Sacred Spaces; Turn Your Home Yoga Space Into a Living Altar
Setting your yoga mat with meaning and purpose helps create a sacred space for your spiritual practice and can bring more inspiration and intention to your experience. Here are some ideas:
Look to the four directions:
North: grounding, stability & centering
East: new beginnings, growth & self-realization
South: passion, creativity
West: transition, connection & receptivity
Include the four elements:
Earth: plants, crystals, rocks, wood
Fire: candles
Water: a glass to drink, a diffuser for essential oils
Air: incense, a feather
Keep scrolling to see and read about our instructors’ sacred spaces for inspiration!
Sara Rhinelander:
The way I practice yoga and the methods I use to teach have morphed and evolved in many different ways over the past 3 decades.
I have learned, as I have aged and my body has changed due to countless factors, the importance of being more aware of the differences that are evident each time I arrive on my mat.
I now create more purposeful, functional movement warm-ups that seem simple but are actually extremely challenging because they target specific muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves and joints. I have become much more focused on encouraging each individual to more mindfully work with what they find because, while we all have basic similarities in this physical body, we are each ever changing and unique in minute ways that call for differences in how we approach and embody each asana, transition and sequence.
I offer a myriad of modifications and variations from the most challenging to the most gentle in all of my classes. I recognize that not everyone can just arrive in certain poses without props and mindful sequences designed to, step by step, add layers of warmth, strength and fluidity.
Even the most advanced of practitioners often need to utilize different options because of injury or an assortment of other variables that may be going on physically, mentally and/or emotionally. I believe that each time we practice it should be an exploration of what we need the most.
One of the reasons why I love teaching ‘Reshape & Elevate: purposeful movement and stillness’ is that it is a sort of ‘sneak attack’ that warms up, strengthens and creates awareness of ‘what is’ with unique, purposeful sequences that lead us into a Yin pose pause that allows us to experience the asana from a place of internal warmth and enhanced insight. This gifts us greater potential to effect positive change within our body, mind and emotions. When we are able to notice what we really need on every level at any given time, we learn how our body most efficiently works in relation to how it moves actively and passively and we can use this knowledge to enrich any type of class we take and every activity we participate in.