By Melanated Glow
The beginning of Spring, for the last two years, I promote a journey. A moment for those interested to incorporate a new practice into their lives. The past two years the journey was a Smai Tawi, or Kemetic Yoga, Journey. The purpose was to educate everyone exposed to the existence of the ancient practice of uniting our lower and upper selves. These ancient postures that are pictured in hieroglyphs sometimes use different hand positioning that Sanskrit call “mudras”. The root word “mud” means to impart bliss, happiness, pleasure, and joy. Any non-verbal communication is essentially a mudra and it invokes so much of our innate power if we have a mindfulness about it.
In studying hand mudras in preparation for this year’s journey, I learned so much. Not only can we heal our own bodies, as our bodies are designed to naturally heal itself, but hand mudras help to “seal” energies to create the atmosphere for the healing. Everyone has done a hand mudra at some point in their lives even if they did not realize what they were doing or in tune with the benefits of it. For example, holding hands in prayer is a mudra. As the fingertips touch each other, there are subtle things happening inside of the body so it makes sense as there is a calmness when praying that we feel when using this mudra even if we may not have paid attention to it. Also, those that practice yoga or meditation have most likely incorporated hand mudras into their practice in some way.
Hand mudras are centered around the thumb which is the positive energy that effects the body with the 4 fingers that carry a negative charge. The tip of the thumb is connected to the brain center and the pituitary and pineal glands. Essentially, connecting the thumb to the other fingers is increasing, decreasing, or balancing the elements in the body depending on where the thumb touches the other fingers: tips, base, or not at all. The effects to the body take place after being held for at least 30 seconds while some hand mudras need to be held for 30 minutes or more for its effectiveness.
Each finger is connected to the elements, planets, and our internal organs. For example, the pinky represents the water element, the planet Mercury, while accessing the meridian of the small intestine and heart. Choosing the correct hand mudra for our needs and applying the appropriate pressure will bring healing to our bodies. Mudras are self acupressure, the ancient healing art of using the fingers to press key healing points that stimulate the body’s natural self healing abilities, where we apply the correct amount of pressure naturally because of the design of hands. We are made to heal ourselves.
As the elements are concerned, the thumb represents fire, pointer represents air, middle finger represents sky or ether, ring finger represents earth, and the pinky represents water. There is a lot of hand mudras online that could be found by performing a search. If you were to search for blood pressure mudras, you may find Bidala Mudra. In this mudra you are to curl the middle and ring fingers in so that tips touch and dig into the palms with all other fingers extended. You would want to practice this with your elbow straight in a comfortable seated position and palms up.
Further examination of this mudra shows how the liver and gall bladder meridians in the palm are activated with the pressure from the fingers into the palm. This mudra is great to balance high or low blood pressure and it makes since as these organs are responsible for clearing toxicity out of the body. Releasing of the bile is what helps the digestive system allowing for clean blood so that it can flow through the body more effectively. This is just one example but just search for your ailment as there are hand mudras for everything!
Benefits of hand mudras include improved health, IQ improvement, enhancing the aura, expansion of consciousness, and transformation and regeneration of the physical body to name a few. Mudras held with palms facing up receives energy while it releases energy when facing down. We need either or depending on what is going on in our lives. Sometimes we need energy and sometimes we have too much of it. There are so many ways to obtain balance so adding hand mudras to the toolbox provides a free and effective addition.
