In 2023, I was in a sauna finishing my practice with an active meditation. I was two minutes in to plank pose, eyes closed, consciously breathing while my headphones piped in the sounds of a hang drum. I blinked my eyes and saw gold numbers moving left to right. I slowly lowered to the mat, closing my eyes and focusing again. I heard noises I had never experienced in reality. I heard noises from a military scene. I heard shells exploding, gunfire, and men yelling. I lifted myself back into plank pose for my second four minutes. Turning my head to the left, I could see a man lying on the ground on his back, full uniform, mask across his face, saturated in blood. Dust was rising, and I could see he was in the sun while the light around me was shaded like I was inside a small room off the street where he was, door open. I reached my left hand out and pulled him under my body. Eyes still closed, I told him to stay down, stay with me.  He held my left hand while I lifted my right arm, extending it from my body. 

I started to cry in the sauna, I could hear the national anthem playing,  a woman’s voice singing, the bombs bursting in the air, and noises of booms, helicopters, and fighter jets coming in. I lowered to a half plank, opening my eyes to see tears falling. Closing them, the man was gone. At that point, it felt like I was flying, I kept my eyes shut to see a scene like an overhead drone video I had taken of the shallows in a lake. The noises all went silent, and I lowered my body down, doing my best to get myself together while still dripping tears. I went and jumped in the lake after a few minutes. 

I have no idea where I went that day, or what I saw. I just hope that guy is still with us. 

I am reminded of the night before my mother took my brother and me skiing for the first time. We are in the hallway of our lake house, its dark outside, light coming in from the sliding glass door and outdoor lights over the deck. My brother has a set of boots and skis on I am watching, waiting for my turn with the boots and skis. She is explaining and showing him how to keep his skis apart and not cross the tips. Today, what stands out about her teaching, she never said anything about pizza or french fries to us. In otherwords, she never told us to emulate some food or visual signafier of the way we should position our body. If you take your child to ski lessons in 2024, I promise they will hear the terms french fries and pizza. 

Beginner yoga classes usually do not use the Sanskrit word for the pose, they use words you already know associated with a shape you are making with your body. For example, mountain pose, half moon, turtle, rabbit, chair, or thunderbolt. You start to associate the shape with the name. Many of the names are translations from Sanskrit too. After making the mind-muscle connection over repetition of practice one can begin to make their own series or sequences. Just like anything with practice.

In my first yin yoga class, we did a pose laying on your side, arms and legs stacked and extended to make your body into a very loose curved C. This was called the banana pose. It’s actually pretty difficult if you are active in the pose. While I was laying there, candle-lit,  surrounded by people so relaxed they are farting.  I thought about how I learned to deal with my brother and father in an anger management class. 

I would imagine myself as the seeds of a cucumber. Just hanging out in there like a hammock, surrounded by tiny water droplets, it was difficult for me to be in that state and be angry. What was different about the practice while in yoga vs the class, I was using my entire body. 

It’s been almost ten years since my first banana pose; these days, I can smell them. Ask me if I want to do the pop motion of surfing if I’m drinking coconut water that day in the sauna while in banana pose. Yoga will allow you to go anywhere you want with just your mind. Eventually, the practice will move from your body inward to the mind.  Is this the part where I tell you I worked in a restaurant called the Lexington and was fired… walking away a freed woman?

I’m not sure if the manifestation works both ways once the subconscious sets in. However I have used the sauna and active meditation including inversions to find exactly what I wanted many times over the past ten years.