May 2023 | Refine

NOTE: This was originally published as part of my newsletter in May 2023. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive the next Om Letter direct to your inbox once a month.

I still distinctly remember looking at the outline of modules that lay ahead of me when I first signed up to my foundational yoga teacher training and immediately identifying the two subjects that I felt complete aversion towards: pregnancy yoga and the ‘subtle body.’

I’m not sure it’s possible to make a bigger u-turn on these topics than I have, but at the time I thought teaching pregnant women would be dull (it really isn’t) and that subtle body anatomy would entail a bunch of esoteric woo-woo nonsense (also untrue) that couldn’t possibly be of any interest to someone whose yoga revolved around correctly lining up bones and muscles through various planes of movement. Luckily, this is where my ‘root’ teacher Katrina Repka stepped in to turn my entire perspective and understanding of yoga on its head within a matter of hours. Good teachers will do that for you.

So in a way I’m writing this today in the hopes of opening your eyes to some of these ideas and to possibly clear up a few common misconceptions around the subtle body.

First and foremost, although the chakras do serve a useful purpose, they have become a bit of a well-trodden trope and are the least interesting aspect of an expansive canon of concepts that help us illuminate the more refined aspects of yoga, breathwork and meditation.

Let me introduce you to the grantis, nadis, koshas, kleshas, vayus, panchamahabhutas, doshas, prana, meridian lines and acupuncture points. I’m willing to bet that some of these ideas have never been mentioned in your yoga classes at all, while others you’ve encountered previously.

Each of these terms is worth diving into, but for today it’s enough to know that these deeper layers of self-study exist for us to tap into when the time feels right and, that each of us will find some of them easier to connect to than others.

In the earliest chapters of yoga’s history, practitioners would spend months or years in relative isolation to study themselves through the lens of yoga. Every once in a while they would gather in larger groups to share their explorations and findings, gradually evolving what we now refer to as yoga. Of course, back then, without x-rays or MRI scans, yogis were reliant on what they felt was happening to determine whether a given technique was effective or not.

I’ve found that situating the subtle body within this original context allowed my mind to open itself up to exploring these ideas without judgement. Even the chakras - with their focus on the crown of the head, the space between the eyes, the throat, heart, solar plexus, pelvis and base of the body - have an inherent logic to them when viewed in this way. If you had no way of knowing what was happening underneath the layers of your skin, but you could feel the beat of your own heart, you would of course be observing it with curiosity too.

In turn, I have more than once found myself surprised by recent scientific research that seems to line up with some of these ideas. It can feel uncomfortable to open ourselves up to the idea that science ‘doesn’t quite know everything’ about how our bodies work, but it also leaves room for our own explorations.

Our understanding of the fascia (the spider web-like connective tissue that runs throughout our entire body) for instance, has changed drastically in recent years and may be linked to an entirely ‘new’ organ known as the interstitium. We now know that the fascia both sends and receives information to and from the brain. This gives a lot more value to the yogic idea of a mind-body connection and lines up with descriptions of the nadis that date back thousands of years.

For me, the process of understanding and absorbing the subtle body ultimately turned into a process of democratising knowledge. Knowing that there are many ways of arriving at the same conclusion and that no method is necessarily more valuable than any other. Understanding that ancient wisdom and philosophy hold just as much power as their contemporary counterparts, and embracing both equally.

With love,

OM x

Monthly Mantra

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it”

Pablo Picasso

May Playlist

Here’s a fun mixtape to accompany you while you’re outside basking in that glorious sunshine

Featured Flow

Explore how you could incorporate acupressure within your yoga practice with this Yang to Yin class that emphasises the heart and small intestine meridians

Reading Recommendation

There really is no one better placed than Tias Little to take you deeper into the subtle aspects of yoga so if your curiosity has been peaked then grab yourself a copy

Thank you for reading - if you have any questions please feel free to reach out via email.

Copyright © 2023
Oceana Mariani