Why rest on Moon day PLUS Ashtanga Dispatch Issue One for the fledgling (and not so fledgling) Ashtangi

Link to Ashtanga Dispatch http://pegmulqueen.com/about/

Peg sent me a copy of her (and her teams) glossy magazine Ashtanga Dispatch, it arrived this week (thank you Peg) and I have to say it's really rather wonderful, great photos, lots of good content, she seems to have tapped everyone she knows for a contribution.

And no Ads (except perhaps inside the back cover and the logo's of supporters (seems everyone has to have a logo these days).

The magazine is intended as an introduction to the fledgling Ashtangi and who better than Peg (and her team), down to earth Peg (and her down to earth team), raising quizzical eyebrows at the dogma but not dismissing necessarily out of hand. All those terms and ideas that I usually wince at, like 'traditional practice', 'Paramapara', devotion ( I know, who winces at devotion), 'the tristana as sufficient', 'moon day',  Peg had me pausing at least mid-wince.

Really nice Primary series cheat sheet featuring  Peg and Jen. If you have a shala or a studio (with or without a logo) you might want to pick up 25 copies or so for the 'finishing' room, something to read in Urdhvapadmasana, or just the one for yourself.

A note on Peg's 'team' behind the magazine: As well as those directly involved in the production of the magazine and any senior teacher she bumps into and collar's in the street, it probably includes you and me. Peg has a nice habit of every time something bother's her she'll post it on fb and get a sense of whether, to what extent and how it bothers anyone/everyone else she knows. Lots of mulling over by all of us in her posts and in her own writing.

Out of all of it though the bit that caught my eye and that I want to feature is from my dear friend Claudia on the topic of Moon days, which comes in a section called 'Down the Rabbit hole' (which I notice I didn't take a picture of). It's a paragraph on why we take moon days that's lifted from one of her old blog posts. I want to quote the fuller treatment from the post rather than the trimmed down version in the magazine

Why Rest on Moon Days

"My short explanation is that the full moon is like the end of an inhale when we are full, at the maximun of our intake possibilities (and why we might usually fill more rounded or "fat").  Then "prana" (life sustaining force) is at its peak. Then we take a rest.

The new moon is like the end of an exhale, where we rest... empty, with nothing within us, the quality of "apana"(elimination) rulling.

This is what Tim Miller has to say about it,  it is interesting how he links it to the fact that we are 70% water, and just like any other body of water (oceans), we are affected by the position of both sun and moon.

But what I am really impressed about, with this "moon" business, is the linking to pranayama, the relation to a "breathing cycle".  It seems to me that the rest is like a retention, and in pranayama, it is in the retention that the illumination happens.

Music is made in the silences between the notes. Quiet moments, are an integral part of any creation". http://earthyogi.blogspot.jp/2010/01/why-rest-on-moon-days.html


See she's got me, how can I go on and on ( I know, and on and on) about kumbhaka, breath retentions, and not take a rest on a moon day when she brings the two together like that.

Of course it is asana practice that we're supposed to take a rest from... which means we can practice mudra instead, they can be practiced in any order at any time, nice long stays in mudras with their bandana and yep, you guessed it, kumbhaka.

Take a look at my Full Body Mudra post

or this one, bharadvajrasana approached almost as a mudra, in fact come to think of it Krishnamacharya presents most of his asana as if they were mudras.

Krishnamacharya's Bharadvajrasana named after the sage (Rishi) Bharadvāja 12- 48 breaths

Or perhaps have a look at my two previous post on Krishnamacharya's Shoulderstand and headstand variations which would be fun to play with on a moon day and Sharath did say we should be exploring longer headstands outside our usual practice.

Here's a closer look at the Ashtanga Dispatch magazine, hopefully close enough to give an idea of the quality and some of the content but without being able to cheat and actually read the text without it being an exercise in trataka.

A link to the Ashtanga Dispatch 'Swag' page which includes the magazine and also I see Cheat sheets/cards

Link to Ashtanga Dispatch http://pegmulqueen.com/about/

Link to Ashtanga Dispatch http://pegmulqueen.com/about/

Link to Ashtanga Dispatch http://pegmulqueen.com/about/

Link to Ashtanga Dispatch http://pegmulqueen.com/about/

Link to Ashtanga Dispatch http://pegmulqueen.com/about/

Link to Ashtanga Dispatch http://pegmulqueen.com/about/

Link to Ashtanga Dispatch http://pegmulqueen.com/about/

Link to Ashtanga Dispatch http://pegmulqueen.com/about/

Link to Ashtanga Dispatch http://pegmulqueen.com/about/