As I sit in front of the large windows in my living room I notice a lady bug crawling along the windowsill.  It is only one small part of the larger scene of life pulsating through this moment.  My cat snores beneath my chair.  A light breeze ruffles the delicate leaves of freshly planted petunias on my porch.  The heavy, grumbling sounds of passing cars periodically mask the fervent chirps of neighborhood robins.  The world is vital this morning.  It is not a blob of inanimate substance, it is alive.  I am alive.  My awareness turns inward and I notice that my body feels fatigued from hours of excited gardening.  My legs ache and my eyelids feel heavy and yet, there is something else there.  Despite my overworked muscles and slightly sore low back there is a vitality present within me.  It has been nurtured by days spent digging in the rich soil beneath the oceanic skies of the Alberta prairies.  

This is prana and I allow myself to sense it more fully by dropping into my breath.  My breath flows easily right now.  I am stress free and more than willing to take in the circumstances of this moment.  Oxygen circulates through my blood and I feel my active hands reaping the benefit of this amazing flow.    As I sense through the gateway of the gross sensations of my body I notice that more than just my breath flows.  There is subtle sensation, miniature shock waves of aliveness that also flows through me.  I feel a twitch in my right foot, a tingle in my sacrum.  My emotions oscillate between contentment and eagerness to get back outside amongst my flowers.  My awareness flows from presence to distraction and back again.  The existence of the sensation, emotion and thought are the substances of other koshas but the movements within them is the influence of the pranamaya kosha.  Dr. David Frawley, doctor of Ayurvedic medicine (yoga's sister science), describes 5 movements of prana in our body which I summarize here:

1.  Movement from the head to the navel
2.  Movement from the navel through tailbone and legs
3.  Movement from the periphery of the body to the navel
4.  Movement from the navel to the periphery of the body
5.  Movement from the navel to the head

My yoga practice today takes me into a kinesthetic understanding of these movements.  As I hug my knees into my chest I feel slight pressure moving from my belly to my sitting bones.  I am experiencing the impulse of energy that helps us with excretion.  Holding the knees into the chest will help eliminate constipation much like pumping babies legs helps to expel gas. 

In trikonasana I engage my core body, the space just below the navel, and extend through my limbs.  My energy is awakened at my center and propelled to the periphery.  I become aware of my breath, it is steady.   My blood becomes oxygenated or empregnated with prana and the asana spreads it through my system.  Awareness lets me know where prana is blocked.  This isn't a magical process.  I know where prana is lacking because these areas of my body feel stagnant, like cardboard, but I simply remain present.  Daniel Odier, Tantric teacher says in his book Desire:  
"We never try to change or adopt a new way of behaving; instead we try only to allow our awareness to descend toward what is really happening within us. We will notice that this presence is sufficient for putting an end to whatever is blocking the flow of life."


As I rest in the oscillations and flows of my body in asana I feel expanded.  I feel larger than the boundaries of my physical body.  Residing in the energy body allows us to feel ourselves beyond the idea that we are solid, separate lumps of clay.  Non-dual teacher Jean Klein says that "global feeling goes beyond the physical shape of the body... in expansion there is no isolation. It is love."  (Who Am I?)

My yoga practice has transformed a great deal since awakening to the pranamaya kosha more fully.  It has become more effortless and dynamic.  At some point within it I come to a point of being moved by the natural pranic winds within.  Then, from time to time, the one doing the asana disappears and what is left is an elemental flow of life.