Bluster!

Today is a cold, windy, blustery, cloudy day outside.  Perfect timing for nurturing our inner warmth, settling into quiet coziness and contemplation.  Part of my classwork today involves studying the sacrum and pelvic floor, an area of the body that holds our deepest core energy, or "root".  So, in the interwoven nature of all things mind and body, I want to share a mudra called the triple warmer.  This mudra relates to the Chinese deep meridian of the liver, which lines up through the ring finger.  The force here gives stability, patience, and protection, including the ability to maintain equilibrium in stressful situations and a properly functioning immune system.  I think its cool that I wear my wedding ring on this finger, since marriage is a template for living out the personal lessons of stability, equilibrium, and growth in my life.      

The triple warmer goes like this:

Sit or lie down. Now encircle your left ring finger with the four fingers of your right hand, with the right thumb extending to the middle of your left hand. Close your eyes.

Imagine bare earth and crushed rock in all its forms -- as deserts, mountains, and islands. What happens when masses of earth begin to move? When the earth dries out? When the earth is completely exposed to the sun? Now imagine fertile earth. Slowly let the vegetation be created -- little plants, big plants, much green. Now focus on one single seed resting deep within the earth. With every breath, something moves inside until the seed bursts and a shoot stretches in the direction of the light. At the same time, it sprouts roots deep into the earth. It becomes a tree that grows very slowly. You wait patiently and watch how the plant develops into its full size. Keep breathing.  Time has no significance. Only the constant growth counts. The tree blooms anew every year, and bears fruit. Like the tree, we also do not know why this is. Like the tree, we want to give ourselves completely to life, and know this has its purpose, even if we will probably never be able to completely fathom the great mystery. As the tree changes every year, our inner development also continues. We decisively influence whether it is joyful or sorrowful.

Keep holding your finger for a while and feel the flowing warmth. Then encircle your right ring finger and hold it for the same amount of time.

This exercise and other mudras are taken from the website Innerself and the book Mudras: Yoga in Your Hands by Gertrud Hirschi, ©2000.