So today I want to share with you the "lotus mudra". I learned this mudra last year in a yoga class and have found it helpful when experiencing increased stress or fatigue. I also think it's appropriate as we begin to move out of January and into February, heralding our long journey through Winter to Spring.
Place both hands in front of your chest so that only the edges of your hands and pads of your fingers touch each other: This is the bud of the lotus flower. Now open your hands, but maintain the contact between the tips of the little fingers and the outer edges of your thumbs. Spread the other fingers open as wide as possible. After four deep breaths, close both hands back into a bud, place the finger-
nails of the fingers of both hands on top of each other; now join the backs of the fingers, the backs of the hands, and let your hands hang down relaxed for a while. In the same way, bring your hands back into the bud and the open flower. Repeat a number of times.
This mudra belongs to the heart chakra and is the symbol for purity. Love lives in the heart, together with goodwill, affection, and communication. We are meant to keep it pure and give it unconditionally, like an open flower that holds its chalice open for the insects. It is their nourishment and gives them warmth on cold nights. In turn, the insects pollinate it and help it fulfill the purpose of its existence. We are connected with our fellow human beings in more or less the same way—in both the good sense and the bad—and dependent upon them. However, the open flower has another message waiting for us. It opens to the sun, the divine principle, and lets itself be given whatever it needs; and it is given in abundance—it receives much more than it "needs." We enjoy blossoming flowers because they bear joy, the divine countenance, within themselves, and exude it to us.
from Gertrud Hirschi's book Mudras: Yoga in Your Hands.
Who's got my golden arm? (hands)?
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