In between Seasons and Elements
Spring is here. Well, actually, here in Chicago, April can be a time of fluctuating weather; it’s cold, then it’s warm. It’s dry, then rainy, then maybe even snowing. Spring is here, then it’s gone for a day or two. Such fluctuations bring the elements front and center for me.
What about where you live? Is it Spring yet (or Fall, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere)? What do you notice about this seasonal change in your environment, body, and mind?
Do you do the same practices year round, regardless of season, personal energy level, and phase of life? First off, kudos to you for being able to be so consistent with your yoga practice (mine has been all over the map since becoming a mom). Second…it can be so liberating to let yourself sense the shifts in seasons and changes in your life so that you can modify your yoga practice accordingly. Living the dynamic, fluctuating life of a modern mama calls for seasonal and periodical changes to our yoga practice. I wrote a bit about what it means to practice yoga for a long time in this recent post. Consistently tweaking our yoga practices to fit into our lives is so key, and even beyond that, we as women have seasons of life and physiological cycles we go through — check out some thoughts here on that matter.
The seasons invite us to dance with the elements. For many, Spring heightens our connection to the elements of water and earth. As we approach May, we move between water, earth, and slowly approach fire. How can we transform our yoga practice with some awareness of these elements? Let’s think in metaphor and energy.
What do the elements have to do with yoga
The magical thing about elements is that they are both physical phenomena and apt metaphor for our lives. Who hasn’t met someone they might call hot or fiery, or someone who just goes with the flow, like water? What about someone that is stubborn as a rock, or someone who we might call ‘my rock?’
Metaphors and idioms give us some fun clues about the qualities of elements.
Practicing with an awareness of the elements is all about noticing qualities. In many cases, you can do the same pose in an earthy way, a flowy way (water), and a fiery way. Noticing the qualities of your movement and breath can bring nuance to your practice, and you can also use that same elemental awareness for your mental and emotional landscape: are you in a stubborn mood (earth)? Sad (water)? Angry or ambitious (fire)?
Yoga is not only about which practices you do or what state of mind you’re in, it’s also about how you do the yoga based on your current mood or condition. Sometimes we could use more earth, other times more fire or water.
So here we go…join me on this little exploration of yoga and the elements. Just think of it as dabbling. But after you read this, make sure you take some time to notice these qualities in your body, mind, and on your mat and in your life. None of this is useful if we don’t experiment and play with it.
Earth is Stability
“Sthira sukhamasanam…Asana is a steady, comfortable posture.”
-The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, translation and commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananda
In some types of yoga, emphasis is on holding postures and finding stillness there. Styles like Hatha, Yin, and Restorative give us a chance to slow down and go deep into one pose. But…
How can we be stable without being rigid? Or on the opposite end of the spectrum, how can we be stable without being languid or stagnant? There’s a balance to strike here and if you tend to think of yoga as just stretching or as a way to get more flexible, it’s time to bring some stabilizing, strengthening qualities into your practice.
In this modern age, we mamas have the added project of adapting yoga to our female, postpartum bodies. It may have been years since you had kids, but have you fully grokked the idea that since giving birth, your body will never be the same again? Getting to know our body and respecting it is a loving way to pay homage to the earth element.
On an emotional level, the earth element is all about being grounded, stable, safe, and secure. Think of those long holds to embody or increase the water elementin restorative yoga, where the goal is to bring stillness to the body. That calls for a sort of stability with minimal effort.
Speaking of which, the quote above from The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali remind me of a balanced form of the earth element: the Sanskrit word sthira can be translated as steadiness while sukha can be translated as ease. So, yoga posture is steadiness and ease. Think about that next time you try to hold plank pose and feel your body trembling…
Do you want to get more grounded and embody a sense of relaxed stability? Here is one posture and a breathing practice to embody or increase the earth element: trikonasana, square breath
Water is Flow
“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad
Movement, change, cleansing, hydrating — these are all characteristics of water. Sometimes water is associated with emotion as well, since that part of our being changes and flows.
What does it mean to embody the idea and energy of water as we practice, both on and off the yoga mat? If water is flow, that could mean more movement and transitions between postures. Maybe we practice more sequences than static postures, or we can move back and forth between two postures to create an undulating feeling. Think of this as a way of working through areas that feel stuck in your body. Imagine the tide slowly moving the sand on the beach, or gradually carving away at a rocky cliff.
Off that mat, water can be celebrated with a bath or shower, something to drink (maybe water or tea), or letting tears flow as we work through emotions (though sadness isn’t the only emotion we could work through here). Or, if you are still menstruating, you embody the flow of water through your cycle.
Want to embody or increase the water element in your bodymind? Here is a posture and breathing practice to do just that: cat/cow, circle of flowing breath by Uma Dinsmore-Tuli
Fire is Heat and Light
Fire is not just hot, it’s bright. It’s easy to think of fire in yoga as hot yoga, where we crank the heat and sweat it out with intense postures that we hold for a long time. But there’s such thing as too much fire. We don’t want to create a raging forest fire — we want a gentle, steady glow so we can use that glow to shed light into our lives.
Fire is clarity of mind and a sharp intelligence. It is also insight, inspiration, and transformation.
Sure, intense yoga asana and sequences can be so valuable in adding stimulation to our systems when we feel sluggish, unmotivated, or daunted. But if you are already a fiery or over-stimulated person, it can be best to use a practice to temper your fire. Go back to the section ‘Water is flow’ above and think more along those lines.
If more fire is what you need, though, here are a couple of practices to light your flame: chair pose, ujjayi
Gross to subtle
There you go, a brief intro (or review, if you’ve already explored this topic) of the elements as they relate to yoga. I’ve left out the last two elements (air and ether/space) just to simplify things for now and to avoid bombarding you all with too much information. Many presentations of the element start with ether since air is born of ether and fire from air. It’s a whole progression that mirrors the creation of the cosmos from subtle to gross.
But I wanted to present the three grossest elements to start from the ground up. We are mamas living in the mundane, physical reality of what it means to be a mama; I think it’s most useful to lay a solid foundation, something tangible before we build up to the more subtle elements. Stay tuned for that, and anyways, I plan to revisit all five elements in posts for the rest of this year.
Avoiding a prescriptive approach
“Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!”
-Sitting Bull
There’s an art to using elemental awareness in yoga. Think of all the factors at play: in your personal constitution, you might be more fiery or earthy so that when spring rolls around, you might not need the same things as someone that has a more ‘watery’ constitution. Also, spring is not the same everywhere. Ayurveda — an ancient Indian medical system, sometimes referred to as the ‘sister science’ to yoga — usually ascribes spring to the water and earth elements. But, in one location, spring might bring more water (in the form of rain), while in another location, spring is much warmer and offers more fire. This is why we can’t just prescribe a handful of the same practices for everyone everywhere. It all depends and yet, I invite you to try some of the practices I mentioned above and see for yourself which elements you can sense in each of them.
These layers of complexity invite us to refine our attention. How do we know if we need more fire, water, or earth? Through awareness, experience, and experimentation.
I know, it can feel confusing and overwhelming to think, “I gotta figure this out for myself?” But if we think about it as a type of play and approach it with curiosity and enthusiasm, it can be such an eye-opening ride. Hopefully I can at least be here as your cheerleader and guide:)
My little illustrations above of earth, water, and fire were my playful way of exploring the qualities of these elements. The same can be done in words (journaling), meditation, art, or movement. I definitely haven’t said all there is to know about the elements here, but we can only digest so much information at once and we all might have our own personal associations with each one.
Resources
If you’d like to read more on the elements, here are some links to articles I suggest reading:
https://iamronen.com/blog/2009/09/27/yoga-gross-to-subtle/
https://www.ekhartyoga.com/articles/philosophy/journey-through-the-5-elements-earth
Stay tuned
I’ve been feeling the call to honor my mother, Sagrada Roman Ramos, who passed away almost a full year ago on April 28th, 2023. I plan to take a pause from my usual structure of posting until the full moon in June and the Summer Solstice. Until then, I do plan to post on my birthday (May 3), which is just after Beltane (May 1). I also plan to post on Mother’s Day, to honor you all in your motherhood journey! Then, I’ll post one more time on the new moon in June before I resume a weekly schedule again.
Have you been feeling the need to pause or change the structure of your days/weeks/months? I encourage you to take that leap! It might be just what you need to open up to a more fluid way of being (ah! There’s an elemental metaphor right there:)
If you are a paid subscriber, I thank you for your continued support! I know you may have signed up when I was posting in a much more structured fashion (which I plan to return to), but this pause can also be a very valuable time where you can express to me exactly what you’d like to see here on Urban Yoga Mama. Are there any topics, yoga practices, or types of media you’d like more of here(video, audio, visuals, etc)? Please don’t be shy. I’m writing this for you and want it to be as inspiring, relevant, and useful as possible.
Jai ma! Thanks for reading and I hope this post lights up your imagination with the elements as you go about your day.
my mom and daughter in April 2019
Here we are in full Pollening season 😂 love this connection to the elements. We must be on the same page because my post publishing Sunday is all about cycles and seasons! It’s taken me a really long time to get here but I am starting to experiment with changing my practice up intentionally based on my cycle and the seasons🙂