Consider Stillness on the Full Moon Solstice

 

This morning we marked a full moon, and tonight, we’ll observe the Summer Solstice. The last time this happened was in 1967, during the “Summer of Love.”

So I do like the advice above from @mysore_sf to rest. The full moon in summer lends enough energy on its own, and the solstice does even more so. Our inclination, observing and sensing these energies, is to expend a lot ourselves. We can really go off the charts with that energy, and should balance it with more resting, cooling practices. Minimize those things that aggravate pitta doshacaffeine, alcohol, activity, and strenuous practices. Being as I am largely kapha dosha, I can forget I also have a fair amount of pitta, which can get easily aggravated by such energies. It’s wonderful in vata autumn and winter, and kapha spring to rely on such energies, and so invigorating to use summer for what it’s for, but if I find myself getting strung out as I have over the past few days, I have to dial it back, to “lean toward earth’s moist green gifts,” which also are made possible by the sun.

Remember also that the sol–stice refers to the stillness or stillpoint of the sun.

Cate Stillman says it, also, and even @ski_yoga_guy, normally known for his arm balances and inversions, is doing stillness today. Please consider this.

 

Also, as an added bonus, enjoy this song by “The Head and the Heart.”

 

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Fullness

How interesting that this post from Parker Palmer, who informs how I teach both at the university and in yoga studios, addresses abundance, when last night the them of my class was purnatva, Sanskrit for “fullness,” “wholeness,” “not lacking anything,” or my own interpretation “sufficient unto itself.”

What we need is truly inside, for what is universal, containing this property of ultimate fullness, is also a part of us. In his post, linked to below, please enjoy this poem which evokes this quality.

The “scarcity assumption” is a self-fulfilling prophecy; the more I live as if it were true, the truer it becomes for me. Abundance comes as I break free of scarcity thinking and remind myself again and again that “What we need is here.”

via The Abundance Within Us and Between Us Video | On Being.