The solstice is here!! The solstice is here!!

This is the longest day/shortest night of the year in the northern hemisphere, and shortest day/longest night in the southern. (The difference is due to our planet's 23.5 degree tilt off its polar axis--read up on that & find more astronomical fun about the solstice here.) 

In the north, the June solstice is an opportunity to honor the sun, creation, and fertility in all its forms. As it marks the first day of astrological summer, it represents a transition and is celebrated as the triumph of life over death, of light over dark. 

My favorite solstice observance is to light a candle and perform 108 sun salutations at sunrise or sunset.

This takes a little over an hour of constant movement and presence with the breath. It is a sweaty challenge on the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual planes, at the end of which I am usually properly buzzing.

I open my little ceremony with prayers as I give thanks for yoga itself and for the miraculous web of my life, and I close in gratitude for power, strength, and will as I wish for all beings everywhere to be happy and free in full thrival on our beautiful Earth. My withered little black heart grows two sizes too big as I consider our universe and our unseen but intimate connections...

Then I like to think about ancient cultures and their ruins of megalithic structures around the world that precisely aligned with precise cosmic events like the solstices, and I wonder what the deuce humanity is up to.

Then I like to eat some watermelon, because it's summer and that shit is good.

How to Sun Salutation A:

• Start in mountain. Inhale.
• Exhale forward fold.
• Inhale look forward.
• Exhale step, jump, or walk back to plank.
• Inhale in plank.
• Exhale lower for chaturanga.
• Inhale to up dog/cobra.
• Exhale to down dog.
• Hold down dog for 3-5 breaths. (For 108 sun salutations, I only hold down dog for every 10th sun salutation.)
• Inhale look between the hands.
• Exhale step or jump forward to forward fold.
• Inhale look forward.
• Exhale forward fold.
• Inhale and rise up for mountain.

Happy Solstice!!!

💛 Sara!

^{~earnings from this post will go into my travel fund for Steemfest 2~}