Happy Summer Solstice
Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog) is one of the poses typically in a Sun Salutes practice. It’s in my sequence for this coming week.
Today is the Summer Solstice. June 21. The first day of summer.
Many yoga practitioners celebrate by practicing Surya Namaskar, Sun Salutes.
The tradition is to practice 108. There are many things I found giving significance to the number 108, from it being a sacred number in yoga and Hinduism to mathematical to many other things I read.
This coming week I will be teaching (and practicing in my home practice) a few versions of sun salutes to celebrate the Summer Solstice. (My students don’t need to worry, we won’t be practicing 108.)
According to one of my yoga teachers, Richard Rosen, when practicing Sun Salutes “you are saluting the outside sun for providing life to the planet, and you internal sun for providing consciousness.” (This quote came from Good Sunshine Day linked below.)
I’ve written about Sun Salutes before when I was in my teacher training.
The sun is the bestower of life. The Sun Salute is is a circular Vinyasa flow. Sun Salutes are about flow, methodical thinking, building and deliberate Vinyasa sequence.
I got some ideas for my sequence this week from an article in Yoga Journal titled Good Sunshine Day.
Today is also the first International Day of Yoga. The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is quoted in a Yoga Journal article saying, “Yoga embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfillment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well-being.”
If you want to celebrate Summer Solstice and/or International Day of Yoga and you don’t know where to begin, this Sun Salutation is a simple flow you can follow. You can do it once or 10 times, or maybe even 108. But I only recommend that if you are an experienced practitioner.
