Thursday, July 20, 2006
Polarity and Alignment of Nostril Breath and Energy
I also noticed during the retreat, and have been aware of since, a connection between my nose and my leg.
It's pretty well-known that during the course of a day, you will experience alternating nostril dominance. Meaning, you will breathe primarily out of one nostril, all the time. It's not to say that you don't have any air coming in from the other one, but there's almost always one which has a clearer, stronger flow of respiration. Most of the time it's a very marked difference. The dominance shifts back and forth between your right and your left nostril. I've read that this happens roughly every 2 hours. Doing a little googling just now I found that the "balanced" breather will have this shift every 110 minutes, although for most people the shift won't be so regular. Here's a well-researched article talking a bit about alternate nostril breathing. With excellent citations, too!
So. I noticed almost by happenstance that, while scanning my body for sensation, there were definitely times when I could feel energy flowing much more freely and easily in one leg than the other (the legs are one area of the body in which I scan both sides simultaneously). This actually continued all the way up each side of my body, but I always noticed it first in the legs. It would shift too -- sometimes flow was better in the right, sometimes in the left. I started wondering at this, and, having done a lot of work with polarity at Agama earlier this year, I was quite interested in this new set of data. The connection to the shifting nostril dominance occured to me shortly after my discovering this flip-flopping sensitivity. So I started to pay attention to which nostril was open when I would notice a flow difference in my legs, and, sure enough, the open leg always corresponded with the open nostril. A connection is made!
Now I know this isn't really a striking find. But I'm always quite pleased when I stumble on to something, more-or-less empirically, which connects two concepts which, while they certainly make sense to pair together, I've never previously had any direct experience of.
I also have finally started to make some headway into being able to feel sensations deep in my chest cavity, like around my spleen and heart. These areas have always been quite blocked off.
And that is all.
I also noticed during the retreat, and have been aware of since, a connection between my nose and my leg.
It's pretty well-known that during the course of a day, you will experience alternating nostril dominance. Meaning, you will breathe primarily out of one nostril, all the time. It's not to say that you don't have any air coming in from the other one, but there's almost always one which has a clearer, stronger flow of respiration. Most of the time it's a very marked difference. The dominance shifts back and forth between your right and your left nostril. I've read that this happens roughly every 2 hours. Doing a little googling just now I found that the "balanced" breather will have this shift every 110 minutes, although for most people the shift won't be so regular. Here's a well-researched article talking a bit about alternate nostril breathing. With excellent citations, too!
So. I noticed almost by happenstance that, while scanning my body for sensation, there were definitely times when I could feel energy flowing much more freely and easily in one leg than the other (the legs are one area of the body in which I scan both sides simultaneously). This actually continued all the way up each side of my body, but I always noticed it first in the legs. It would shift too -- sometimes flow was better in the right, sometimes in the left. I started wondering at this, and, having done a lot of work with polarity at Agama earlier this year, I was quite interested in this new set of data. The connection to the shifting nostril dominance occured to me shortly after my discovering this flip-flopping sensitivity. So I started to pay attention to which nostril was open when I would notice a flow difference in my legs, and, sure enough, the open leg always corresponded with the open nostril. A connection is made!
Now I know this isn't really a striking find. But I'm always quite pleased when I stumble on to something, more-or-less empirically, which connects two concepts which, while they certainly make sense to pair together, I've never previously had any direct experience of.
I also have finally started to make some headway into being able to feel sensations deep in my chest cavity, like around my spleen and heart. These areas have always been quite blocked off.
And that is all.
