Salute the Sun

As I wrote over the Winter, I'm one of those people who is really affected by the lack of sunlight.   As the Winter solstice approaches, all I want to do is go into "bear mode," and sleep all day.   Getting out of bed in the dead of the night is a huge challenge for me, and by early afternoon, I usually find myself wanting to take a nap. 

The exact opposite is true as to the Summer Solstice.   As the days get longer, I find myself waking up earlier and staying up later.   The sun is up around 5 am these days, and I'm up and out of bed with it.

The Summer Solstice for me is kind of like another New Years.   It's a time to make new resolutions for eating healthier and finding ways to be more active during the day.

And, because I'm not in "bear mode," I generally find these resolutions easier to keep.  

This year my Summer Solstice resolutions include recommitting to raw food.   I was really, really good for quite a while in keeping at least 50-60% of my weekly diet raw, but that seems to have slipped some over the past 6 months.  I'm resolving to not only eat at least 60% raw over the week,  but even go higher than that to 75% now that summer is here and all kinds of fresh, locally grown, fruits and vegetables are available.  

I'm also recommitting to reducing my refined sugars and grains.   My sweet tooth, unfortunately, tends to get the best of me, and I've been eating far too much white bread.  

Getting back into a daily yoga practice, again, is also on the list.   I was really good at this for a while as well, but lately there have been days when I didn't even fit in a 10 minute practice.   So it's back on the mat again for me.

BTW, in the Ashtanga yoga tradition, its traditional to do 108 sun salutations on the Summer Solstice.