a New Moon Ritual for you

If connecting to the elemental flow of nature isn’t enough to shift your perspective, our ever present luna moon has her unique cyclical rhythms of influence that she bestows upon us all. Being lovers of ritual coupled with intention, we’d like to share with you how you can harness the power of the New Moon.

The new moon is the birthing phase of the lunar cycle. This metaphysical energy of “new birth” that surrounds us as each new moon darkens the sky, hands us an opportunity to focus our attention on fresh new ideas, ways of being and manifestations we would like to call into our lives.

You might be feeling a void, a space or a gap in your life and you’re not quite sure how to fill it

Maybe you are beginning a new project or path for yourself and you’d like a little say in the vibe it carries

Perhaps you’ve discovered some new ideas or philosophies and you’re not sure how they fit into your life just yet

This is the time to ask our Luna New Moon for some guidance or support.

Setting the scene

A couple of days out leading into the new moon, begin to use your moments in between moments to be with yourself (instead of scrolling) and notice the emotional quality of your life. Naturally, desires and wishes for yourself may begin to surface. If and when they do, notice the emotional quality behind your desires. You might feel the calling to discover a new business idea, but at the core of this desire is to find a sense of purpose and creativity.

This is your New Moon offering or intention.

Basking in the energy of the New Moon

As the new moon arrives (in this case on Saturday) plan to spend some time where you can connect with her. Most people find being in nature the easiest conduit of connection, but do what resonates with you. If being outside in nature isn’t possible due to little humans (who you can absolutely include in this ritual!) or due to other limitations, some ideas could include;

• Having a warm bath with essential oils – our moon is deeply connected to the element of water.

• Reading your kids a story about the moon as they go to bed, holding your New Moon intention in your heart as you do.

• Making a warm cup of tea, with 5 minutes carved out just to focus on your New Moon intention as you lovingly consume it.

Wherever your circumstances find you, allow yourself to firstly come into a state of reverence towards the moon. Physically look up towards her direction if you can to take in the majesty of the night sky. Find yourself coming into a state of gratitude and awe of her magnitude, her influence on the rhythms of natural life – take her all in. 

Next, allow the energy of her to move through you, in whatever shape or form that takes for you in the moment. The new moon holds the qualities of possibility, potential, limitlessness, freshness, opening & wonder, so ask your body to open up to and accept these qualities. You may find yourself simply being in still presence with her, moving your body, crying, laughing or breathing deeply… there really are no limitations.

Handing over your offering to her

From this place of deeper connection with her, bring your offering or intention for this phase of the lunar cycle to mind and heart. Visualise your offering floating out of you and up up up towards the moon till it reaches her and is lovingly held by her. Allow yourself to feel a sense of trust, knowing that your intention may manifest itself in limitless ways, which will be for your highest good. With full surrender, we then say thank you.

During this ritual, include any other rituals that feel like home to you. This could be lighting a candle, lighting incense, sage or using essential oils, moving your body to rhythmic music, singing, repeating a mantra, saying a prayer and so on.

Tools for becoming more in sync with the lunar cycles

By far, the best way to become more in sync with the cycles of the moon is to pay attention to how you feel during her different phases. You can do this easily by downloading a free moon cycle and journaling your thoughts and feelings daily, with a little note next to each journal entry for the corresponding moon phase.

New Year’s Yoga Resolutions and how to Keep Them

Ancient Babylonians were thought to be the first people to make New Year’s resolutions, roughly 4,000 years ago. They weren’t in quite the same format as the ones we make today (reduce my screen time), and their New Year was in March (marking the planting of the new crops).  But if we want someone to blame, we can start with them.

Every year we start the new year filled with good intentions. This year we’re going mould ourselves into a shinier, thinner, richer version of ourselves and not fall at the first hurdle and…oh, we just fell…

The same applies to New Year’s ‘yoga resolutions’. So here are some ideas about how to make New Year’s yoga resolutions and actually stick to them, so that by the end of this year, you can look back with a glow of pride, not a large helping of self-contempt.

RESOLVE NOT TO HAVE ANY RESOLUTIONS

This one might come across as a cop-out, but hear me out.

What if there’s actually nothing wrong with the old you? What if making a list of what you need to do to improve yourself and your yoga practice is just a way of always reinforcing the sense that you’re not quite good enough. That your efforts on the mat during this year are not enough? Well, what if they are enough?

Maybe you had other challenges that you had to face in your life, maybe you missed the odd class, but you were there nine times out of ten. Maybe your home practice was a bit erratic because you know, life happens, or maybe you even become. Sometimes it’s enough to just say, I resolve to not make any new resolutions but to simply continue being fabulous yogi me. Well done me.

BREAK DOWN YOUR RESOLUTIONS INTO TINY STEPS

Your list of resolutions might start out seeming perfectly reasonable and do-able, but then real life starts back up again, and suddenly putting a wash on and getting a food shop done seem much more urgent than fitting in an hour’s home practice every day.

So instead of resolving to get up at the crack of dawn like all those celebrities seem to be able to do (and still look incredible – how?), just get out of bed five minutes earlier and do one pose. Or two, if you feel like it. Downward dog, for example, is one of those poses that stretches every little bit of you and wakes your body up in preparation for the day. And once you’ve cracked five minutes, you might just find yourself doing ten minutes.

MAKE FEWER RESOLUTIONS

So your New Year’s yoga resolution might be to create your very own yoga teaching empire, by starting up more yoga classes and leading your first retreat in the Maldives. If we are too ambitious with our goals, they become overwhelming and in the end, we may not achieve any of them.

So instead of trying to do it all in one go, perhaps it might be worth thinking, what is it that I would actually like to do that would make me feel the most satisfied? Or, am I trying to do all these things because I want to, or because I feel I should? Just choose one of the goals and break it down into smaller sections that you can schedule into your diary. Then, once one of your resolutions is achieved, the others may well fall into place.

ASK FOR HELP TO KEEP YOUR RESOLUTIONS

No man (or woman) is an island”, said John Donne, and he’s quite right. We are social creatures that exist in a web of wonderful human relationships, with family, friends, and colleagues – and fellow yogis, of course.

If your New Year’s yoga resolution is to establish a daily home practice then perhaps you can buddy up, and challenge each other to keep up a home practice every day for 21 days. At the end of each practice, you could text each other an update, or keep a home practice diary and then share your updates on a weekly phone call (because that takes you back to your youth, when people actually CALLED people).

MAKE BETTER RESOLUTIONS

Have you ever considered that one reason why you might not have smashed last year’s New Year’s resolutions, is because they were things you actually didn’t want to do, to begin with?

Just because someone else can manage to be some all-singing, all-dancing yogi with bells on, doesn’t mean that’s what you need to do. Perhaps your yoga is a small, quiet practice for yourself. Maybe those advanced poses are just not for you, and that’s okay too.

This year, choose resolutions that you want to keep and then keeping them will be oh so much easier.

Article Author: Poppy Pickles

Article Source: https://yogalondon.net/monkey/new-years-yoga-resolutions-and-how-to-keep-them/

Heart openers for new beginnings

New beginnings are easier done when we can approach people and situations with an open heart and mind. It is not uncommon for us to build walls over time – learned behaviours and reactions that we have developed as a way to protect ourselves. However, in order to truly build the life we want, we will often have to confront and deal with these defence mechanisms to encourage openness + to invite opportunities in. The article below discusses how heart opening asanas can help you along this journey.

Just as you can practice heart opening in your thoughts and emotions, you can also experience opening the heart space in your physical body.

For many, “opening your heart” implies receptivity to love and intimacy in a romantic relationship ring on the candy and flowers. However, everyone, including single yoga practitioners, can experience heart opening in other kinds of relationships: with caring friends and family members, pets, teachers and mentors, and with our own students.

With deep introspection and honesty, you can also practice heart opening in more challenging situations, such as your relationships with difficult people or those with whom you disagree philosophically or politically. As you visualize and practice opening your heart in your various relationships, you’re learning ahimsa, or compassion, which is number one on the list of yamas and niyamas.

Know Your Physical Heart Space

Just as you can practice heart opening in your thoughts and emotions, you can also experience opening the heart space in your physical body. Your heart resides within the thoracic cavity, which is surrounded by a bony cylinder, the rib cage, comprised of 12 ribs on the right and 12 on the left; your sternum (breastbone) in the front; and the spine in the back. The bones are held together by soft tissues, including muscles large and small; cartilage between the vertebrae in the spine, between the three parts of the sternum, and as part of each rib as it attaches to the sternum; and by ligaments, which join bone to bone. There are ligaments, for example, between each pair of vertebrae, and ligaments holding each rib onto its adjacent vertebrae. Your diaphragm, the dome shaped muscle that separates the heart and lungs above from the digestive and reproductive organs below, forms the floor of the thoracic cavity.

Ideally, the soft tissues supporting the bony cylinder remain resilient for a lifetime, so the cylinder is able to expand freely with each breath and the rib cage doesn’t become a rigid and restrictive container for the heart and lungs. You might picture a stiffened rib cage like armour: The lungs won’t be able to expand completely to receive a deep, full breath; and the rigidity may also limit blood flow to and within the heart. An immovable rib cage is also a limiting factor in Pranayama and many yoga poses, especially twists (which require rotation) and backbends (which require spinal extension), because its rigidity prevents the thoracic spine from moving through its normal range of motion. The lack of thoracic extension in backbends can contribute to lower back and neck pain caused by the lumbar and cervical spine hyperextending (overarching) to compensate for the lack of midback movement.

Conscious work with the breath is one of the best ways to improve rib cage mobility, gently stretch thoracic soft tissues, and open the heart space. Any time people feel threatened, be it by pain, challenge, or pressure to perform, the need to guard or defend oneself usually results in holding the breath or breathing in shallow, erratic patterns. These defensive breath patterns cause muscle tightness in the very areas we’re trying to open, as well as gripping in the upper abdomen, which restricts the normal movement of the diaphragm. By teaching your students to practice slow, gently expansive breathing (while avoiding aggressive action, such as pushing or forcing the breath, which generates more inappropriate muscle tightness), you’ll help them start to break up rib cage rigidity and the armor of tightly gripped chest, back, and abdominal muscles.

Simple Positions to Open the Heart

To avoid setting off guarding mechanisms while practicing breathing that expands the rib cage, it’s best to use simple, pain-free positions. To open the chest and abdomen, a wonderful position is a gentle and supported backbend. Try it while lying over a rolled blanket or towel (use a smaller roll for very tight students), placing the roll crosswise under the thoracic spine (the midback, where the ribs attach) and resting the arms in an open position, with palms up. This position gently expands the front rib cage and upper abdomen with each inhalation. Keep the knees bent and place one to two inches of support under the head to help prevent lumbar and cervical hyperextension.

Simple twists invite expansion of the side ribs. Try lying on your right side, with your knees pulled up toward your chest to create a 90-degree angle at the hips. On an inhalation, open your left arm behind you while turning your head to the left. Don’t let the left arm dangle in mid-air. Place just enough support (a block or blanket) under the left arm so you feel some stretch but no pain in the chest and/or side ribs. If your midback, including the space between the shoulder blades, is tight and flat, practice Balasana (Child’s Pose) with arms overhead or beside your calves. People with stiff spines and hips may not be able to get their heads to the floor and so will need support under the head in this pose. Usually a block or folded blanket under the head provides enough height to support the weight of the head, so the neck muscles can relax.

Whether opening the chest in a supported backbend, the side rib cage in a twist, or the thoracic spine and rib cage in Child’s Pose, talk to yourself or to your students about breath patterns. Invite your inhalation to gradually become a little slower, smoother, and deeper, again avoiding any tension-producing forcefulness. Then bring your awareness to the part of the rib cage you want to open (such as the front ribs in supported backbends and the side ribs in twists). It may help to place a hand on the area so you can feel the expansion from the outside as well as the inside. Let the inhalation gently expand and open the ribs, then relax and surrender to gravity with each exhalation.

Practice breathing in each position for two to three minutes, a few times a week if not every day. You’ll be rewarded with deep relaxation, improved breath awareness, opened heart space, and if you so choose a life-altering practice of ahimsa.

Article source: https://www.yogajournal.com/teach/opening-the-heart/
Article author: Julie Gudmestad

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