Today I'm going to try something a bit different on #anwen-meditates. I want to share my thoughts with you on one particular yoga pose - savasana, or corpse pose.
What is Savasana?
Savasana is known as corpse pose, and often is practiced at the very end of a yoga session. In savasana, the yogi is lying on their back, arms relaxed beside their body, legs outstretched, and the spine in a straight line. The teachings I often hear from my yoga instructors include:
- "Relax your whole body"
- "Surrender into the earth"
- "Allow each muscle of your body to melt down"
- "Be calm, but present"
- "While this position is similar to a sleeping position, in savasana you are fully conscious of your being right now"
- "This is the most important pose in yoga. All other poses are practiced to prepare you for savasana"
- "Take your time here, enjoy the calm. The calm in your mind, the calm in your body, the calm in your spirit"
My Recent Preoccupation With Death
I have thought about my death quite a lot, and about death in general. I have participated in several shamanic ceremonies that circle around the idea of death. I made a post on Steemit a while back about a meditation on death that I practice. And I've always been fairly calm and accepting about death - until the past few weeks.
I don't know what triggered it, but a few weeks ago I started thinking about death constantly. I would be sipping on my coffee in the morning, and suddenly have this intense realization that there will be a point in time when I am no longer here to sip on coffee. I would be looking out onto my garden and suddenly realize that there will be a point in time when I am no longer here to look at my garden. I would be watching TV and suddenly realize that at some point I WILL NO LONGER EXIST. My ego began screaming. I was terrified.
I've found myself in grocery stores almost making myself high just thinking about dying, and looking around at all of the other shoppers thinking, "Are you all going through the same thing that I am?! Why is everyone so calm?!"
I was utterly confused about my death crisis, as I have experienced intense connection and universality and the pure love that comes with losing one's ego (or perhaps that comes with dying). Yet here my ego was, screaming, kicking, and crying. I don't want to get too wishy washy with you here, so I'll dive back into the yoga connection.
Savasana and Death
I'm not a mathematician by any means, but I am drawn to the concept of self-similarity. One definition of self similarity can be found here :
"Simply put, a fractal is a geometric object that is similar to itself on all scales. If you zoom in on a fractal object it will look similar or exactly like the original shape. This property is called self-similarity."
I believe that self-similarity can be found every where in our daily lives. I believe that there are many practices that we do that are self-similar to our life and death cycle. For example, falling asleep and night and waking up in the morning. Or...practicing yoga?
I was in a yoga class last Saturday and we were just transitioning into Savasana. Out of nowhere, the idea struck me....and this was my inner monologue:
"Whoa. Savasana. That's known as corpse pose. It's the death pose!
Huh. So Savasana represents death, and comes at the end of our yoga practice. Which means that the rest of the yoga practice represents life.
So...A yoga practice = life ; Savasana = death ; Practicing Savasana is like practicing for death
And harking back to self-similarity, if all other yoga poses are practiced to prepare me for savasana, then everything else in my life right now is like an exercise preparing me for death.
Final Thoughts
I also wanted to write this post to say - if you have been freaking out about death and what life is, you are not alone! We spend so much of our energy in Western culture trying to hide death, and hide from the thoughts of death. I'm trying to invite those thoughts, because without death there is no life, and damnit, I love my life! With that said, happy Saturday all and namaste :-)
This post is dedicated to my beautiful, loving Aunt Peggy, who recently passed away. Who's big heart kept her family together and without whom I probably wouldn't be alive today.