The wood carving of the Pranava (Om) in this picture was created by a local craftsman and friend Jon Purkins at Small Axe Woodcraft.
His middle daughter once told me very earnestly (age 4 I think)
“I have a FIRE in my belly!”
I remember smiling as this is a key aspect of all yoga practice – maintaining a healthy digestive fire. Sometimes yoga philosophy can get a bit heavy and hard to understand. I love that the ‘fire in my belly’ feeling is actually pretty obvious when you think about it as child would.
The element of fire is also associated with thinking and perceiving – fire provides the light by which we can see.
Fire can transform one thing into another and it is necessary for the digestion or processing of information and events as well as for the digestion of food.
There are two sessions themed around fire:
The first “Playing with Fire” is a series of simple, restful practices to create a feeling of clearing – like ‘clearing the grate’ of your fire to remove ash and debris. The practice includes dynamic and restorative twists.
The second “Kindling the Flame” aims to channel the breath in a way that feels both restful and powerful – fanning the flames of our abdominal fire, and managing the heat of our intellect. The practices in this session focus on the upper body and freeing the space around the lungs,
