FlowCasting: Manifesting With Your Yoga Practice

Abundance-3We hear a lot of talk about the law of attraction.  I work in a New Age book store and the abundance shelf is lined with them.  Some of them are great, others just focus on material gain.  Granted, there is nothing wrong with financial abundance, but we have to also understand that the law of attraction is constantly active… even the bad stuff we might be experience is part of the overall journey.  I’ll go into the Law of Attraction a bit more in a later post, but I do want to spend a bit of time discussing manifesting and how we can use our yoga practice to generate energy for manifesting.

In yoga classes we engage movement, breathe, and generate energy.  Let’s use that energy to make a difference in the world around us.

—I am writing this in regards to yoga, but the same intentional work can be used for any body centered spiritual practice:  dance, yoga, sacred body movement, ecstatic movement, lifting weights, etc.

At the beginning of your practice start by setting an intention.  This can be something that you want to call into your life.  The desire can be something tangible, spiritual, or can be directed in any way you feel necessary.  If there are things you are wishing to let go of, simply let them fall away as you engage in your flow practice.

In yoga (and other body centered practice) there is a focus on the breath.  You cannot run a marathon while holding your breath, so as you breath you give the body life.

With each deep inhale visualize the intention you set at the beginning of your practice flowing through all parts of your being.  With each exhalation you are creating space for intention to become reality.

The heat, the energy, the movement, the flow of your practice helps that intention flow into creation.  Movement is a creative act.  Connecting to a sense of letting go of rigidity in your practice will help make this easier.

When I first started doing yoga I felt bound to the idea that a sequence of asana had to follow the patterns that others put into script.  As my practice progresses I feel my body moving into different postures, moving energy and stagnation out of my joints, muscles, cells.  The divine will speak to your body and the ecstatic release that happens creates powerful healing.  (I’ll post a video of myself doing ecstatic yoga flow soon as well).

I also try to not set a time limit to this practice.  I start and I stop.  If I only do a little bit of movement wonderful… If I do several hours of movement, wonderful!   Time limits can create another level of restriction.

Sacred space is set by your yoga mat, and the breath cleanses you and the space around you.  You can use the invocation located in the FlowCasting section of this blog to call in the elements for increased power.

– You can also write your intention or your manifesting list and place it under you mat.  As you flow through your asana practice you will be feeding energy directly into that intention.   The mind can wander, and if it does the written transmission of what you are asking will hold the thought for you.

-After each sequence or posture take a moment to center on the breath, the heart center, and your intention. Visualize the intention moving around you, glowing, pulsating into being.  Allow it to become tangible.

Don’t be afraid to ask the divine for assistance.  Using a manifesting list is powerful.  I love using the grocery store analogy:  If you walk into a grocery store without a list you end up getting a lot of stuff you do not want. You get the stuff you knew you should not get and that causes regret or guilt.  Going into manifesting with a deep sense of asking.. even demanding from the universe will help keep then energy of manifesting focused.

What are you asking for?  What is your favorite manifesting technique?

You are Loved.  You are Beautiful.  You are Divine.

Michael A Brazell (Mahayogi Das) CFT CSN MAT PAT

 

http://www.michaelbrazell.com

FlowCasting: New Page on the Blog

So, how does a Yoga Witch create magick?  By FlowCasting.  FlowCasting combines elements of yoga and witchcraft to move energy, set intention, and move deeper into our practice.  At the top of the page, you’ll see a tab that will allow you to access the page.  Feel free to borrow and adapt what I post there for your own purposes.

You are Loved.  You are Beautiful.  You are Divine.

Michael A. Brazell CFT CSN MAT PAT

The Ahimsa of Witchcraft: Embracing Kindness

ahimsa2

Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill, An it harm none do what ye will

Ahimsa: the law of reverence for, and nonviolence to, every form of life

The words above from the Wiccan Rede really sum up the yogic principle of ahimsa.  Ahimsa is non-violence towards any living being.  One of the beautiful things about nature based religions are the built-in reverence for the earth, the elements and for well.. nature.

Many yogis extend ahimsa to their plates by observing a vegan or vegetarian diet (This is something that I will be going into in-depth in future posts).  It is one of the first principles that many first time yoga class participants will hear about.  Ahimsa is also extended to mean not competing with others in yoga class, allowing yourself to be okay just where you are in your practice.

I want to take this a bit further.  When we discuss the application of harming none, we often speak in reverence to our practice.  Yogis being yogis try to do no harm in their yoga pursuits.  Yoga Witches are cautious to do no harm in our craft… but how often do we forget to take this beyond our practice.

In this fast paced world it can be hard to remember to extend kindness to all of those around us.  As we enter into the holiday season I’ve been pushed by many hurried shopper on the metro trying to make it to the next big sale, and often I catch myself after the I’ve called them a name in my mind.  Ahimsa is bringing awareness to our thoughts as well as our actions, our sense of being as well as our sense of crafting.

Taking it deeper, we have to be kind to ourselves.  It’s often the part of doing no harm that is truly forgotten.  We might remember to not say something mean to a loved one, to not allow our energy to be reactionary, but there are times when we say unkind things to ourselves.  We often forgive others, but not ourselves.  We have to remember that we are beautiful souls living a human experience.  Our many imperfections are what make us perfect.  We beat ourselves up for minor things, we hold things in our hearts that bind us.  Learning to love ourselves unconditionally is the lesson that ahimsa brings to us.

Take a moment to reflect a time when you were harsh with yourself.
Now breath into that moment and extend love to your heart center.

You are Loved.  You are Beautiful.  You are Divine.

Michael A. Brazell CFT CSN MAT PAT

www.michaelbrazell.com

Daily Practice Minute: Look Up

147943431_730b0c3b62Daily practice is essential to opening our spiritual lives.  Each week I’ll give you an exercise that you can use to establish a practice, or that you can integrate into a current practice.  Some of these will be simple and quick, and others will be designed to take you a bit deeper into your practice.

Many moons ago I use to be a Navy Instructor.  Each week my students would have to take tests on the knowledge they had learned during the week.  Coming into the Navy from civilian life was not an easy next step and there was a lot to absorb in a short amount of time.   During the tests I’d see them struggling, and crinkling their brows.  I remember telling them “Look up for inspiration and not Down in desperation.”

Fast forward to now.  Stepping from the mundane world into the spiritual world has the same effect.  There is so much to absorb and often it can become overwhelming… not to mention that life itself can at times feel overwhelming.

Looking down is typically a sign of worry.  Our minds become heavy and we forget to look up.  Looking up does a lot more than take our eyes to the sky.  We we look up our heart center opens to sky.  Hunched postures are locked postures.  Heart center is a posture of surrendering upward.  When our spines are aligned energy can move through us a bit more freely.

Place your hand on your heart center.  Look down, now look up.  Feel how your heart rises to the sky, or compresses into your center.

How often do you notice the tops of the trees on your walks?

Take a deep breath deep.  Look up.  Surrender your heart center to the sky, to the divine, to your breath.

You are Loved.  You are Beautiful.  You are Divine.

Michael Brazell CFT CSN MAT PAT

www.michaelbrazell.com

What is a Yoga Witch?

 

Until now, I never really felt that I could claim my path fully. I felt to pagan to be a true yogi, and felt too much like a yogi to fit in a witchcraft setting. I find myself doing a Chandra Namaskar (moon salutation) sequence to celebrate the moon, and I add herbal aroma blends to invoke the senses in my yoga classes. Now, there are those that practice yoga that also engage in witchcraft, and there are witches that practice yoga… The Yoga Witch goes a bit further into the intersections. The Yoga Witch sits in the spaces where duality becomes singularity. There were times when I was afraid to wear my pentacle to my yoga class, and other times where I felt out-of-place wearing my “Om” covered prayer shawl to a Sabbat celebration. I think labels in some way allow us to be a bit more expressive with how we identify with an energy that not only moves around us, but moves through us. I also find that it gives us permission to step into uncharted territories. I’ve always felt on the fringe of my own experience and now, I feel the fullness of my being. The thing I love about witchcraft is that it allows the fluidity to be eclectic, to own yourself on your path. There are so many beautiful avenues and there is a process that allows you to be alone with God Herself, or to step into a group setting to connect into a collective vibration of divine flow. Yoga can be more rigid. There are preset movements, motions and prescriptions that need to be met within a class structure. At times, yoga tends to be devoid of its spiritual frequency. People become more connected to the physical aspects of yoga and it becomes a workout instead of a mechanism of expansion.

 

My connection to witchcraft has allowed me to deepen my yogic practice by allowing me to go with my own flow. I am able to be solitary in my practice, I can use asana (yoga postures) to engage in a ritual and to move with an inspired flow instead of rigidity. Yoga allows me to see the subtle in my spell casting (or what I prefer to call flow casting). It allows me to use my body as sacred space, to move energy, and to bring greater presence to the ritual at hand. Yoga and magical practice are more alike that different, and that’s one of the things that I will be focusing on through this blog. This is part discovery, part journey, a dash of curiosity, and a lot of movement. I don’t claim to have all the answers, nor do I know how all the pieces fit together… that’s part of the fun. This blog is a place to share. I am going to have some amazing guest writers posting their thought on the integrated Yogic Witchcraft experience. Our community comes in many beautiful shapes and sizes. Each day I am thankful of how blessed I truly am.

 

Namaste, Blessed Be, and Thank You.

 

 

Michael Brazell CFT CSN MAT PAT

www.michaelbrazell.com