LUNA YOGA
Vital Fertility and Sexuality
by Adelheid Ohlig
Published by Ash Tree Publishing
Fertility Dances
Excerpt pp.107-118
Harvest Dance
Begin in the basic fertility dance stance. With your inhalation, open your arms far to the sides and open your fingers wide, extend your head back, tilt your buttocks back (pubic bone looks down), and step one leg (alternate left and right) to the side, with your knee bent and your foot straight.
On your exhalation, let your head fall forward, bring your hands together, make fists and bring them to your pelvis. At the same time step back to center and tilt your pelvis forward (pubic bone looks up).
With this wide-reaching arm movement, you take strength from the universe and guide it to your pelvis. Your weight, your center of gravity, your attention and your breath always remain in your pelvis/genitals, even as the steps lead you alternately left and right. Stomp if the goal of the exercise is your menstruation. Tread lightly if you want to stimulate your fertility.
Note: Inhalation and exhalation take equal time in the harvest dance. This is a classic ritual dance from Africa. It may put you in a trance if you practice it too long, therefore practice with caution!
Weed note: Like the vast majority of such dances worldwide, the actual original intent of the dance is to induce a light trance. Trance states are not dangerous so long as they are entered into with awareness. The kinds of trances created by fertility dances make it easier to impact your reproductive choices and reproductive health. There is some evidence to indicate that so-called "primitive" peoples used such trances as a major component of fertility manipulation. Light trances strengthen the power of prayers, affirmations, and visualizations.
Chopping Wood Dance
As in the Harvest Dance, this dance helps you take energy from the heavens and direct it to your pelvis. Begin in basic fertility dance stance: knees relaxed, legs hip-distance apart, pelvis relaxed, feet parallel, arms relaxed. Breathe fully and consciously into your pelvis/genitals for one or two breaths. On an inhalation, stretch your arms upward with open hands. Lift your right leg, extend your head back, and tilt your pubic bone towards the floor (pelvis back). Your standing leg remains slightly bent.
Breathe out. Bring your right foot down, placing it parallel to the left and keeping the knees loosely flexed. Stomp if you desire to bring on your bleeding. Let you head fall forward. Make fists and bring them to your pelvis, which is now tilted forward (pubic bone up).
Breathe in and stretch up, lifting your left leg, relaxing your head back, and tilting the pubic bone down. Breathe out and stomp your left food down (with force for menstruation, or lightly for fertility) as you bring your head forward and your clenched fists to your upthrust pelvis.
The illustration shows what the final stance of this dance looks like from the side.
Heavenly Energy Dance
Like the previous dances, this one focuses universal healing energies on the pelvis. The expanding and contracting force of the movement makes it quite trance-inducing if done for sufficient time.
Place your legs one step apart, with the right leg in front of the left. Stretch your open hands up and gather heavenly energy while breathing in. Both your head and your pelvis are tilted back (point pubic bone down). Knees are slightly bent and feet are straight.
As you exhale, close your hands, making fists, bring your arms forward and down, and concentrate the heavenly energy into your pelvis with your fists. Let your head fall forward. Contract your pelvic muscles and point the pubic bone up. Stretch the right leg a little, but not completely.
Switch the position of your legs, so the left leg is one step in front of the right. Breathe in and reach up for heavenly energy, pointing the tailbone and the head toward each other in the back. Breathe out, pull the heavenly energy into the pelvis with the closed hands and push the pubis up toward the hands while straightening the left knee.
Be sure to breathe slowly, deeply and evenly.
Invitation Dance
Assume the basic fertility dance stance. Inhale and stretch both of your arms far forward (as if greeting or inviting someone) and, at the same time, stretch your left leg forward and up, leaving the knee bent. The other leg remains bent at the knee as well. Exhale forcefully as you flex your left knee and draw your left leg in toward your trunk. At the same time, make fists and strongly flex your elbows. Feel strength in your entire body. Repeat, lifting your right leg forward and up as you exhale. This is a vigorous, demanding dance. It strengthens and balances, internally and externally, as it brings a powerful rush of energy into the hips and pelvis.
Breathe steadily and evenly throughout.
Embrace Dance
Inhale, spread your arms wide open to the sides, extend your head back. Keep your legs open and loose at the knees, feet parallel. Tilt your pelvis back (pubic bone tips toward the floor). Exhale; pull your head forward, round your entire back, pull your right leg up to your right breast, while your arms embrace the knee. The other leg remains bent. Tilt the pubic bone up. Still exhaling, put (or stomp) your right leg down on the floor, open your arms, throw your head back and tilt your pubic bone down. Repeat in the same way with the other leg.
Music
Music has many different effects on us and can put us in different moods. We cannot close our ears, therefore it is important to be selective about what we allow in. Electronic music or music that has been produced with synthesizers has less healing vibrations than music stemming from natural or organic instruments. For the dance phases of LUNA YOGA everybody can pick suitable music for themselves. I recommend to pick not too fast a rhythm for starters, so you won't become short of breath.
I often play "affirmations" by Kath and Ini. This is a tape produced by Australian women. They use a wide variety of instruments, including Aboriginal didjeridoos. Affirmations are invocations of positive properties that we want to support, like faith, strength, love, imagination, understanding, power, will, order, purpose, letting-go, life. The tape can be ordered from Women's Music Collective, c/o Post Office, The Channon, New South Wales 2480, Australia.
Weed note: My choice for affirmative, woman-centered chants and music is Lisa Thiel, who has an incredible series of tapes including "Prayers for the Planet" and "Songs of the Spirit." Her tapes and an enormous variety of other wonderful music can be obtained from Ladyslipper Music, PO Box 3124R, Durham, NC 27715. For a free catalog, or to order, call 1-800-634-6044.
This excerpt is from LUNA YOGA
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