Solstice Yoga & Song Celebration
And so it begins again … another summer !
Does Wednesday or June 21 mean something to you?
Maybe you are heading to Time Square’s Big Yoga celebration for International Yoga Day or maybe your celebrating the summer solstice with an outdoor picnic or a walk or maybe you just didn't give it much thought either way, and it’s just another Wednesday, that happy hump day stuck in middle of your week.
The Summer Solstice, Yoga International Day and Wednesdays mean something to me.
The sun is a direct source for all living things and has been celebrated and honored in many traditions with sacred rituals on the day of the Equinox. While I was studying art abroad in college, I happened to be at Chatres Cathedral on the Equinox and witnessed a pilgrimage parade of the Celtic Society paying homage to the sun in the center nave of the cathedral. This is one of the oldest Gothic cathedrals in France and has numerous artifacts, architectural zodiacal elements, constellation references through out the church that interacts with the sun, to keep time in the cycle of the sun. A cosmic convergence supreme! Not to mention the classical christian iconoclastic art. This cathedral is aligned to the summer solstice intentionally along with the directions of north-south-east-west. Contact me if you want to talk -art and architecture .For one example, on the summer solstice the sun shines through the window of ‘Saint Apollinaire’ with a depiction of the Roman sun god Apollo and its rays fall straight on an iron nail in the floor of the center of cathedral.
The word Surya means sun. And namaskar means bowing to honor …a showing of respect. Surya Namaskar as we say “Sun Salutes” is a moving meditation of the body through connected asana to breath “vinyasa” in dedication towards the Sun—the solar activating energy that fuels all living things is activated within us by the many movements that warm up the physical, energetic, emotional, and mental bodies. Is it any wonder why International yoga day was proposed to be is on the Summer Solstice? We can thank the Honorable PM Shri Narendra Modi’s relentless efforts to the United Nations to make June 21, 2015 declared as the International Yoga Day by its General Assembly. In its resolution, the UNGA endorsed that, "Yoga provides a holistic approach to health and well-being apart from striking a balance between all aspects of life. The wider dissemination of information about the benefits of practicing yoga would be beneficial for the health of the world population."
This demarkation of a special yoga day helped infuse an era of holistic health revolution in which attention was given more to prevention rather than the cure and in part a boom in the yoga industry as we see it today.
Join me on June 21 at 6:30-8:00pm at Boscobel House & Gardens for a special outdoor yoga class celebrating the Summer Solstice with Yoga & Song!
This class is in place of the outdoor community yoga class at Dockside, which will continue the following week. I will not be doing a classical 108 sun salutes, instead just like the cosmic convergence supreme in Chatres Cathedral, we will mix and remix many different Asana poses with options for everyone into a vinyasa flow to the sounds of live music by Angela chanting on the magnificent banks of the Hudson River!
As for any other Wednesday, it too has significance to me. It’s that PAUSE in the middle of my week to balance myself and my endeavors. I don't teach any of my yoga weekly classes or private clients. It’s a day for me to PAUSE to center my center and take care of what I see that needs to be done from a place of awareness for maintaining balance in my work and personal life. It’s my weekly equinox. Sometimes it’s a lot of spreadsheets for yoga and/or taking pottery inventory, or maybe its designing my Heartful yoga pants after a workshop and juggling information to manufacturers about fabric sourcing. Other times, it might be I need a morning taking yoga class on line with Al or Amy on line or at one of the studios I am affiliated with in the Hudson Valley area. If, I learned anything from being a textile designer and operations director for 30 years on 7th avenue is that everything is due yesterday, everything needs to be juggled, and staying with the breath calms everyone down to communicate from a place of centeredness to of what is really obtainable. Balancing both work and personal life is just like what we do when practicing Nadi Shodana – alternate nostril breathing— we are trying to open both channels evenly -Lunar and Solar energies . You know, it’s lunar energy that fuels the ideas and sparks creativity. Its’s solar energy that moves things from from ideas into actions. And its the equal balance between that has space that is needed to settle the mind waves.
When we are in balance, it’s easier to move into action and not be pulled away upset by a different though or outcome. It’s easier to surf the waves of life and stay on the surf board sometimes on the belly paddling out, or standing while riding in to shore , or tethered by the ankle underneath in a wave. My behind the scenes of the Heartful Yoga business has a lot of moving parts that I handle on Wednesdays. There are a lot of designer and administrative things to handle so that I can offer you unique yoga workshops, classes and special retreats that incorporate my personal integration of art & yoga into my curriculum. I’d like to thank my yoga teacher, Amy Pearce Hayden who has continually inspired me to go under the surface deeper into the waves of life and find my cosmic convergence supreme !
Centuries ago one of the most popular Sanskrit poets Bhartrhari, while highlighting the specialty of Yoga, said:
“that by regularly practicing Yoga, a person can imbibe some very good qualities like courage which protects like a father, forgiveness as possessed by a mother & mental peace which becomes a permanent friend. Through regular practice of Yoga truth becomes our child, mercy our sister, self-control our brother, the earth becomes our bed & knowledge satiates our hunger.”
