Five Elements

Five Element Series Part 5: Air Element

The air element is the source of all mobility. It feels light and clear.  It is the place of spirit and of spirituality, the place where the yogis and saints reach for.  It is also the place of unconditional love, unconditional compassion, unconditional friendliness, equanimity, and well-being.   It is the place we get to when we can finally take a breath of fresh air.  It can feel like coming out of hibernation to something fresh, clean, bright, and alive.  It is also the place of humor because humor acts like a breath of fresh air within the space or ether.  People who know how to move space, know how to breathe light and life into it.

Exercise

In a moment, I am going to ask you to stand up and away from your computer.  You're going to click on this link: Air Element Music.  Allow your body to move to the sounds that you hear while simultaneously noticing what you feel.

What did you notice in your body?  What was the movement like? This is the air element, mobile, cool, subtle, flowing, of a higher plane of consciousness.

Diagnosing the Air Element in Ourselves and Our Practice

Air is the element representative of the movement, change, and shifting we experience in our body, mind, and spirit.  We feel the air element in our bodies when we sense things moving.  The air element has multiple directions. In hatha yoga, we're primarily concerned with the ascending quality of the air element in the upper body that allows us to breathe and expand, called prana vayu and the descending quality, apana vayu, that allows us to root and stabilize.   The air element is present when we describe the things of life as: "buoyant," "uplifting," "inspiring," and "exhilarating."

The Personality of the Fire Element

People with a lot of air element in their personality exude the following positive attributes:

  • Funny
  • Light
  • Mentally Agile
  • Intellectual
  • Logical
  • Objective
  • Spiritual
  • Godly

 

 

They can also exude the following attributes that can be both challenging to themselves and others:

  • Unemotional
  • Heady
  • Impractical
  • Ungrounded
  • Untrustworthy
  • Ditzy
  • Floaty

Examples of people who exude the positive qualities of the fire element include: Shirley MacLean,  Lucille Ball, Goldie Hawn, Chris Rock, Bob Marley, Barack Obama, Mahatma Gandhi, George Harrison, Joan Baez, Spok (Star Trek), Richard Freeman.

What Air Element Feels Like in the Body: Deficiency and Excess

A deficiency of air element produces sluggishness and dullness in the body. When the air element is deficient, we tend to feel like everything is stagnant, stuck, and not moving.  This lack of movement can be extremely frustrating, so we also feel gloomy and experience frequent mood swings and irritability, sometimes even chronic depression.  Because things aren't moving properly and are staying stuck, we also experience pain in the body.  Either the pain moves from place to place or, if the air element is really deficient, the pain can be boring, fixed, and stabbing.

When the air element is deficient, we feel:

  • pain that moves from place to place
  • mental depression
  • gloomy feelings
  • frequent mood swings
  • frequent sighing

When the air element is extremely deficient we can feel:

  • pain that is fixed in location
  • pain that is boring and stabbing
  • abdominal masses that do no move
  • chronic depression

When the air element is excessive, we experience a quality of nervousness, hyper-excitability, and agitation in our bodies.  It's like our nervous system is always turned on.  In those moments, when the air element is excessive, we can feel ungrounded, nervous, agitated, and sometimes even frightened.

When the air element is in excess, we feel:

  • dizziness
  • fidgeting
  • uneasiness
  • vague anxiety
  • twitching
  • spasming
  • tremors

Antidote for Deficient Air Element in Yoga Practice

  1. Increase the ratio of inhale to exhale in ujayi pranayama as well and/or take an inhale retention.  Inhalations are expansive, while exhalations create contraction.  Air element is all about expansion, movement, and mobility.  Creating space through breath increases the air element and gets things moving, again.
  2. Emphasize sukha over sthira, the pleasant nature of the asana over its firmness.  Patanjali describes two qualities of asanas in 2.46 of The Yoga Sutras: sthira sukham asanam.  Sthira means firm, fixed, or steady.  Sukham is happiness and delight.  In Ashtanga, we tend to emphasize the firmness of the posture through contracting various muscles within it. So, for example, in forward bends, we tend to contract the biceps, the quadriceps, and the pelvic floor (mula bandha).  By deemphasizing the engagement of these muscles, we back off of postures, creating more space and spaciousness within them.
  3. Find a fluidity of movement, both in and out of the poses that feels light, buoyant, and airy.  Try a full-vinyasa practice.
  4. Emphasize uddiyana bandha, which means upward flying.  It tends to send the life force (prana) upward, creating a sense of buoyancy within the movement.
  5. Increase the amount of time spent in backbends.  Backbends expand and open the fronts of the chest and increase our lung capacity. Backbends that increase the air element include: Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward-Facing Dog), Urdhva Dhanurasana (Upward Bow or Wheel Pose), Matsyasana (Fish Pose), Dhanurasana (bow pose),  Ustrasana (Camel Pose), and Kapotasana (King Pigeon Pose).
  6. While in forward bends, emphasize lengthening of the spine out of the pelvic girdle...
  7. ...rather than contracting and laying down on the outstretched leg(s).  Lengthening the spine out of the pelvic girdle creates a quality of openness, extroversion and expansion, while contracting tends to do just the opposite.
  8. Put yourself in contact with people, places, and things that revive and inspire you.  It can help to have books by your mat that you can return to that remind you of what's encouraging, positive and uplifting.  It can also help to keep a journal there, too, so you can write down any insights that inspire you as your practicing.
  9. It can be helpful to reduce certain foods that obstruct movement, foods high in saturated fats (lard, mammal meats, cream, cheese, and eggs), hydrogenated and poor quality fats (such as shortening, margarine, refined and rancid oils), excess nuts and seeds, chemicals in food and water, prescription drugs, all intoxicants, and highly processed, refined foods.  And, instead, increase foods and spices which stimulate movement:
  • beets
  • strawberry
  • peach
  • cherry
  • vegetables of the Brassica genus: cabbage, turnip root, kohlrabi, cauliflower, broccoli, and brussel sprouts
  • mustard greens
  • turmeric
  • basil
  • cardamom
  • cumin
  • fennel
  • ginger
  • rosemary
  • mint

Antidote for Excess Air Element in Yoga Practice

  1. Emphasize grounding by keeping the awareness at the mula dhara chakra and performing mula bandha, since the muladhara chakra is the residence of the earth element.  Placing our attention here has the tendency to root us.  It also allows us to connect to our physical seat, which grounds and centers us.
  2. In standing poses, place the awareness at the soles of the feet by grounding the base of the big toe, the base of the small toe and the inner and outer edges of the heel.  This grounding is called pada bandha and creates stability in the body and mind.
  3. In arm balances, chaturanga dandasana, jump backs, jump throughs, and any time you have your hands on the floor, place the awareness at the contact the four corners of the hand—the bases of the index and small fingers, the base of the thumb, as well as the heel of the palm—make with the ground.
  4. Increase the ratio of exhaling compared to inhaling.  Try a 1:2 ratio; so, for example, you might inhale for 5 counts and exhale for 10.  Or maybe that's too time consuming, so you inhale for 4 and exhale for 8.  When we increase the ratio of exhale to inhale, we have the capacity to calm our nervous system.  If, for example, you notice you're agitated, take time aside from your asana practice to just try the 1:2 ratio of inhale to exhale, and you'll notice that your mind will naturally find more stability.  Additionally, you'll notice that at the end of an exhalation, you naturally engage mula bandha. In other words the pelvic floor naturally contracts; thus, exhaling is a natural way to engage mula bandha.
  5. Put an exhale retention into the breath sequence.  By doing so, you will be emphasizing the exhalation and its capacity to calm and stabilize the nervous system.
  6. Increase the time you spend in forward bends over back bends.  Forward bends have a more sedating effect on the nervous system than backbends.  That's one reason why primary series is so powerful when us Westerners first learn it.  We're so used to being amped up that when we take all of those forward bends, we start to find an access point toward introversion.
  7. Aasnas that decrease the air element include: Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog), Padangusthasana (Big Toe Pose), Prasarita Padottanasana A, B, C, & D (Wide-Legged Forward Bend), Parsvottanasana (Intense Side Stretch Pose), Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend), Janu Sirsasana (Head-to-Knee Forward Bend), Marichyasana A & B (Pose Dedicated to the Sage Marichi), Upavistha Konasana (Wide-Angle Seated Forward Bend)
  8. While in forward bends emphasize the bend at the waist rather than the extension  out  of the pelvic girdle. By emphasizing flexion rather than extension, we create more introversion, grounding and sedation.
  9. In forward bends, bring some awareness and a slight increase in effort on the exhalation and relax on the inhalation.
  10. Do less asanas.  Excessive movement can agitate the air element more.  Don’t feel obligated to do the complete series of postures you've been taught each.  Know when enough is enough.  It might be beneficial not to jump back or jump through between asanas or sides of asanas.
  11. When we're hyper-exitable with excess air element, it can be helpful to get out of our heads, to get into our bodies, and to create some action rather than analysis.
  12. It can help to decrease the time we spend in front of the computer and television; and to eat nourishing foods, especially root vegetables and whole grains.
  13. Foods which treat excess air element include:
  • millet
  • barley
  • tofu
  • most beans: black, mung, and kidney
  • watermelon and other melons
  • seaweeds
  • algae: spiraluna, chlorella
  • eggs
  • cheese
  • warm milk

Avoid

  • coffee
  • alcohol
  • chocolate
  • sugar

 

Five Elements Series Part 4: The Ether Element and Curiosity

Ether is the space from which our consciousness arises.  It, in fact, has no form.  Its essence is emptiness.  And so it is the space that all the elements arise and pass away in.  Because ether has no qualities, it also represents emptiness or the void we all experience at moments and is filled, not through more activity but by quiet and retreat.  For many of us, our yoga practice is the place we go to in order to continue to empty out so that we can connect with the space of the ether element.

Ether is also the element that represents the mind.  After all, the mind has no form and cannot be contained, seen, or experienced on a sensual level.  Thoughts and emotions ride on the substratum of ether element.  Our capacity to experience the qualities of the four other elements is entirely dependent on what we do with our minds and, ultimately, with the ether element.  If we direct our minds, then we are harnessing the power of the ether element.  If we allow the mind to move in a willy-nilly fashion, we have no access to the other elements.

Noticing What Is

The ether element is the same thing as chit.  Essentially, chit is noticing what is.  It’s a kind of looking, listening, feeling, tasting, touching, and intuiting that allows us to see into things but is not obstructed by stories, dramas, or any interpretation whatsoever.  It’s really just noticing what is.  The action of chit, as described in The Yoga Sutras is an active form of observation without interpretation.  When we really get to know things without immediately jumping to conclusions, when we can just notice, we come to know them as they are.

Curiosity

Before we can ever really direct our mind or give space to anything, we have to be curious. Curiosity is a quality of being that is open, available, and full of wonder. It does not assume anything, nor is it attached to anything. It’s free, open, and innocent. It does not needing to make anything happen.

Do you remember what it was like to be a three year old? Three year olds walk around amazed at what’s in front of them. They never stop and think they've got it all figured out.  Once they're done taken a toy apart, they're off to find out something else. A three-year old's curiosity can be an amazing starting ground to approach the practice of yoga.  Without it, our practices become stagnant, rote, and monotonous.

Most of us initially start our yoga practice filled with curiosity.  We start enthralled by what our practice awakens in us. Then we start to think we know something about it.  We have it pegged, labeled, and understood.  We start to think we know how this posture is and how to approach it. We begin interacting with the practice based on history. Then we start to get bored with our practice.  Something that was once super-exciting becomes boring and predictable. What happened?  We stopped being curious. By taking our practices for granted, we numb out to the subtle shifts and changes that are constantly happening in our practices.  We assume we know.

When was the last time you were in wonder about your practice?  When was the last time you experienced something you’ve done a million times, like a posture or a drishti, and were shattered, literally torn apart by it?  That’s where curiosity is born. How do we show up on the mat everyday, curious about something new and wonderful, either in yourself or in the way a movement feels?  When we turn up the volume on our curiosity within our practice, not with the story or the circumstances, but the inner truth of our practice, our ability to apply the ether element grows and expands exponentially.

Exercise #1

As an exercise for acquainting yourself with the ether element, stop reading for a second, close your eyes, and simply listen to the music on this link, noticing what you feel in your body.

While this music is a bit dark and mysterious, which has a mood, just the act of listening has a quality of expansiveness.  That's the quality of ether or space element. The ether element is said to open in the ears.  So we learn about the ether element when, in yoga, pranayama, or meditation practice, we direct our attention to the sound of the breath, to listen both to the gross sounds and the subtle ones.

Exercise #2

Next time you find yourself in a crowded space, spend a few minutes walking around that space.  Spend the first few minutes trying to avoid others.  Notice what that's like.  Next, spend a few minutes stepping into the empty space.  If you try the latter, you'll notice how much the space will open up for you.  We tend to spend our lives defensively avoiding whatever it is that comes at us.  If, instead, we can learn to step into the empty space, into ether element, possibilities begin to open for us.

Exercise #3

Take a field trip to a few venues, like a library, a hotel lobby, the waiting area in an emergency room,  or an airport bar. Notice the way the space feels is it: angry, frustrated, joyful, board, at peace, anxious? What else you notice about the environment? What is the buzz in the space? Notice where the energy is in the room and how it shifts as people arrive or depart. Write down your impressions. Then try listening with your eyes closed. Notice how that changes things?

Exercise #4

While you're in your yoga practice, notice the spaces in the practice:

  • the space between the inhale and exhale, the exhale and the inhale
  • the space that is created in the body after you come out of a posture
  • the various spaces where you practice and how the spaces effect your practice.
  • the space between the feet and hands as they touch the floor
  • the space behind you, to your sides, and in front of you

Notice how placing your attention on the space alters your experience of your practice?  How does it change things?  How does it open things up?  What is newly open to you as you place your awareness on these places.

Five Element Series

This is one part in a nine-part series that explores the five elements and its application to yoga practice. Be sure to check out the other posts!

 

 

Five Elements Series Part 2: Getting Unstuck

We all face discomfort on the mat, whether in the body, emotionally, or in the mind.  As soon as we have the sense that something is askew, we can’t help but say, "I don't like this feeling.” Or, “I don't want to have this feeling.”  And it is so subtle when it happens.  It is usually just a split second.  There's a very subtle part of our awareness that is constantly asking, "Is this pleasure?  Or is this discomfort?"  And if it's discomfort, then we immediately need to do something about it.  The time between noticing pleasure and discomfort is so subtle and elusive that we are rarely responsive.  Mainly we are reactive to these sensations, especially those that do not feel good. There's a saying in yoga that suffering can be the doorway to wisdom.  And so our discomfort, pain, hurt, and, even anger can be used as an access point into truth.  If we will stay with the experience--not necessarily the thoughts about the experience, but the direct experience of what's occurring--then what tends to unfold is deeper insight and learning.  But the lessons won't emerge until we apply a quality of curiosity and presence to whatever is arising, from moment to moment.

Getting Unstuck

And I say, moment-to-moment, because what happens is that all experience is constantly in a flux.  It's constantly changing. There isn't one fixed experience we have.  While some feeling states last for extended periods of time, if we apply consciousness, we'll notice that they're constantly shifting.  That is, they're not fixed.  Even in this moment, what you felt 30 seconds ago doesn't correspond to what's occurring, now. And so by being in the now, we end up noticing a constant flux, a constant change. Applying this quality of present moment consciousness unsticks us.  What keeps us stuck is that we identify ourselves in fixed modes, like "I am an intense person;" or "I'm a Capricorn;" or "I'm a materialist;" or "I am a vegetarian."

When we begin to notice the qualities of the five elements that arise in the body and throughout our experience of life, we start to develop the visceral experience that nothing we experience out in the world is, in fact, is fixed, static, or eternal.  So, for example, we may experience a lot of fire in one moment.  In that moment we might feel anger, frustration, and warm, hot, or burning sensations in the body.  Many of us have a hard time being with these feelings.  They're uncomfortable.  But if we apply a quality of curiosity to them, if we stay with our experience long enough without looking to express or repress the feelings that come up, we'll notice them morph into another element.  Maybe we'll experience some water element; we may be become sad, weepy, heavy, and maybe even tearful.  It isn't that the elements follow an orderliness, but they do shift from moment-to-moment.

Asmita

The elemental approach is useful in that when we get a feeling we are either uncomfortable with or simply cannot be with, we can disentangle ourselves from the "I don't want" response, which leads to more "I don't want."  Patanjali's notion of asmita, which is commonly translated as ego, is really an excessive sense of I or me.  Two things comprise this false and excessive sense of I or me: the parts that cling to pleasure (raga) and the parts that avoid pain or discomfort (dvesa).  Instead of being led around by the asmita, the five elements give a different lens to simply see what it is that we experience. While all personal experience can never be truly objective, the elements do give a quality of neutrality.  As a result, they take us out of the propensity to think that whatever we are experiencing is either right or wrong.  They take us out of the land of raga, dvesa, and asmmita and, instead, put us in touch with curiosity, openness, and discrimation (viveka).

So when we're awake to our discomfort, instead of seeking solutions, we can immediately start to ask, "What am I feeling here?" "Where is it?" "Is there a metaphor in nature I might use to describe it? Is it hot or cold? Heavy or light? Moving or fixed?  Wet or dry?" "What is the primary element here?" "Are there any other elements present?"  And then we can stay with the feelings as they shift by asking, "What am I noticing, now?"  And then after a few moments, we can ask the same question, "What's happening, now?"  Throughout the process if we remain open and curious to whatever shows up, we can begin to unravel and awaken to a deeper experience of wisdom.

Five Element Series

This is one part in a nine-part series that explores the five elements and its application to yoga practice. Be sure to check out the other posts!

  • Part 1—Intro
  • Part 2—Getting Unstuck
  • Part 3—The Five Elements in History
  • Part 4—The Ether Element
  • Part 5—The Air Element
  • Part 6—The Fire Element
  • Part 7—The Water Element
  • Part 8—The Earth Element
  • Part 9-Transformational Breakthroughs

Five Elements Series Part 1: Intro

In this blog, I am offering up the five elements as a lens to explore our yoga practices.  I practice and teach Ashtanga Yoga, and while I realize that the five elements is not necessarily associated with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois’ expression of the method, I’ve found it quite a useful tool for staying open and curious, especially in those places where I tend to check out and where I get uncomfortable. A lot of the work of growth and transformation associated with our yoga practices is about developing the capacity to turn and look at what it is that is coming up.

Abhyasa and Vairagya

This turning and looking is described-- in the twelfth verse of the first chapter of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, the source text of yoga-- as abhyasa, which means 'to sit facing' something.  In yoga, we face whatever comes up on a moment-to-moment basis, thoughts, sensations, emotions, etc.  Along with abhyasa, the Sutras suggest that the yogi apply vairagya, which is often translated as non-attachment, but is better understood as not getting stirred up, freaked out or shut down.  So abhyasa and vairagya are two polarities that the yogi cultivates: looking at something without freaking out.  In yoga, that's particularly important because we're trying to unravel the avidya (misunderstanding or misapprehension) that permeates our lives.  Without staying present, we can't see what we do, what we feel, or who we are.  And there are a lot of experiences where we go unconscious, especially those that evoke feelings of discomfort, whether we feel pain, fatigue, fear, or sadness.

I find the five elements a particularly useful lens to use because they help me worry less when I don't feel good, when I am scared, or when I am tired.  They help me just experience the sensations that come up in my body without reacting to them.  I simply identify them as heat, cold (fire element); numb, heavy (earth element); deep and sad (water element); or moving, tingling, light, clear (air element).   Instead of getting locked into trying to understand what they mean, why they're there or how to fix them, I just notice the qualities and elements that are coming up.  As a result sensations and experiences that are uncomfortable tend to shift a lot quicker.  So, for me, the most useful part of the tool is that it helps me not to get glued in some sort of analysis paralysis.

Recreating Balance

The other part I find useful is that the five elements can be an intuitive tool to use in order to recreate balance or harmony.  So, if there's too much earth element and I am sleepy, I can apply the air element through deep breathing, to wake myself up.  Or, if there's too much fire in the system, I might want to add both water and something to cool me down, kind of like putting cream in coffee.  Coffee is really hot and bitter.  Cream is cool and heavy.  When we want to treat, heal, or rebalance ourselves on and off of the mat, the five elements can be a useful and intuitive tool that can help us understand and work with what comes up.

Using Language to Describe and Create

The five elements give us access to the language of the body and are a form of dharana and dhyana (concentration and meditation, the sixth and seventh limbs), themselves. In the inner work associated with yoga, it's important to develop a language that gives us access to our inner lives.  Our work-a-day-world language does a decent job of describing the objective reality, but it doesn't do as well at describing the subjective worlds we simultaneously cohabit.  So while it's easy to describe where I am sitting, who's sitting next to me, and what color the sky is, it isn't as easy to describe the feelings I have inside as I sit here writing this blog.  That's why music and poetry touch each of us.  While great poets and musicians can describe experiences, they are also capable of capturing qualities of the inner experiences, which touch us.  As yogis, the nature-based metaphors associated with the five elements can be useful in distinguishing inner states of consciousness.

The elements are like a metaphorical language map that gives form to internal states.  First of all, they can help us define qualities of consciousness, feeling states, emotions, and sensations.  Additionally they are an intuitive categorization that can point out when we're close to the experience of yoga and when we're far away.  And when we're off, we can use the five elements as a tool to harmonize or to create transformational breakthroughs.

So, for example, this morning, I got on the mat feeling fatigued and uninspired.  My diagnosis:  lack of fire and air and too much earth element.  Fire--along with earth-- is a necessary ingredient to evoke the combustion for transformation.  If there's too much earth in the form of fatigue and heaviness relative to fire, the fire of passion will feel like a spark instead of a standing or moving fire.  The word inspiration comes from the same root, to inspire, or to breathe in.  And what do we breathe in?  Air.  So when the air element is lacking, so is the spirit of inspiration, insight, and levity.  The air helps us float along from one vinyasa to the next.  Like fire, it is constantly in balance and interplay with the earth element.  When there's not enough air, there's almost always too much earth. And so we experience a heaviness, lethargy, or fixity in our bodies.

Diagnosis and Treatment

This diagnosis is extremely helpful because it informs the way I move, what I highlight in my practice, and what I shift to the periphery.  In my case this morning, I chose to focus on the deficiencies.  I asked myself, "How do I increase fire?"  One way that I know is to move more rapidly through the vinyasas.  Additionally, I can either take five breaths per posture very rapidly, or I can take two, three or four breaths per asana, hopping and bopping from one asana to the next.  In order to increase the air element I decided to emphasize the inhale over the exhale.  And to even emphasize the point more, I chose to take an ever-so-short inhale retention.

I realize that some of the shifts I've made are a bit "non-traditional."  This isn't what is being taught in Mysore, now.  But its what I learned from Guruji.  When I first went to Mysore in 1994, I was extremely stiff.  I was one of those guys who couldn't touch his toes in a forward bend.  And so when I asked him about working with my stiffness, he had me moving faster and making louder sounds on my exhale than my inhale.  This rapid movement increased the fire that was needed to dissolve the earth element that was keeping my body stiff and stuck.  Essentially, what I am saying is that historically, this was a practice of self-healing.  Guruji had an incredible eye for noticing what was out of balance, whether it was your spine being off or your spirit.  And he had a knack for giving us just the medicine we needed.

Likewise, each of us needs to learn to use the practice to treat ourselves medicinally.  If we practice the same way, day-in-and-day-out, we'll bore ourselves out of the practice.  Chit, consciousness, is the first thing that goes when we've lost interest.  When that happens, we end up practicing on "auto-pilot."  And when we've gone there, we're lost. It's also important to be able to tailor the practice to our individual body, mind, and spirit.  Each of these aspects of our being needs to be honored by our practice, and each changes from day-to-day, moment-to-moment.  We need to find and maintain a flexibility of approach such that our practices not only meet us where we are, but they heal us and lead us back to our truth, consciousness, and joy.

Five Element Series

This is one part in a nine-part series that explores the five elements and its application to yoga practice. Be sure to check out the other posts!