Female Reproductive Health & Fertility Workshop in Asheville, N.C.

Greetings ~

I’d like to announce a wonderful workshop I will be teaching in Asheville, N.C. on April 14th & 15th, 2012. It’s called Promoting Female Reproductive Health and Fertility with Oriental Medicine and I am so happy to be able to bring this knowledge to the women of Western North Carolina.

Last year I taught a similar workshop in Wilmington, N.C. and thanks to Kingoff Acupuncture I am able to appear for an “encore” in Asheville!

All of the information about the workshop is listed below ~ hope to see you there

Namaste,

Dr. Robin Saraswati Markus

“Remarkable Encounters with Ram Dass” Enhanced Ebook out Now!

Greetings ~

I am delighted to announce the release of a book that is very dear to my heart - Remarkable Encounters with Ram Dass is an enhanced ebook that traces back through more than four decades of people’s meetings with Ram Dass. It is a journey through their stories- how their lives were changed, sometimes instantly and sometimes over many years. And included in this beautifully enhanced digital book are archival videos of Ram Dass that reflect his own transformational arc.

Devotional Yoga (Bhakti Yoga) is the true means to reach contentment – the Gita says:

“Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice. Better than knowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace.”

I was lucky enough to be a part of this project, which in my mind represents a form of Bhakti – here is an excerpt from my Ram Dass story:

“…It was 2001, five years later, when I found myself driving home from a hatha yoga class listening to National Public Radio, that something finally spoke to my heart. I weep as I write this, as I know now that very first moment when by chance I heard Krishna Das chanting, that Maharajji’s grace first came into my life. At the time it felt, as if for a moment, all of my sense organs and the portals of my heart were cleared and opened. And I received the Mahamantra into the depths of my being, like finally hearing something true for the first time. Not truth of the mind, but from the heart.

 I was so drawn to these chants that I bought the CD that day, back when you still had to drive to the record store. I listened to it in my home, in my car, and in my clinic. Everywhere, all of the time. I surrounded myself with these chants. In the few years that followed, I went to sing with Krishna Das and then spent time with him in retreat, deepening inside, ripening. I was pulled toward something he had—his practices, his Guru, his authenticity. Whatever it was, I wanted it for myself.

 Singing with him, I just felt home—connected to myself and to everyone around me—to the whole universal stream. I felt so much love for KD, I couldn’t explain it. Through him, I was softening into feeling my true essence and the grace of Maharajji. It was so energizing, essence-y and authentic all at once, and that kept me going back to be with him again and again, to submerge into it. I know now I was falling in love with myself. And this is how I came to know of Ram Dass, who was a continuation of that same heart, one that I was soaking up like a sponge…”

Below is more information about where to find Remarkable Encounters with Ram Dass – it’s available on Kindle, Nook and iBooks.

Remarkable Encounters with Ram Dass Enhanced Ebook available NOW on iBooks! The Remarkable Encounters with Ram Dass Enhanced Ebook is now available on iBooks. Simply download the iBooks application on your iPhone or iPad and search for “Remarkable Encounters with Ram Dass” to download the ebook. Ebook also available on Kindle and Nook Namaste Dr. Robin Saraswati Markus

What is fertility?

What do we think of when we think about the idea of fertility? Watch this video and find out why it is so much more than the idea of conception; it’s a holistic way of being.

Dr. Markus uses techniques for fertility enhancement and the treatment of infertility by using Chinese medicine and alternative medicine methods and practices. Dr. Markus has had unusual success helping women and couples to conceive and give birth. The Nourishing Life method integrates Chinese medicine, Yoga, and meditation to enhance fertility and to overcome other health challenges.

Nourishing Life Fertility Yoga DVD Trailer

Check out the trailer for my upcoming Nourishing Life Fertility Yoga DVD that will be coming out this Spring. I’m so excited for the opportunity to help women maintain their fertility naturally and share this passion with me.

~Namaste~

Activating Endocrine Function – A Yogic Key to Fertility

During my creation of the Nourishing Life Fertility Yoga program I developed 11 yogic keys to fertility enhancement, which I believe clearly demonstrate how yoga can actually enhance fertility. These keys underlie the whole program, and once you understand how they work you can then take them to any yoga practice. Over the next several weeks I will explain each of these keys and suggest techniques you can try at home in order to activate them.

The First Key: Activates Endocrine Function

The whole Nourishing Life Fertility Yoga practice is geared to optimize the female hormonal tides that orchestrate the fluctuations and movements of the menstrual moon cycle.

Our endocrine system is composed of glands that produce chemical messengers known as hormones and are responsible for an optimal reproductive system. Each chakra corresponds to a different gland and by opening the chakra the gland is reactivated.

Chakras, a part of the yogic system, are energy centers that receive, absorb, store and distribute energy to other parts of the body. They overlap with the endocrine glands of western medicine. To work with the chakras is to heal ourselves of old constricting patterns lodged in the body, mind, or as habitual behavior.

Below is a graphic, which shows the relationship of each chakra to corresponding parts of the endocrine system, along with their symbolic meaning.

Selected techniques, with audio, to activate the chakras and endocrine system:

• Breath of Fire-Kapalbhati Pranayam: abdominal pumping with breath activates the uterus and the ovaries

• Abdmonial Suction Cleanse-Uddyana Bandha Kriya: internally massages and stimulates reproductive organs and glands

• Energy Activation- breathe in through the 3^rd eye, absorb prana, exhale and direct the prana into your ovaries

Hatha Yoga & “Be Here Now”

I find hatha yoga so healing, and such an effective method, because it truly is a bridge between body, mind and spirit. I was recently preparing for a retreat in Maui and I read some information from Ram Dass about how and why we work with the body. Here is an excerpt from a morning practice, in which I share what I read:

Fertility Yoga: Six pose sequence featuring Anjaneyasana during the Menstrual Phase

Click the gray Play button below to listen along to this sequence:

Start with downward dog.

Here we’re focusing on replenishing the kidney energies. So feel that spreading of your low back. This allows qi and blood to flush through your pelvic tissues, freeing up blood flow. Press your thumb and forefinger into the mat as you then roll out your shoulders. Yes. Flesh out your low back, lengthen the spine, and support beneath your underarm. Knees lifted. Heels sink. Feel one line of energy from crown to tailbone. Find one still point and keep your gaze there. Still mind, still body. Because your head is lower than the rest of your body, this is a very calming pose. And allow your kidneys – which includes your uterus- and your low back to flush and refill and be supported.

Float your right leg up into the air and brush the sky.

Now bring it between your hands. Left knee to the floor. Interlace your hands behind you and lengthen your spine here.

Climb up all sides of your spine, and coil up through your belly. Heart leads. This is a deep lunge and sometimes the hips need more time to open. So let’s pulse here and let them open. See what it feels like to go a little deeper into this lunge while lifting up through your center. Hip opening pulsation activates the liver meridian to gently vitalize qi and blood and encourage the menstruation to flow.

Bring both hands to the mat, inside your front foot.

Knee falls open, foot rolls to the outer edge.

Make sure your back leg is straight out behind you, and not sneaking into the midline. Right arm snakes up to the sky and you rotate into a gentle twist. Come to your fingertips or onto your fists if you need to. This is not your maximum twist here. Gently twist, nudging on the contents of the womb.

And now frame the front foot and lift the hips to downward facing dog. Fingers spread evenly into the mat, spine lengthens. Drop the head. Release the pelvic floor and exhale  “ahhh.”

Float your left foot up. Reach through your toes and stretch.

Now bring it through and place between your hands.

Interlace your fingers, rise up through the spine and pulse. Offer your heart into a gentle backbend here. And turn to your breath. Your Ujjayi breath is the fuel for your practice.

Going a little deeper into this pose your hands come to the inside of your front leg. Back leg and front knee reach away.

Front knee and foot drop open.

Now reach up with your left arm, gently twisting up and to your left.

Open circulation through the lower abdomen to allow the complete release of its contents. Twists unravel our layers that keep us blocked from the present moment. Open all of that up.

Now lift your hips and return to downward dog.