Module 16: Episode 3 - Talking to your spine - movement & practice
Embodied Mindfulness Meditation
Module 16: Episode 3 - Talking to your spine - movement & practice
Dina Asher Kusnir
Part 1: Mindful movement (about 10 minutes)
This meditation invites you first to movement. Start with focused on the feet then the spine: shifting weight, rising to the toes, and bending the knees with the breath while drawing earth energy up and sky energy down. It continued with forward bends and back arches using a crossed-arm “taking off your shirt” motion, side bends, and spinal twists led by the eyes. It ended by noticing what had changed, then sitting with the spine lengthened from the crown.
Part 2: Guided meditation — talking to the spine (about 20 minutes)
This continued the series on speaking to body parts, after earlier sessions on the lungs and hands. This meditation moved down the spine section by section, offering gratitude to each:
Cervical spine (7 vertebrae): for turning the head, looking up at the sky and down at the earth, and making space for breath and food.
Thoracic spine (12 vertebrae): for housing the spinal cord and anchoring the back muscles and shoulder blades.
Lumbar spine (5 vertebrae): for flexibility, while acknowledging that its mobility is also where pain often arises.
Sacrum and tailbone: “sacred,” the energetic center of the second Chakra, the Tatian /hara).
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