![]() You can also add some spontaneous movement within the forms of the poses. Instead of moving quickly, jumping into and out of poses, move slowly, as though you were moving through water. Pay special attention to the quality of each movement. To enhance your inward focus, you can repeat a traditional lunar chant, Om somaya namaha, as you move from pose to pose. Draw your attention inward, inviting a sense of receptivity into your practice. Experiment to find what works for you.īegin your practice with a short meditation, like the one on page 78, to cultivate your connection with the moon. Soothing music can help set the right tone, too. If you are indoors, keep the lights low, light a few candles, and create a womb-like atmosphere for yourself. If you can, position yourself so that you can see the moon or-when the weather allows-practice outdoors in the evening. To support your intention of cultivating lunar energy, Rea suggests taking time to consciously set the mood for your practice. But the intention, the pace, and the quality of movement are completely different. In Rea’s version of Chandra Namaskar, the poses are not altogether unlike those of Surya Namaskar. Instead of feeling like having low energy is a bummer, I now see it as having more meditative energy.” “We all feel this ebb and flow in our energy, and now I totally value both sides. “On a personal level, Chandra Namaskar has really helped me become a more full-spectrum yogini,” she says. After many years of an intense “solar” practice, a regular practice of Chandra Namaskar has changed her. Doing so is part of preparing the body for self-awareness, says Shiva Rea, the creator of Prana Flow Yoga. Yogic texts have long acknowledged that the body has both heating and cooling energies and that yoga (the physical poses) and pranayama (breathwork) can help bring them into a balanced harmony. It’s cultivated through meditation and through lunar sadhana ,” Rea says. “The understanding is that we can create soma inside ourselves. Chandra Namaskar cools your body and teaches you to replenish your vital energy. Surya Namaskar heats your body and cultivates an internal fire. ![]() The act of turning upside down was believed to draw vital fluids from the lower chakras up to the crown, where they would be transformed into amrita (also referred to as soma). To reverse this process, yogis did specific practices, such as inversions or mudras (locks, or seals), to both preserve and produce amrita. The moon was thought to contain amrita, “the stuff of the macrocosmic moon, the divine nectar of immortality,” which “pours itself into the world in the form of vivifying rain.” While the fiery sun element was important for triggering the yogic process, its heat would, over time, cause aging, decay, and death. In The Alchemical Body, David Gordon White, a professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, describes how practitioners of Tantra (a form of yoga that preceded hatha yoga) believed that the “sun” was located in the solar plexus the “moon,” in the crown of the head. The Shiva Samhita, a 500-year-old Tantric text, regarded the moon as the source of immortality. Other variants of the sequence exist, including one created by The Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in the 1980s.īut the idea of looking to the moon for rejuvenation is certainly not new. The Bihar School, which is a yoga school in India founded in the 1960s, first published the sequence in Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha in 1969. The sequence is believed to be an invention of the late 20th century. An ancient understanding of the moonĪnother reason Chandra Namaskar isn’t as well known as Surya Namaskar is because it hasn’t been around nearly as long. As the name suggests, Chandra Namaskar is a quieting sequence that invites you to acknowledge and cultivate the moon’s soothing and cooling lunar energy. ![]() You stretch, strengthen, and heat your whole being from the inside out.īut on days when you’re feeling depleted, overstimulated, or overheated, it’s helpful to know that Surya Namaskar has a soothing sister sequence known as Chandra Namaskar, or Moon Salutation. The sequence’s Sanskrit name, Surya Namaskar, literally translates to “bow to the sun.” As you lift your arms and then bow down, lengthen forward and then jump back, you begin to embody the warmth of solar energy. Perhaps it is a reflection of our multi-tasking, strength-building, destination-driven American culture that the most ubiquitous sequence in our collective yoga practice is the ultimate heat builder, the Sun Salutation. Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members!
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