The body as a manifestation of one's internal state

While talking at four o’clock in the morning over skype with my dear friend, I suddenly realized one way in which my physical body and spiritual self are very much aligned. Our physical bodies are actually physical manifestations of our inner selves. Our strengths and ailments are both reflections of our internal states.

When practicing yoga, it is often much easier for me to allow my body to simply collapse into the more advanced form of a pose. Many times, I find it much more difficult to take on a more moderate position by controlling and restraining my muscles.

My physical flexibility has a spiritual counter part. Just as I collapse into a deep yoga pose, I also allow myself to sink into my emotions.

While I should allow myself to get into a pose or to feel an emotion, I should practice restraint as well. I should engage my core and support myself fully, even if it means using more energy and taking a more moderate form. Similarly, I need to feel my emotions and make space for them without collapsing into them.

Blue moon

On December 31^st 2009 there will be a blue moon. A blue moon is when there is a full moon that happens outside the normal monthly pattern, for example, when there are two full moons in one month. When I realized this about the moon, a lot of things suddenly began to make sense.

In Ashtanga yoga, as practiced in India, the physical yoga flow is not practiced on new moons and full moon. Rather, these days are reserved for more introspective meditation such as pranayama or studying. In this way, the full moon can be considered a sort of Sabbath day, when we focus more on the spiritual world.

When I considered the fact that this 2009 calendar year will have an extra one of these days, it made a lot of sense to me. This year has been a very spiritual, introspective, and/or transitional year for me, for many friends of mine, and for the entire global community and the earth herself. It makes a lot of sense to me that this year has an extra full moon, when I take into consideration the meaning of the full moon as according to yoga. How appropriate, then, that the blue moon should be on the night that takes us from one year to the next.

May the shifting, transitioning, and spiritual growth of 2009 serve as a solid foundation for a 2010 of clarity and accomplishment.

3 more days.