Union as Empowerment: Shiva and Shakti in Our Bodies

By Jolie Cash

Through the last 11 years, with the help of my mentor and my asana practice, I have worked with these energies to find a balance in my body beyond any that I could have imagined. Through my asana practice, I have found the two energies shiva and shakti, that are in fact alive and flow through the channels that are awakened through the opening of the body in asana.

It is getting well known in the "energy world" that the left side of the body is feminine and the right side is the masculine. We can go further and connect them to the brain but for now we will stay with energy. If you do not connect with energy, then allow your mind to wrap around the "freeway" of the breath and where it flows in your body, keeping the possibility of energy open since science has proven we are made up of electrical currents.

Ha-tha Yoga means Ha (Sun) Tha (Moon) Yoga (from the word yoke meaning Union) The word alone IS balance. The sun rises and the day is balanced by the setting of the moon. So is our practice. In this celebration of Ha-Tha, we begin our practice as our day begins, shining and expanding, heating~tapas, the friction of purification, and end our practice with the moving inward cooling energy of the moon, drawing from the energies of both to create a union of power that resides deep within the memory of every cell in our body.

Further than just the left and right, we move our attention to the front and back of the body. The back side of the body is the feminine, and the front side is the masculine. The female has the intuition, the knowing of what needs to happen; that is why we are the mothers. The male is the action, the ability to make things happen; that is why they have the muscles. This is not to say that the masculine has no intuition and that the feminine is helpless, but for the sake of union, these are the roles that these energies play to come together in power. My mentor used to tell me while we were working on the union within of the two energies, that "if we (women) didn't tell the men to build us a toilet, we would still be using the bushes." We had the knowing and the male took action. This is also not to say that you can go home and push your men around ladies! Remember, this is to be used for empowerment. Although this concept can be used in relationships, we will visit that at another time and remain with the energies of balance in our bodies.

Experience this in your body: Come into the standing pose Virabadrasana 2 (Warrior 2). Feel the backside of your body ground down. Notice the energy move down from the root (the tailbone for a physical reference). Allow the body to relax. There is nowhere to go right now. As you allow the body to relax, feel your buttocks let go and soften into the pose. LOSE your posture for a moment. Let gravity take over so you can really feel relaxed and grounded. Let the energy move down the backside and follow through the pelvic floor, rounding through the perineum and up to the pelvic bone. From the pelvic bone, while staying relaxed, feel the front side of the body lift. This is not a muscling up; this is a LIGHTENING up, as though it were strictly the breath or prana lifting you. Like a mist hovering in a valley moving up the side of the mountain, expanding in the front side of the body! The back side of the body knows what to do; allow it to do it. Root down into the earth, solid and connected, the way a mother is to the womb. The front side of the body has the action, a lifting up like the glistening dew on the tree that has experienced a fresh rain. Continue this flow of energy, circling the body down the back through the root and up the front side. Notice the expansion naturally happening out each limb of your physical body. Allow it to come from your center at the belly and expand outward (vayana vayu) to your whole being.

Repeat on the other side in a relaxed manner. Remember to allow the root to soften and the buttocks to follow the example as you practice this flow of continued energy down the back and up the front of the body.

Use this concept in all areas of your life and your body. Take those moments between tasks to check in with what really "feels" right and move from that place of knowing and allow the action to follow. The expansion comes from intuition. It is the action taken without the knowing that results in disempowerment and the end result, suffering. Allow the shakti, the feminine energy, to be present guiding you in all that you know as you unite the shiva, the masculine, to carry out the vision of union, resulting in a place of empowerment from within your whole body and life.

Jolie Cash is a doula, certified yoga teacher, and the founder/director of Nature's Whisper School of Yoga. She currently teaches yoga in Northern California and travels to teach workshops, teacher trainings, and retreats. You may contact Jolie at yoga@JolieCash.com (858) 792-7845.