What is your favorite de-stress poses?

I just finished doing the Sun Saluatation part A, needle thru the eye, breath concentration and corpse pose. As I was finishing, I messed up because as I looked up a little hummingbird was looking in at me from the french doors to the porch outside. It was hovering down at my level. What a breathtaking experience. It followed me from room to room looking in. Then it flew off. I was so involved with the hummingbird that I realized I had forgotten about myself - I felt so uplifted. Meditation? Maybe.

Favorite de-stress pose: gotta be standing and seated forward bend and plow pose -- years of yo-yo dieting left my metabolism in a shambles. the thyroid stimulation in plow pose really lends stamina to my own conscious relaxation, which in turn continues to heal my metabolism. hummingbird: fascinating...and significant I think. how is your meditation practice? don't you have pets? at any rate going from "messed up" to "so uplifted" is most definetely a path that bears examining. i've had a lifelong fascination with hummingbirds and dragonflies even though I've only rarely seen them in person -- something almost magically whimsical about them, don't you think? Namaste, BrianClt

I do have pets - birds though have been a lifelong fascination. One of the blessings I count is living in a wooded area on a bluff that butts into a creek that runs into the Tennessee River. Our woods are full of birds of every kind. If I could be any animal, I would be a bird. My pets leave me alone when I practice - they're into their own type of meditation. I try so hard to meditate - it is probably my weakest area - I can go out into the woods and magically the feeling of being one with everything happens. Same experience with the hummingbird. I'm such a friggin control freak that it is very hard to let go. It does happen but I'm constantly searching for that holy grail.

Ro, Meditation seems to pose a challenge to all of us accustomed to the fast-paced, overstimulating, everyday western lifestyle. As you said, the surrender, letting go is really the antithesis of how we're conditioned from an early age to respond to the unknown. My personal meditation practice exists sort of on levels -- like a descending staircase with many landings. One of those landings is, for some reason, very attractive to my pets. Both my dog and my cat -- who couldn't be less interested in other aspects of my yoga or meditation practice -- are somehow quite attracted to a specific level of my meditation practice. When i'm 'there,' they come from wherever they are in the house and get as close to me as they can -- I'll be in downward dog with a cat sitting on my raised sitting bones and my minpin between my palms doing her own version of downward dog. When I move passed that particular level -- either up the staircase or down, they once again loose interest. Occassionally I try to stay at that level for a while, though it tends to be difficult as they are a bit of a distraction. It took me quite a while to get passed that 'searching' desire in my meditation practice. And I'm guessing that hummingbird, like dragonflies and butterflies, merely wanted to illustrate that he (like meditation) is more likely to light on an outstretched palm than a grasping fist. Sounds to me like you're well on your way! Namaste, BrianClt