Connect to the natural world! Embrace your Moon Goddess!
This is the sort of phrase I’ve heard and read ad infinitum in the past decades. We are always encouraged to practice or observe the Moon phases and or the rhythms of nature in Practice or when a teacher is promoting a workshop for example. It’s always abstract and far away in our conception. But the basic question we should always ask is: what is actually the case?
One of the most important things I’ve heard from real yogis is that all yoga is real, it can seem to be mystical, but especially since the 1960s abstract metaphors have muddied the waters and made the reality distant.
A scientists job is to unpack and understand the material universe and they will reveal in time that the yoga practice has fundamental truth. That is no threat to yoga at all!
We seek YOGA, the centring experience of the union of mind body and spirit. To live inside a human body is different from the understandings of the material scientific universe. They are separate. Yet in yoga, phases of the moon and changes in nature are recognised but are they based in reality?
I’ve been practicing for decades and over these years of daily practice I’ve observed time and time again subtle changes in my energy levels and mentality, day to day, month to month, year on year.
Think of the 21st December in Ireland, when the days are short, light is in short supply and energy and enthusiasm are low. Think of the 21st June when energy is high, it’s warm and days are long. We live in these ups and downs every day, in yoga there is the idea (in general terms) that the phases of the moon affect us in a monthly rhythm. With new moon being a time of emptiness and low energy and full moon is a time of high energy and everything seems to be overwhelming or too much. All very abstract.
But recent studies have shown that theses rhythms have a scientific truth. Worldwide subtle changes in light (natural) affect the human hormonal system. Even slight variations in the light reflected from the moon or length of day can alter sleep patterns and energy levels. It’s something I’ve been living with for years and I knew it would have a rational basis. (See link below)
If we consider our “connection to nature“ so to speak; it is real, it’s our hormonal and nervous system.
Yoga is a medieval practice that uses medieval language. I would encourage you to leave that behind and embrace the rational truth of these words and sayings. There is a profound difference between our 21st century rational understanding and the reality of YOU, living inside a mind and a body. We live in a soup of confusing hormones constantly changing to adapt to the environment.
Yoga practice helps to balance the hormonal system and that in turn can help centre our minds to help us live a more vital life, a more centered non attached existence. That is the issue, when any practice attempts to describe that internal experience we get metaphors like YIN and YANG or PURUSHA and PRAKRITI. So it’s vital to pierce our understanding of these terms, quite simply to support our own understanding of what we experience in practice, so we can trust our own perception with a clear vision. As I always say, isn’t it more profound if it’s true?
Brian McVeigh
