Big inhale fill up.

And long exhale release. One more breath like that. Big, big inhale fill up fill up fill up. And completely let go sink into the earth. I'm good. Take your arms out to the sides, like a t or goalpost depending how much space you have here, bring your feet just slightly closer together, knees widen apart, and you're just gonna roll the knees side to side, like a windshield wiper, feeling the back of the pelvis, starting to open up the hips, ground down here into the palms, into the shoulders. So we really wanna use the Earth element today to support all of our movements.

And the way that we tune into that is by pressing down whatever part of our body is touching the floor. So you might even feel the back of your pelvis pushing down here as you sway the knees side to side. Good. And then go ahead and bring your arms just alongside your body. Palms, press down. Feed about hip distance, root through the soles of the feet, feel the toes, feel the heels, and inhale, lift your hips up to an easy bridge pose. Any amount, the heart puffs up towards your chin, the shoulders might wiggle towards each other. You possibly could interlace your hands together And we'll take about three breaths here.

Keep feeling the feet. And then feel your breath. Feel the breath slower and deeper. Maybe feel the outer arms, the backs of your shoulders. Again, everything that's touching the earth roots down one more breath.

Good. Let's slowly lower down vertebra by vertebra. Land, bring the knees into the chest grab the backs of the knees and just start to rock and roll a few times. As you come all the way up, we're gonna go to hands and knees. So let's pause here and just feel the roots of the palm, spread nice and wide. As you're ready, you're gonna round your spine, cat pose, tuck your chin in, inhale, stretch your heart forward, lift your heart. Exhale round, push into the palms.

Inhale, again, stretch the heart forward, lengthen as you exhale, press and round. Make these nice and slow. Feel the rhythm of your breath, connecting into the rhythm of your body. Couple more, strong arms as you press down. Good. And then come to neutral spine, tuck your right toes straight back behind you and just rock your pelvis a little back and forth.

Feel that in the Baffa, in the ankle. Take your left foot and kickstand it over to the left just a little. Put your right heel down, right arm up, Artivashastasana. Pause here. And again, ground into the sole of your right foot. Ground into the left palm, feel the knuckles, feel the finger pads, and then expand from there across your chest, across the right side body, maybe sweep your right arm over the ear, one more breath.

And then put your right hand back down, put your right knee back down, go to the other side, left toes tucked Baffa, and a little rock forward and back feel the belly turn on here, support from your center. And then kickstand your right foot to the right a little as your left heel comes down. The left arm expands all the way open to the sky, and then root and rise. Feel the earth element support you here. Maybe close your eyes.

An option to sweep that left arm over the ear. One more breath. And then come back, hands, knees. Take another round of cat cow, round your spine, and then arch, reach the heart forward. Good. And then from here, you're gonna tuck your toes and do your best.

You're gonna get into the feet a little. And push your hips back towards your heels any amount. So one option might be just stay right here, shift your hips a little side to side. This is an excellent foot massage if you don't have the time or money to get one. You can stay right here.

If you wanna go deeper, walk your hands back any amount, but maybe even coming all the way to your thighs and hold here for about five breaths. I encourage you to, again, close your eyes and find slower deeper breaths to support the sensation, to nurture the sensation. If you're all the way upright, also again, really squeeze the belly, find a nice long spine through the top of the head as you root through the toes and the knees. Let's take one more breath. And we'll come back down, hands to the earth, untuck the toes, maybe a little tap, tap, tap.

Good. And then from here, we're gonna go to downward facing dog. Let's all do that together. Take a big inhale and a sigh. How about the mouse? And then just linger here.

Feel the feels. Feel the feet. Feel the hands. Feel the roots. Maybe drop the head a little more, soften the face. When you're ready, I want you to shift forward, find a plank pose.

Same thing. We're gonna feel the roots, support, maybe tweak your wrist slightly in or out, find that perfect placement for your hands. These can certainly come down here for support. Let's take five more breaths. So the Earth element asks us to slow down, which is not always something familiar in our society and our human experience that we have to practice. Practice slowing down.

Practice being one more breath. Good. We're gonna gently lower all the way down to the belly. And then reach your arms behind you, interlace your fingers here. Maybe stretch your legs back another inch from where they are now. I want you to now feel the pelvis, especially the pubic bone at the base of the pelvis ground down on the inhale lift your heart.

Maybe lift your feet and your knees, shall a bust in a variation. The gaze is slightly forward. We're gonna hold here as well, just turning on the back body, squeeze your hands towards each other, And again, feel that grounding element in the pelvis to help you lift up, to help you open your heart. And again, you could also close the eyes here, two more breaths. And lower down.

Hands by the ribs, push yourself back to downward facing dog. And slowly walk your feet. Really slow. Walk your feet all the way up to your hands. There we go. Take a halfway lift, inhale flatten out your back. And exhale fold and pause here, uttanasana.

You can grab the backs of your legs if you want. You can grab your elbows. And again, feel the feet, spread into the toes, maybe feel yourself push into the outer edges of your feet a little. Take one more breath here. Alright. And then rooting through the feet, relax the arms, bend the knees, and just start to slowly ragdoll yourself.

Vertebra by vertebra all the way up to standing. Good. Let's land here in tadasana. Let your palms flare out. Shoulders roll back. Root through the feet.

Let them be right under the hips here. So you feel a nice solid foundation, and then lift through the crown of the head. Let your whole body light up and turn on. There is nothing more earth than mountain pose. Maybe you visualize a mountain here or the base of the mountain down into your feet, taking up so much space on the earth.

And then let that base of the mountain support the lift of your muscles hugging your bones all the way up into the core, all the way up into the heart, all the way up through the crown of the head, two more breaths here. Feel free to close the eyes. Good. And bring a prayer to your heart. On the inhale, we're gonna sweep the arms out and up, half sense salutation. As you exhale bow and fold forward, grounding into the feet.

Inhale for a halfway lift, flatten out your back. Exhale gently fold back forward. Inhale rise and root through the feet. Reach your arms. Exhale, bring a prayer to your heart.

Again, inhale, reach your arms out and up. Slow exhale bow forward. Inhale halfway lift. And exhale folds. Inhale rise and reach.

Exhale prayer to your heart. Last one, inhale reach. Exhale, slow, dive forward. Inhale halfway up and exhale fold back in. Inhale rise, root.

Exhale prayer to your heart. And you just feel yourself land again into the soles of your feet and into the depth of your breath. From here, bring your hands to your hips and just really ground down into your pelvis. We're gonna step the right foot back and take warrior two. Left knee bent, and you can line up your left heel with your right inner arch here or your right heel.

Take your arms wide to the side as you're ready palm facing down and just land here for about five breaths. But as you land, I want you to feel the subtle movements, the subtle movement. Maybe as you inhale, you push into your feet, you grow a little taller. And as you exhale, you sink down just a little bit deeper. So even here, maybe feeling the mountain pose, the base of the mountain, the earth element into the feet, and that rise all the way up through the center of your body through the mountain peak, the crown of your head. Closing the eyes here can feel really nice.

One more breath. Good. And then just step forward back to the front of the mat. You can bring a prayer back to your heart. Take your time. Other side, we're gonna go ahead and step the left foot back. Big step back. Warrior two other sides.

Spread your wings. I might imagine yourself like a big hawk just soaring around as the base of your mountain with those wide open arms taking up space on this earth. The art of slowing down just really helps us land into this moment, this place this time, here we are right now. There's nowhere else to be. The past has already happened.

The future is unknown. Feel this breath. Feel this moment. Let's slowly come back forward. You can just step that left foot all the way back up, prayer to the heart.

Big inhale through the nose and sigh it out the mouth. On the inhale sweep your arms out and up. And exhale swan dive forward fold. Inhale halfway lift. Exhale fold deeper.

Okay. Let's hold you tenasana about three breaths. Just grab some part of your legs again if you want. You can even go deeper and wrap your arms behind your knees. Feel the feet. Feel the belly. Feel the breath.

Let release your hands. You're gonna crawl. You're gonna walk your feet out, actually, just into a melasana squat. So toes out heels in. And sit down any amount.

Your heels might lift here totally fine. You could certainly sit on a block if you have one. That's a nice option. And then hands can stay on the earth or prayer to the heart. Open up your hips, your pelvis, you could push your elbows into your inner knees here.

You just feel that wide pelvis, that opening in the low back and the hips one more breath here. Good. And then go ahead and use one hand back, one hand forward to guide your way down to a seat. And we'll end in an inversion. One option is you could go ahead and come to a wall, put your legs up a wall, or if easier, smoother, just come on your Baffa. Maybe use a block.

You could put the block under your hips. At the lowest level, and then take your legs straight up. And you could, of course, do this without the block too. And once you find your shape, find your breath, and just hold here about one minute. We wanna feel the back settling, sinking down into the earth element.

And just again, really give yourself permission to land in the present moment. Most of our hurried scattered overwhelm is just that feeling of needing to get it all done, needing to be somewhere focused on the future. Just tell yourself right now. It's all happening in perfect timing. One more breath.

And if your legs are up the wall, you're welcome to just stay there for Shavasana. If your legs are just up on a block or the floor, go ahead and put your feet back on the earth, move the block off to the side and land yourself all the way down into Shivasana. And allow yourself to just, once more, feel the earth hold you, the mother, the mother earth holding you in the palms of her hands. And you just get to sink down into that support. And you are welcome to stay here in Shivasana as long as you have time for and really allow your body to continue to rest and slow down.

And if you're ready to move back into your day, I just ask that you move slowly, mindfully with some deeper breaths. Thank you so much. Nava stay friends.