New Moon, New Year
View on Christmas Eve 2018 from the top of the stairs on the porch at Integral Yoga Institute, San Francisco. See what beauty and light made possible by darkness?
"Creativity – like human life itself – begins in darkness."
- Julia Cameron
Despite the chaos of the holiday season, I love the lights and festivity in that darkest time of the year. But I am also not in a rush to get out of that darkness. Winter Solstice brings us the longest night, but transition to longer days is slow, and in most places, followed by some of the coldest days of winter. It’s easy to try to fill those days with bright lights and bustling activities to stave off winter blues, but I’d much rather just be with those blues, knowing that blue doesn’t have to signify sadness. And darkness doesn’t have to signify ignorance, evil, death, or any other negative things we assign to it.
As Cameron’s quote above says, we have new life in darkness. It is something to reflect on during the first new moon of 2019. Darkness is depth, is a moment of rest, is the deep sleep of night, is the canvas for the first light of day as it spills over a once invisible horizon. As Anne Frank said, “Look at how a single candle can both defy and define darkness.” Yoga has so much to offer to help us find how the opposites in life play off each other and ultimately push us to find our center and balance. For instance, in Trikonasana (triangle pose), we stretch up through the top arm and down through the bottom arm; in Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (bridge pose), we open upward through the chest as we push downward through our arms/hands and the soles of our feet. On a more subtle level we explore opposites through the breath: at the top of the inhale, full expansion gives way to the exhale and contraction. So darkness can be that opposite to light that makes light all that more powerful. Actually, more simply, darkness makes light possible. In this way, darkness cradles every ray of light; it is what actually contains it, makes it visible.
So at a time of year when we are filling our agendas with all the new activities that will make our lives better; or, when we are filling our minds with new resolutions, I’d like to propose you find a spot at home where you can do yoga in darkness. It doesn’t have to be total darkness, and the practice doesn’t have to be a full hour. If the room can’t be made dark, you can try to practice with eyes closed. Move slowly and see how the poses feel without visual distraction. Better yet, practice yoga nidra or just lie down for 10-15 minutes with an eye pillow over your eyes. Notice your breath and your thoughts as you free your mind from visual stimulation.
I don’t have any specific suggestions as to what you might or should notice because I don’t want to tell you how you should experience this. So think about it: what fills up your blank canvass of darkness when you pause and give yourself this moment in the shadows? What does darkness symbolize to you? How do you deal with it.
These were my thoughts last night during the first new moon of the year. As the moon slowly waxes, I’m going to offer a few more thoughts on this theme. Om, shanti.