Moon Medicine by Lexie Wolf
Welcome to our first Soma Yoga newsletter.
When Bill and I first encountered the ancient Sanskrit word "Soma" in our yoga studies, we were pretty fascinated.* There's some mystery associated with it. The texts describe soma as a sacred nectar associated with vitality, illumination, and bliss. Maybe it occurs within us, maybe it is plant medicine…….however it originates soma is deeply associated with the moon. It is lunar medicine – soft and sweet. In contrast to the power and fire of solar medicine which you might think of as intense and transformative. We need both, of course.
There was a time when I was much more drawn to intensity. To experiences that illuminate, disrupt, and rearrange me. I know I'm certainly not alone in this. In yogic language, this is Agni. It is Shakti. Lightning bolts.
At this stage of my life I am less interested in cracking myself open than in nourishing the cracks that inevitably form in a life fully lived. I feel less interested in peak experiences than in creating the conditions for joy, contentment, and wonder to emerge in ordinary moments. I still value big experiences when they happen. Through spiritual practice and plant medicine, transformative experiences may be invited, but not chased. Sometimes the invitation is accepted.
The sun has shown me what is possible, but I look to the moon to teach me how to live there.
To me, Soma evokes the sweetness that becomes available when we stop fighting so hard with life. You could think of it as a nervous system that remembers how to return to center, a heart that remains open and grateful (ok, at least some of the time), a mind that is spacious (ok, at least once in a while). We’re talking about the sweetness of being fully present for an ordinary moment. It comes and goes. I certainly don’t live there all of the time.
To me, this is what Yoga can best help us with, and the work Bill and I are sharing through Soma Yoga is rooted in this understanding.
I’m afraid it’s no accident that we call it “work.” There’s no getting around that it is work. But there is joy in this work. The possibilities? The nectar of peace. An open, spacious mind. Grace. This incredible, ordinary and extraordinary life viewed through the lens of shimmering moonlight.
Some days we catch a glimpse of it.
*Not to be confused with the more modern (if 800 BC could be thought modern) Greek word, “soma,” that means the body, and gave rise to the field of “Somatics.” Although that definition is super cool too and aligns perfectly with yoga.
