At Sadhana, we’re dedicated to all aspects of yoga
asana
Bringing asana (postures), chanting, meditation, and breath awareness together offers a clear path for enhancing health, well-being, and spiritual growth. Sadhana Yoga Hudson shares the rich history, philosophy, and teachings of the yoga tradition to students and teachers alike.
Focus of the Month
Flower Power
As spring approaches, many of us are anxiously awaiting the return of more light, warmth, rockin’ robins, and the bloom of first flowers. We can’t wait to be released to the outside. Yet it’s still pretty darn cold, so we remain inside, dreaming about our inner life and what seeds to plant this year. What is this process for you?
Inspired by Goethe, and his participatory way of knowing the natural world, we too can seek the goal of illuminating knowledge from within. Goethe studied color and light and felt that the mind is on a par with nature, that the outer world calls forth the inner world, and that they meet and participate together. Therefore, the roots of a living thing, like a flower, are akin to the roots of the mind. The world depends on us to be ‘seen’ in order to bring it to fruition. We depend on the world to bring us to our senses. We meet in the middle and give rise to a livingness, a beautiful growing world, and this interplay can heal what Goethe felt was the wound of separateness, between the knowing mind and the living reality of which that mind is part.
This month, we’ll dig down into the life and power of flowers. Their path from seed to root to stem, from leaf to bud to bloom, is fascinating! In our yoga practice, in our meditation practice, we can look at what stabilizes us, what moves us, what makes us unfold and flower. We can study the growth of our strength, our mobility, and also of our awareness. Metamorphosis is not just for plants and butterflies!
I found it surprising that there are very few yoga poses inspired by flowers. The most well-known is padmasana, the lotus pose, and we’ll work on that, but I thought it would be fun to challenge the teachers at Sadhana to create a new pose sparked by a flower of their choice! Who knows what will happen? So, here we go; get ready for what promises to be a beautiful month!