Celebrating Solstice - Soul Search - December 21, 2017

Many celebrate winter solstice, the longest night of the year as a turning point that the daylight hours will soon be getting longer once more.

Some celebrate the long dark night as a chance to settle in and be still. To withdraw from the outer world and have a chance to connect within.

I like the idea of both.  I love things about all seasons so knowing spring is coming is a wonderful thing but I also like the quiet and still moments, settling in and connecting within as well as with those close around you. I think of solstice as a chance to soul search!

I thought I would share this little article from Prashant called Your Teacher in You.
He writes practice must be divided into two parts: consolidation and learning.
When you learn you are required to go forward and observe and reflect in each pose.
You become a witness as you observe how you are doing the pose.
That is how you start learning to learn.

In yoga as you move to a more intermediate stage you become your own teacher and your own student!

Because you understand yourself you can have a better teacher inside yourself, who is with you all the time.  Prashant says you should be learning yoga to teach...to teach yourself.
Then you will consolidate what you have learned within.

I found this fitting to share today because as we celebrate this opportunity to be still, quiet and reflective we can enhance our practice by observing ourselves and give ourselves the chance to understand our own state of mind and what our difficulties may be.

Prashant writes:

You have to learn to learn, learn to teach, teach to teach and teach to learn.

 

 

Happy Solstice!

 

Namaste.

Pamela Nelson

Certified Iyengar Yoga Instructor