“I sit before flowers hoping they will train me in the art of opening up.”
-Shane Koyczan
Happy Full Moon, Yoga Mamas! But…I know sometimes the day of the full moon (or, how about just life in general) isn’t always happy. Honestly, I wouldn’t even suggest that we should be happy every second. As someone who was told not to cry, be sad, or be angry as a child, in adulthood I’ve slowly come to peace with the practice of being real rather than trying to be happy all the time.
Are you with me on that?
So perhaps I should have said something other than ‘happy full moon;’ but how could I phrase what this phase of the moon means to me? Maybe I could have said, “May you be full,” or “Wishing you fullness/abundance,” because a lot of times, yoga helps us to realize that we are full and abundant, that our lives are full (sometimes too full), and that life is an ebb and flow of fullness and emptiness. Just think of the movement of the breath: inhale (fill up), exhale (empty out).
That’s just the physical part of it. Then there’s the mental and emotional aspects. As you breathe, you can bring attention to what thoughts and emotions fill you up, and you can observe them as they leave you, or as you actively let go of them. Breathing and noticing your thoughts and emotions are subtle practices, though, and sometimes we feel too stressed or stimulated to just sit there and breathe and notice. Or sometimes we just need a little movement to shake things up.
With that in mind, I’d like to invite you to reflect on this thought: realizing our fullness is easier when we can open up — in can be as easy and simple as pausing to look upward, or opening up the chest through a gentle backbend. No need to get into any particular yoga pose, just take a moment to stop what you’re doing and drop your shoulders, relax your jaw, and open the chest and heart forward. Try it when you inhale and then try it when you exhale. See which one suits you; there are no hard fast rules here.
And, as you open up your torso in this way, notice: what fullness are you embodying now? It doesn’t have to be happiness or gratitude, or anything that we think we should experience. Let this be a moment of being real and compassionate towards yourself for being a complete, complex human being.
(Sanskrit)
Om purnamadah, purnamidam
Purnaat purnam udachyate
Purnasya purnaamaadaya
Purnamevaavashishyate
Om shanti, shanti, shanti
(English)
This is full, that is full
This fullness came from that fullness
Though this fullness came from that fullness
That fullness remains forever full
I love that quote! I used to perform with Shane back in my early days as a poet and performer. Now I am an at-home yoga and mother of two boys trying to get out there again. Also, I love your writing -- vulnerable, straight forward, and expansive. I am working on gathering subscribers for my Substack about yoga poems before sending my collection, A Poem for Every Pose, out to publishers. If you want to check it out, here you go: https://coriefeiner.substack.com