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
rethinking savasana
I’m sitting here on December 1st, watching the snow drift down and thinking about how that caused such an apocalyptic ruckus at the grocery store today. Rewind to that I’m part of an online group where we sit around and think about place, relationship to place, we talk about inner space, our eco-grief; we study systems, somatics, biopsychosocial models and theories. Rachael Alaia runs the group and is teaching us about The Great Unraveling, a part of author, Buddhist, and environmental activist Joanna Macy’s deep ecology work, The Work that Reconnects. All that happens to tie in nicely with How to Survive the End of the World, a podcast with rad sisters Autumn and adrienne maree brown. In one episode, they asked each other, “What would you do if there really was an apocalypse? Would you try and get home? Somewhere else? Do you have any things prepared? Do you or do you know anyone that can grow food? Where’s the closest fresh water near you?
I know that kinda shot over into left field but wait, I’ll try to pull it back around to the focus. One of the things savasana is good for is to contemplate things ending and stuff like that. Maybe just like the end of this class or maybe stuff like dying. It is the corpse pose, after all. If I can embrace the Buddhist way and prepare for the idea of making friends with death, even when that scares me shitless (no one said you have to be fearless to be courageous), I find there’s some space to relax into whatever is arising, from my body (bottom up), or from my mind (top down). In savasana, conscious relaxation is a pretty good, no, a damn good place to start, and can be a fine end point, as well.
Savasana is the kind of pose that has pretty much been taught in only one way; lie on your back, face-up, close your eyes, don’t move. Ha! Those days are over! For me, the aim of the pose is the rest, the integration and the relaxing piece, not the position. The end of a yoga class can be a sweet time to weave what the movement practice offered together with stillness and restoration. Lying down can be conducive to rest, but this is actually challenging for a lot of people, causing a disturbance in their nervous system or retriggering trauma. What can be helpful to know is that savasana doesn’t always have to be done lying on your back, face up, eyes closed, but can be done lying on your side, or face-down, or with an open, soft gaze, and it’s okay to shift or change your position. I’m also fairly certain one can ‘lie down’ even while sitting up!
Darkness to light. Beginning to end. Outer body to inner body to outer again, over and over. Savasana, yoga, relaxation, it’s all a practice, a process, and there’s a whole lotta power in that.
