Dive In
Quarter Moons tend toward midday and midnight emergences and departures which of course is right in character with their simultaneous manifestations of both Yin & Yang. They display their half illuminated / half shaded visages, half during the day and half during the night. The third-quarter-moon moniker derives from this Cardinal point of the lunar cycle now being seventy-five percent complete, despite its fifty / fifty appearance.
The trigram of the Early Heaven Bagua representing the Last Quarter Moon is constructed of one solid Yang line between two broken Yin lines. Heaven contained by Earth. Yang restrained by Yin.
A literal estimation of the trigram suggests a river flowing between earthen banks. Whether just burbling from a mountain spring, flowing over and tumbling rocks of a river bed, surging for eons and eventually carving a gorge, or filling our abysmal oceans, Water remains bound by Earth. Gravity pulls it from the clouds and onto the mountainsides, causes it to run downhill toward the sea, and draws it into every crack and crevice of the planet. Water is considered in terms of its depth, rather than its surface (like the Lake trigram).
Martial artist Bruce Lee once described how water effortlessly conforms to its surroundings without losing its nature. It moves of its own accord, easily going over, around, and beneath obstacles. Instantly upsetting some, patiently bearing and wearing on others. Water fluidly assumes the shape of the vessel, yet doesn’t become its container. He said, water can flow and water can crash … be like water.
As in all my Quarter Moon Yin yoga classes, you can expect folds, bends, and twists paired in opposition. Effectively, an alternating sequence of push and pull postures under the influence of gravity. A fifty / fifty balance. Yin and Yang at once.
Go Deeper
Take the plunge and dive deeper into your Yin yoga practice with a Last Quarter Moon Water class, On Demand. Scroll down to Lunation 1240, and over to video 04.12.23 | Water.
The sequence is:
- Half Caterpillar L
- Half Saddle R
- Half Caterpillar R
- Half Saddle L
- Cat Tail R
- Cat Tail L
- Twisted Root L
- Twisted Root R
- Pentacle