The night skies on the rural southern Oregon coast are deeply dark and perfect for stargazing … or moon watching! On full moon nights, my Dad would haul out the big telescope, set it up on the porch, and let my sisters and me take turns peering through the lens to look for the man on the moon. Seriously. 😊 We’d read enough National Geographics to know the moon was NOT made of cheese (duh). But hey, this was the 70s—not that long after Neil Armstrong’s one small step. So who’s to say we couldn’t get lucky?

Then there was that Tang commercial showing a boy getting out of bed, putting on astronaut boots, then walking on the moon. It stirred something in me I still don’t have words to explain, but I’ll try: a feeling of enormous vastness juxtaposed with the smallness of human scale … and an intense longing to see what’s out there, without really knowing where “out there” is.

Fast forward to adult me, decades into my yoga and meditation practice, finally dipping into the quiet yoga traditions—Slow Flow, Yin, Restorative. After learning to cultivate the stillness they offer, I found it! That moon feeling. That sense of concurrent expansiveness and smallness. “Out there” was inside the house this whole time.

And that makes perfect sense. In yoga philosophy, these practices are associated with feminine, lunar, or yin energy, which emphasizes receptivity, stillness, and introspection—as opposed to the active, solar, or yang energy of dynamic practices like Vinyasa or Ashtanga.

In Restorative and other quiet practices, we can slip into what’s termed a liminal state—that floating sensation where you’re aware you’re lying down but not quite “in” your body in the usual way. In this threshold state, the subconscious becomes more accessible, opening the way for transformation: releasing deep patterns, integrating insights, planting positive intentions.

This makes the full moon phase ideal for quiet yoga. Come explore your own inner stillness during the extended Restorative practice I teach each full moon. Next session is Sunday, October 12 from 4:00–5:30 pm. Together, we’ll go there.

Sign up and join me on the mat.