Skip to main content

I See the Moon




This week of May 24, 2021 will enjoy a beautiful full moon - a supermoon.  The moon is at or near its closest location to earth, and thus appears larger in the night sky.   

One thing that I find precious about yoga is that the practice is all about connection.   The word yoga means yoke or union.   The union of body, mind, and spirit.  The link between the inhale and the exhale. The connectedness between ourselves and the wonders of nature all around us.  The relationship of the individual to all living things.

Many yoga practitioners are familiar with the Surya Namaskar - the Sun Salutation.   Just thinking about the meaning of those words can fill the heart.   We salute the sun with our breath, our focus, and our movements.   

Less familiar to many, perhaps, is the Chandra Namaskar, or the Moon Salutation.   The Chandra Namaskar itself is a relatively recent practice - late 20th century - but the practice of honoring the moon is an ancient tradition among many peoples and cultures.  

The Chandra Namaskar is my favorite practice, with sinuous flowing movements.   We flow from side to side and we sink and lengthen into lunges.   It's a soothing practice - quieting, nourishing, gentle.

Let's take ourselves outside at night to pay attention to the darkness.  The stillness.   The stars.   The moon.  The sounds.  Let's give our eyes time to adjust to the darkness so that we can better see that which is only dimly lit.  In your comments, please share your experiences.

Please leave a comment, share, and follow my blog to get notifications of new posts.   To follow this blog, click on the three lines in the upper right of the home screen, or click here.  

I'll be releasing some short videos including gestures and movements from the Chandra Namaskar to my YouTube Channel this week.  Here's one that spotlights the Pushpaputa Mudra, a beautiful gesture of giving and receiving - of taking in and letting go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x54q96VhdJs   Please visit my Channel and subscribe. Debbie Kell - YouTube

Labels:
Location: Wycombe, PA 18980, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

I am pleased that you are commenting and sharing your perspectives. Your comment will be reviewed by the moderator and then released for the public. Namaste. Debbie

Popular posts from this blog

How to Put Together a Yoga Sequence

  Whether you are a home yoga practitioner or a yoga teacher, you are likely to find ways to put together the yoga asana into a flow or a sequence that begins with centering and grounding, builds in intensity or challenge (or progresses in some way) before slowing down at the end.   As a home practitioner, that was never a problem for me, because I simply put together movements that felt good to me at the moment.   Sometimes I'd forget what I did on one side by the time I got to the other side, but what did that matter?   I was moving (or being still) with my breath, and that was my practice.   That is yoga. In 2019, I completed the 200-hour yoga teacher training, and began teaching.  There began my challenge.   Now I was not only putting together a sequence of movements to share with and teach to others, I was expected to offer some kind of intelligent design.   Foundational poses should build up to more challenging ...
2 comments
Read more

What Happens to all of the Stories?

As I think about it, in some ways we seem to be a collection of our stories.   We have stories of our childhoods, stories of our first loves, stories of our careers, our children, our elders, our cultures. Stories of loss and pain. Stories that we tell others and stories that we tell ourselves. Tahir Shah, in Arabian Nights , tells us that "Stories are a communal currency of humanity. I was thinking about this today as I sat after dinner listening to my husband (in his 70's) and his friend (in this 80's) tell some stories about their childhoods, their parents, and about their experiences in the military before or during the Viet Nam War.   I could see their eyes lighting up in the retelling.  I could sense how vivid were their memories.  I listened to stories (some that I had heard a number of times) about sleeping in a house crowded with numerous relations, trying to sleep with the noise of all of the men snoring.   About older siblings who cared...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditation for the Unquiet Mind

  Meditating can be challenging for so many of us.   We have been raised to crave success and pleasure. Success in our Western culture is often defined by how much we can get done, how much we accomplish, how much we earn, how much we possess.   We go about our days rushing, being busy, feeling stressed and agitated - until we feel burnt out and exhausted.    Or perhaps we find ourselves in painful circumstances.   We struggle with our health or the well-being of our loved ones.   Financial hardship takes its toll.  Physical and emotional pain hurts!      We simply want to find a way to NOT feel that way. When we don't want to feel the way we're feeling, we too often tend to eat inappropriately, consume alcohol or other mood altering agents, or collapse on the couch and escape by watching television or endlessly scrolling on our devices. Yet we don't feel better. We come to realize that there's more to life than ...
Post a Comment
Read more