Taming the Sacrum: A Home Practice: May 30, 2020: Reno, Nevada

I’m learning to align my sacrum. Sacrum in Latin means sacred. The Greeks called it the “hieron osteon” or the “holy bone”. I call it Grace.

Standing poses have always been a weak part of my practice. By comparison to more subtle, gentle moves, they seem so ordinary, common, usual; so what’s the big deal anyway? I’ve done them for years because that’s the way it’s always been done. But the problem with doing things because that’s how they’ve always been done is that we don’t realize who made those rules up. Avidya, or ignorance, say the yogis, is the source of all our suffering.

You can taste the world’s suffering these days. Anger, fear, sickness, compromised resources are front headlines, not that you need to read about it to know. You can feel it. All of it. My own issues compounded by world events overwhelms me so much at times I have to run to cover myself in heavy bed blankets, literally. It’s a temporary solution, I know, and the necessary learning, the spiritual cirriculum to figure out not only how to self soothe but take a stand in the world to be part of the solution is not lost on me, believe me.

I’m on my mat every day with a vigorous vinyasa practice, doing my best to shake trauma loose from my bones and my soul. Sometimes this is as good as it gets for me; the best part of my whole day. I’m falling in love with standing poses. The feelings of amazement and excitement; of inner strength and of possibility are so easy to access as of late because the poses feel like mine, not something on a to do list, not some formulaic part of a sequenced yoga class. I”m learning how to stand with integrity. I”m learning to access more of my own power.

The sacrum bone is key to aligning a straight, vibrant spine. It has been translated as sacred, holy. It also has the same root as strong. And until Rosemary Garrison, in an online yoga class, instructed during triangle pose to align the sacrum and lift the low belly, I never truly believed my own strength. I felt my whole body blow apart. In the best of ways, mind you., because a whole layer of self broke, a whole new experience of freedom and a whole new possibility of how to be in the world. Sure, my outer layer changed when I pressed my heel deeper in the earth, when I extended my spine as long and strong as possible, when I rolled my heart to the heavens, but moving my sacrum into alignment absolutely transported me to a new reality.

It is said in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika 4.89, “When the Brahma granthi (in the heart) is pierced through by Pranayama, then a sort of happiness is experienced in the vacuum of the heart, and the anahat sounds, like various tinkling sounds of ornaments, are heard in the body.”

I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what experienced. I heard a distant call, a beckoning to higher vibe. It was different than the usual stretch, that’s for sure.

Sutra 2.1 says the purpose of yoga is to loosen the tight spots, and all tight spots are not created equal. The Sanskrit word granthi means “knot” or “doubt” and also means “an especially difficult knot to untie.” Brahma Granthi is located at the base of the spine between Muladhara Chakra and Svadhisthana Chakra. Fear of death, anxiety about food, shelter or clothing, or general lack of grounding, all manifest as Brahma Granthi. I don’t know how it works, whether it was my sacrum moving or my willingness to move my sacrum out of it’s usual hang out that loosened the knot. I suspect its a little of both, but the bigger point is my life will never be the same again having felt this freedom.

I’ve never really had much connection to standing poses because I’ve never really felt the energy of them , or rather the energy of me, until I aligned my sacrum. Until I put some mindful effort in taming my unruly, hyper mobile part of myself that gives an illusion of perfect alignment and a belief that in order to be worthy I have to be perfect. No wonder standing poses weren’t satisfying.

There is information galore about how a hyper-mobile sacrum causes pain. And while the idea of taming makes me itch, I’m also reminded that discipline and freedom are two sides of the same coin and what I know for sure today is that by taming my holy bone I’m feeling divine. And that might just be the ultimate freedom of all.

Health, Love, and Rock and Roll