the dog pack
In yoga tune up® on July 24, 2010 at 9:54 pmI was wrapping up my Yoga Tune Up® certification exam, researching the subtle ways of the sacrum, when I stumbled over a muscle name that didn’t ring a bell.
“Multifidus.”
So I grabbed my Ray Long book, THE KEY MUSCLES OF YOGA, and thumbed to the muscle index. The single entry led me to an image of the deepest muscular layer of the back. Despite the imposing Latin name, it turns out the Multifidus isn’t a single big or long muscle, but rather many short, stringy muscles laced up on either side of the spine.
Multifidi!
What could the name mean? ‘Multi’ had to mean ‘many.’ But ‘Fidus?’ Sounded like ‘Loyal Dog.’ I loved the idea of a muscle named ‘Loyal Dog.’ Because then I’d be forced to translate the plural, Multifidi, into ‘Dog Pack.’
She held her back. “Man, my dogs are killing me!”
Ha!
But alas, no. According to Charlton T. Lewis’ An Elementary Latin Dictionary:
“multifidus, adj. [multus + 2 FID.], many-cleft, divided into many parts: faces, O.”
Divided into many parts. Okay.
The Multifidi are deep to (they live underneath) the Erector Spinae. (Those are your Strong Cords, the big mamas running just outside the Multifidi’s grooves.) You can palpate (or touch) them by sticking your fingers in the long slots that lie directly next to the vertebra (or spine bones).
Each vertebra is made up of a kidney-shaped body and an arch sprouting out behind it. The body and arch are attached via two little pedicles (or stalks), which are in turn attached to midget columns, called articular processes, which—top and bottom—have joint surfaces, called facets, that link their vertebral arch to the arch above and the arch below. Sticking out to the side of each articular process is a transverse process. Like a little branch sticking out. On the other side (the inside) of each articular process are two lamina (thin plates) that join to form the spinous process. That’s the bump you feel when you touch the back of your spine through your skin.
the glory of the lord shall be revealed
In jivamukti yoga® on July 4, 2010 at 8:05 pmity aham vasudevasya
parthasya ca mahatmanah
samvadam imam asrausam
adbhutam romaharsanam
This is the dialogue I heard between Krishna, the son of Vasudeva, and Arjuna,
the great-hearted son of Pritha. The wonder of it makes my hair stand on end!
Bhagavad Gita, 18:74
Translation by Eknath Easwaran
◊◊◊
When desperate, most people cry out to God. But the wise take God’s Word in.
The Bhagavad Gita, literally “the Song of God,” is a foundational text for Yogis and Hindus, just like The Holy Bible is for Jews and Christians. In the Gita, Krishna is telling his friend, Arjuna, about the many paths that lead to God. Krishna is God (actually, an incarnation of Vishnu, maintainer of the Universe). Krishna is God made flesh. (Like when Christ says, “I and my Father are One.”)
Arjuna and Krishna are standing on a battlefield, and Arjuna is supposed to march his army into war. Thing is, his ‘enemy’ is made up of cousins and family friends. Krishna’s goal is to get to Arjuna to engage, to act. But Arjuna is terrified of the consequences.
Just a good story in a moldy sacred text?
In the 20th Century, a profound love of the Bhagavad Gita served Mahatma Gandhi during his prison fasts protesting British rule in India. As Gandhi lay close to death, he poured over the Gita. Later he said that everything he’d done, even his development of satyagraha, non-violent resistance (“the Force which is born of Truth and Love”), came from his reading of the Gita. His daily scripture practice deepened his faith, his shraddha. In turn, Gandhi inspired the Indian people, also fluent in the Gita, to non-violently throw off British rule. The British were then freed from the nightmare of maintaining their Raj.
Not so bad for a moldy sacred text!
Despite the inner strength and clarity it might bring, many of us don’t have relationship to a holy text…and it may seem forced to cultivate one. But there could be other kinds of texts that make our hair stand on end with awe and profound gratitude. Music, poetry, or great oratory. For me there are speeches in American history, ‘political scripture,’ that have great resonance. For instance, I can’t read Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech without my eyes brimming with tears.
