Spring brings with it a warm environment, here’s how to reconnect with nature through yoga. The earth is thawing, but it’s still cool outside; it is the perfect temperature to practise yoga. Practising yoga in a warm environment (such as in a hot yoga class) also has numerous health benefits, including increased flexibility and improved skin quality. While every season brings with it unique elements that may be incorporated into your yoga practise, Spring offers the opportunity to admire the world around you and reconnect with nature during this magical time of year.
Adore the scenery as you reconnect with nature
The flowers are budding all around you, the leaves are green, and the landscape is lush. There may be no better time of year to bring your practice outside and adore the scenery while you flow. Spring also serves as a beautiful reminder that change is inevitable. The hard winter is over (difficult times have come to an end), and the harvest is bountiful (bringing about new life). Several Pagan holidays at this time of year were designated to reflect on surviving the winter, such as Floralia, one of the most important Roman holidays celebrated at the end of April and lasting several days. You can do the same by taking time through your yoga to celebrate the new world.
Admire nature’s soundtrack
Many species are migrating home, coming out of hibernation, or simply foraging and enjoying the food that nature has to offer. These creatures create a beautiful soundtrack for your practise outdoors, especially birdsongs and the buzzing, fluttering sounds of bugs. If it’s raining, you may practise inside close to a window and take advantage of the calming sound of rainfall. Hanging chimes in your garden or by a window can incorporate healing sounds both into your yoga and your time at home. These sounds create a meditative state that promotes deep rest and emotional release.
Get grounded
Perhaps the ground has been too frozen where you live to practise grounding. While grounding postures help us to feel more emotionally stable and centred, the actual act of connecting the body to the ground allows the earth’s electrical charge to stabilise our physiology as well. If you wish to reconnect with nature, the beneficial practise of grounding may be the most literal way of reconnecting yourself to the earth.
Soak up the light
Spending at least five minutes in the morning (as the sun is rising) and five minutes in the evening (as the sun is setting) is an incredibly easy way to regulate your circadian rhythms. Purposeful light exposure can help you sleep better at night and plays a significant role in the release of hormones which regulate almost every function in the human body, including your mood. It’s not always possible to fit a lengthy yoga practise into your day, but ensuring a light stretch out in the rising sun and perhaps a meditation outdoors while the sun is setting will prove to have noticeable positive effects on your overall health.
Give and receive
If you have an outdoor space, even if it’s just a patio, consider planting something. Even if you don’t have an outdoor space, bring the outdoors inside by clustering together house plants in a space where you know you’ll stretch and meditate. Practising in front of a window when inside is always recommended in order to reap nature’s benefits. Admiring this plant that you’re nurturing will give you something to focus on as you flow through your postures and can also symbolise the loving work that you’re putting into yourself.
If you can’t actually make it outside, there are still ways to feel closer to nature from indoors, whether it’s opening up a window and letting the light in or growing some friendly plants around your home. Yoga is a moving meditation, and the bounty of Spring can be optimised in your practise to express gratitude for the healing that comes with new beginnings. This Spring, cosy up to nature and bewilder in the magic of life itself.
Photography by Annie Spratt
