Chakras in Chacala: Yoga as Union
Palm Fronds at Mar de Jade, February 2023 photo by Sandra Butel
I am Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk.
beautywalk is my effort to find words to describe the experiences that I am having in my life, as I learn and grow and return to the essence of my being. Sharing my ponderings and meanderings with you is part of my dedication to being there beside you as you venture on your own journeys. My intention with this edition of my beautywalk blog is to share insights and learning related to my yoga practice.
Yoga has been an essential part of my healing and personal growth journey since the day five years ago that my friend Sue convinced me to attend a yin class with her. That was when I met my first teacher, Kate Rivard, and started to see what yoga had to offer to me. I have spent many hours on my mat under the direction of Kate’s watchful and compassionate eye and have found solace and peace there. I am so grateful to Kate for being such an open, accepting and courageous guide. Her ability to see me and to guide me allowed me to become more confident in my ability and to open myself up to one day joining a yoga retreat.
My first yoga retreat was at Hollyhock in 2021 with Fiji McAlpine. I had chosen Fiji’s course, not because I knew her but rather because I wanted to return, after 25 years of absence, to this magical place. I was in for a real treat with this well-loved and dedicated teacher and since Hollyhock, I have attended two other retreats with her. The latest one was this past February in Chacala, Nayarit, Mexico.
As with many of my travel plans I was at first unsure of why I had found myself at this beautiful retreat centre on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Don’t get me wrong, it is a lovely place and I was delighted and grateful to be there but, given my new lifestyle of finding ways to travel and live in new places on a very modest budget, I was having some difficulty justifying the cost of this retreat. I decided to focus on simply being there and taking in the experience and letting my sage brain process and reveal to me, at a later date, why I had chosen this experience.
Artisanal tiles on a staircase at Mar de Jade by Sandra Butel
Fiji is a wonderful teacher. She exudes positive energy and spiritual depth and she somehow manages to push all of us to the very edge of our abilities with such grace and confidence that we found ourselves attempting poses that we had never attempted before. Her teachings embody the true meaning of yoga; bringing together the various parts of ourselves into one integrated whole.
What made this retreat different from all my other yoga experiences is that Fiji centered each day’s classes around the teachings of the Chakra system. This had a profound effect on me and I was moved to share it with you.
ROOT CHAKRA
Day one was focused on the first chakra or Root chakra, which is represented by the colour red. Our practice focused on grounding ourselves and arriving into our bodies, spirits and minds in the present moment. This was a good place to start for me as my feet found the floor and my body settled into a new space of remembering who I am. I found myself gently smiling as I settled in, knowing that my beautywalk journey of the past 3 years meant that I was already in this place of grounding in my life.
SACRAL CHAKRA
On Day two we delved into the second or Sacral chakra, which is orange in colour and is all about connecting with our desire and focusing on what we want in our lives. Fiji led us through an incredible blindfold exercise where one partner was led around by another with an invitation to experience the world through our other senses. As a visual learner and thinker I have long known that I place a lot of emphasis on the information I take in through my eyes. I tend to go indoors as soon as it is dark as without my eyes to guide me I do not feel as safe.
This experience was mind-blowing for me. My partner, Jenn, led me around the small courtyard outside, inviting me to stop and discover various plants and objects and to really experience them with my sense of touch and smell and hearing. As I caressed the dusty leaves of a vine that was covering a large tree, and as I reached up to hang myself off the branches above, I felt beautifully and completely alive. I was excited and I felt such sensuality in the things that I touched; the heat of a large stone warmed by the sun, the spiky fronds of a palm tree in a pot. I was giddy with childish curiosity and I felt connected to the delight I used to take in climbing trees and putting my fingers in the dirt.
My heart was so open and so grateful for this experience. At the same time, there was also a feeling of sadness and loss for all those moments I hadn’t fully experienced in my life. I was struck by how much of our daily experiences we take for granted and how much we are missing as we focus our energies on one way of seeing and being in the world. I vowed to spend more time in this space of wonder and delight.
Palm Leaf Mar de Jade, Chacala, Nayarit by Sandra Butel
SOLAR PLEXUS CHAKRA
The next day we focused on the 3rd chakra, the yellow Solar Plexus chakra. It is connected to our personal responsibility for taking action and creating the life we desire. I came to realize that this transformative fire was what had built up in me the day before as I experienced the full range of my senses. Now I was determined to use this fire to bring more light into my life and into the lives of those I serve in my practice.
I have always been drawn to personal and social responsibility. This would explain why my favourite book is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. (If you can get your hands on the large hard copy with pictures and the subtitle Prometheus Bound I would highly recommend delving into this as a surprisingly inspirational read).
Fiji talked about enacting our power without overpowering anyone else’s power and moving from the finite to the infinite and the known to the unknown. Rather than going around this internal fire we were encouraged to go through it and to burn off everything that was no longer needed. This trial by fire would transform the core self and make it ready and able to grow new life. This message resonated so strongly with me. My journey of personal growth has led me straight into this fire burning off what I no longer need - my people pleasing, my victimhood, my judgment and blame and my wishing for things to be different than they actually were. By spending considerable time and energy on the things that have happened in my life I have been able to burn off the excess and be left with the essential of who I am.
Shapes, numbers and colours Mar de Jade by Sandra Butel
Another concept that Fiji introduced that resonated strongly with me was the idea of focusing more energy on our ignorance than our intelligence. At first, it was a little weird to think that I needed to focus on ignorance, but it was a new way of thinking about this word. Ignorance in this case is simply all we do not know. If we insist on focusing our energy on what we know, we limit how we experience the world, as our knowledge is limited. If we focus our attention on our ignorance or what we don’t know, we receive the gift of limitless learning and possibility. I liked this so much and have found it a useful concept to share with clients as we fumble through our lives and work towards achieving our limitless potential.
HEART CHAKRA
Now it was time for the Heart chakra and its beautiful shade of green. This chakra represents compassion, love and opening to altruistic behaviour that leads to connection and other altruistic behaviours. This chakra is all about opening your heart to let other people’s energy in as a way to manifest deep connection and the union and harmony that is yoga. This resonated deeply with me in my coaching practice where my work allows me to open to others and to cultivate deep connections and learning with one another.
Fiji and I on the beach by Sandra Butel
THROAT CHAKRA
Finally we delved into the Throat chakra. Its true blue tone represents the voice, our tool of communication. This is where we focus our attention on being heard and, more importantly, on hearing and understanding others. Fiji urged us to be intentional in our communications with others so that they would understand us. Part of this process of communicating our true selves was to learn to articulate our values in ways that allowed for deeper understanding.
To help us better understand this concept, Fiji guided us through a process of finding three words to describe how we wanted to be in the world. We started this difficult task by making a long list of attributes and then thoughtfully removed any that didn’t resonate deeply with us until we had whittled down the list to our essential three. We also took time each night at dinner to share our choices with one another and presented our justifications for getting rid of each set of words that were not essential. This was such a great way to come up with a clear focus for who we want to be in the world. In the end, I was left: Authentic, Present and Open.
So here it was, my purpose for being on this retreat: to see with great clarity the brightness and beauty that I am and that I want to share with the world. To feel in my whole being that my life purpose is to continue to engage in a daily practice of presence and empathy and curiosity and openness and focused action and to allow for my purpose here on earth to be driven by my values and by a deep knowing and appreciation for who I truly am.
This is Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk. What is yours?
What one practice can you bring into your life to help you to find your grounding, your desire, your inner power, your voice, your heart and your authentic self?
If you want to learn more about my coaching practice and cultivate a deep connection with your whole self, reach out for a free 1 hour session https://calendly.com/sandrabutel/free-beautywalk-session
Postscript. Check out the following links for a more deep dive into the chakra system, practicing yoga with Fiji McAlpine or Kate Rivard at Niche Yoga in Regina as well as information on the wonderful Mar de Jade retreat centre.
https://www.doyogawithme.com/yogi/fiji-mcalpine
https://mindintomatteryoga.com/fiji-mcalpine/
https://www.instagram.com/fijimcalpine/?hl=en
https://www.nicheregina.com/our-team
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