Venus Rising

Yoga for LivingIssue: Aries 07

Wake Up and Refresh With Sun Salutations and Alternate Nostril Breathing

An Aries woman is driven by a desire to act. She is not the person who you will see sitting back waiting for things to happen. She makes things happen. An active participant in life, she exudes confidence and moves forward with intention. In fact, its difficult for an Aries woman to sit still. Passionate to live a full life, she accumulates one adventure after another. Aries represents the more masculine side of ourselves, our action-oriented side that gets things done. When balanced, an Aries flows easily along her path, stopping only to rest, and then waking up to continue her pursuits.

Sun salutations honor the phases of the sun and its-life giving qualities. The sun provides us with food to eat, warmth, and light. Its phases throughout the day honor the cycle of our lives. One of creation, preservation, and destruction, the sun rises, warms and lights the day, and then sets. This cycle is in continuous motion, both in the small activities of our life, like preparing a meal, keeping it warm, and then eating it and in the bigger sense of our existence like birth, life, and then death. An Aries honors the energetic impulse that drives this continuous cycle. The sun also symbolizes our masculine energy, the moon being feminine. 

Half Sun Salutes (Ardha Surya Namaskar)

To practice half sun salutes begin standing in tadasana/mountain pose (see Libra). As you inhale, reach your arms overhead. As you exhale, fold forward over your legs and reach your nose toward your knees. If your hamstrings are tight or when you fold forward the crown of the head points toward the wall in front of you rather than the floor, then please bend your knees enough to point your crown toward the floor. As you inhale, lengthen your spine away from your legs, and look forward on the floor in a flat-back position. As you exhale, fold toward your legs again. As you inhale, rise through your flat-back all the way up to stand. You can bend your knees a little bit as you do this. Press into the soles of your feet to help rise. As you exhale, bring your hands together in front of your heart. Take a complete breath here and feel the effects. Repeat four more times. This is a great practice to do in the morning. It will help wake you up and stretch you out.