At Yoga Matrika, instructors are all encouraged to teach from the wisdom of their own traditions and the practices that they have been taught by their own teachers and mentors. We feel that offering instruction from personal experience is most authentic and can be offered from the heart with great clarity. Although we offer a wide variety of classes in an incredible range of styles and based on traditions that are both classical and contemporary, there is a spirit that creates a cohesive bond between everyone on the instructor team and in the community. This is the spirit of the Matrikas and engagement with the Matrika Shakti.
The Matrikas: aka “Little Mothers”
The MATRIKAS are the “little mothers” and they inspire us to an intelligent, compassionate, fierce and delicious practice. Sharon Rudyk was inspired to open Yoga Matrika after the birth of her son. His birthing was a struggle that required incredible strength, passion and violence that resulted in the most spectacular transformation from pregnancy to motherhood. This struggle is embodied in the Matrika goddesses who are both soft and maternal and violent destructors and warriors. These Matrika goddesses inspire all of us, men and women, to accept both the creative and destructive sides of ourselves so that we can be whole. We stop battling ourselves and become centered in our own strength and warrior spirit. With practice, we start to know that we are on our own side. Stepping off our mat and into the world, we are strong, confident and compassionate as we recognize that we and all of the living things around us are most beautiful in complexity. What we have to offer humanity is most fabulous because it is unique and not because it is perfect.
MATRIKA SHAKTI is also the powerful energy vibrations of the sounds that make up our internal truth.
In Hindu mythology, Brahma the creator, first showed himself as a golden embryo of sound. He was a vowel, vibrating outward, the sound echoed back upon itself and became water and wind. In Sanskrit, this power is called Matrika Shakti, the inherent creative energy behind the letters that make up words. It is said that each letter of the Sanskrit alphabet has a corresponding sound vibration both in the subtle energy channels of our bodies and in the cosmos. When these sound vibrations resonate with a corresponding vibration within us they create thoughts, then these thoughts gradually manifest the grosser forms of feelings and then speech. The Matrika Shakti resides in our energy body and rises of its own volition into consciousness, manifesting as our thoughts. ((http://spiritualhealingjourney.com/words-can-hurt-you/)
Through our practice of meditation, yoga asanas and mantra, we create a new kind of matrika that transforms our experience of life itself. We are purified, relieved and open to the fullest expression of our most genuine selves. We create greater potential for relationship by cultivating compassion for all living beings. This is not about being perfect or adhering to a strict regimen of diet or rules. Rather, it is about tuning our instruments of life to the matrika shakti that travels the energy channels of the body. It is about opening to the darkness so that the light may shine through.
