Six (S6) works the lower back and glutes all the way down through the back of the legs. I have become a bit desensitized to the methods that Everett uses in this bodywork. So I won't be using the shock factor (it is pretty shocking, people! lol) to convey this experience, which would focus more on methodology, but rather share with you the overall experience I've had.
So following S5, I spent a week feeling horrible. Angry. (you've probably picked up on the fact that anger is my go-to emotion. i love it. always there when i need it. so welcoming and comforting. keeps me warm at night. feels so damn good for some reason!) Hopelessness. Rage. Hostility. And finally, one afternoon, a feeling of peace and calmness enveloped me and I felt a great deal of spaciousness - in and around me.
My yoga practice was pretty weird - my pelvis felt schizophrenic - it didn't really know how to behave properly. As I would try to allow it to drop naturally rather than tilting it, my lower back muscles would start to resist and tighten. I was also experiencing intense sensations deep in my hip flexors. My right shoulder also felt like it was hitched up a lot higher than my left one, and i experienced the sensation of needing a thread to be pulled straight out of my right toe to pull my right shoulder into alignment. Everett said all of these things are perfectly natural. He reminded me that he is shifting the entire bony structure of my body - of course the soft tissues had to reorganize themselves to accommodate the new alignment.
So in this disheveled state, I made my way to see Everett for S6. My attitude had shifted a bit, and I was definitely feeling more grounded and calm. More open to Everett and all of his painful bullshit.
All sessions start with a bit of work on the neck, shoulders, upper back and then into the lovely psoas. Then Everett started releasing the connective tissue up the back of my legs into my glorious booty. We were maybe 20 minutes into the work when I started a staggering coughing jag. I couldn't stop coughing - there was very clear mucus releasing - but it was endless and my body was shuddering uncontrollably for several minutes. Everett gave me a rag to cough in and brought a garbage bucket near the table. It soon became clear that we had to cut the session short. I was literally drained, and Everett could feel all of this toxicity releasing from my body. We were both pretty anxious to put an end to that session.
I left his place, went home and took my requisite kosher salt, baking soda and epsom salt bath before I had to head to work. My classes that day were very Iyengar-like. Super slow, grounded and heavily alignment based. It sounds weird to say this, but the tone and modulation of my voice seemed to have shifted somehow as well. That evening when I got home, I felt extremely nauseous and toxic.
A few days afterward, I started feeling like my old, feisty self again. It seemed like I had tapped into some sort of energy reservoir and my body naturally stopped craving caffeine and sugar (the two other loves of my life). My body was experiencing very few aches and pains. This energy source was much more grounded - it wasn't dispersing into frenetic vata instability (look, shiny bright objects!) but rather a deeper, slower, brighter burning.
I could literally feel the blocked energy (prana, chi) releasing itself from my body. I could also feel the areas of my body that needed Everett to reorganize and release, particularly my legs and the entire area across the back periphery of my pelvis. During twists in my yoga practice, I was hearing deep pops and cracks as my spine released stagnant energy. I started talking incessantly about "freeing your pelvis" in yoga classes. And in my personal practice, I had reconnected to my spiritual guide Babaji who I hadn't seen since 2012. (Thanks in a huge a part to Everett on so many levels and endless conversations.)
So back to Everett to complete S6. Deep, intense sensations. This session comprises deep work in the posterior pelvis. Deep work to release the coccyx. There is one moment in this session that comes after some deep, deep crazy work, where Everett has me stand up - and I literally think he held his breath - so he can see if my pelvis had dropped. He exhaled pretty loudly and was very, very pleased with the placement of my pelvis. I can't tell you how awesome that moment felt. All of the work that Everett puts in, all of the pain I experience, all of the screaming I release, culminated in that moment.
My pelvis is now directly underneath my torso and upper body. It's so difficult to articulate what it FEELS like to have the entire skeletal structure of your body totally aligned with gravity. Rather than being pulled down in heaviness, there's a sensation of upliftedness. Once you're centered within the the field of gravity, there is a lift from gravity and you feel no separation from the Universe. Everything seems to flow together sublimely.
There was more work in S6 following that moment. And it was painful. But I know that it is part of the process. Much like life; if you continue to organize your life in the avoidance of pain, you'll never have the big moments of growth and pelvic dropping transformation. Pain is part of the life experience. It's inevitable.
So these sessions aren't pure magic, but they are propelling me more quickly down this path I'm on. I thought I knew my body so well; it's like the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.
I'm also realizing that the process is just as important as the end game. One doesn't move from a hedonistic lifestyle onto a spiritual path overnight and without growing pains! I told Everett how I've been almost cocooning myself - not consciously or intentionally, but slowly, I've been withdrawing myself from so many activities and people that once played huge roles in my life. I've packed on thirty pounds of solid weight to anchor and ground myself. My practice and my life have slowed considerably. For the first time in my life, I'm allowing myself to settle in and get comfortable. Grounded and rooted. Right here and right now. Blooming where I'm planted. Everett said that when a caterpillar cocoons itself, nobody knows the pain and struggle that little caterpillar experiences. But it must be quite significant for it to emerge as a butterfly on the other side.
So as I look ahead to S7, I am becoming extremely paranoid that my pelvis will shift back into its old habits. Everett has assured me repeatedly that my pelvis aint going anywhere!
