Happy Day 54

 

Today is the 54th day of the year. I feel festive. After all, 54 is half of 108, a most auspicious number. Plus, it's mid February and I'll celebrate anything that helps me embrace this long, cold month in Montreal. 

As mentioned in my previous posting, I feel ready to embark on a new adventure. My original plan was to start sun saluting again. This time, I thought I'd do 54 surya namaskar for 54 days, but after some soulful reflection and a brief chat with Lisa Lajoie, one of my confidants at the studio, I've had a change of heart. I still want to invest energy in a personal practice of 54 days, however, I want to do something totally new and different. Sun Salutations are so 2010... This year, instead of Surya Namaskars, I'm going to explore Chandra Namakar, the Moon Salutation. 

I did a little research today and came up with enough ideas for my practice with Bossa today. The flow is so beautiful. The lunar salute is like a fluid dance that circles around the mat. No up dogs and no down dogs. Very different from the sun salutation. I loved it. Bossa, who was one of my premier 108 sun saluters last year, also enjoyed the change. It took us about a hour to do 54 at a pleasant pace. I definitely have to videotape the sequences and share them, but first, I need to practice different combination of postures and figure out what makes the most sense. 

I'm really looking forward to next six weeks or so of Moon Salutations. I'm not promising that I'll blog everyday like last year, but I will definitely chronicle the journey somehow. I'm stoked to hear that some of you are planning on joining this 54 day plight in your own delicious way. I'm smiling inside, because Craig, who is somewhat of a reluctant yogi, is currently in the office doing his own sun salutations and yoga practice to the new Radio Head album. This is totally on his own accord, without any prompting from me. He came home and asked where his mat was and threw down. How very interesting... :)

Anyway, please share your stories and experiences with me and our little solar/lunar salutation blog sangha (community) about your 54 day plan. It keeps us all inspired. Speaking of inspiration, isn't this a great photo of the moon? It's Craig's photo, which I 'borrowed' from his blog. See his moon post.

Lastly, in case you are curious (I was), here are some other interesting facts about the number 54:

• A Rubik's cube has 54 colored squares;
• +54 is the international calling code for direct dial phone calls to Argentina;
• There is 54 milligrams of caffeine in Mountain Drew, my student Glenn's favourite and most nostalgic beverage;
• A score of 54 in golf is referred to as a "perfect round", but  has never been achieved in competition, not even by Tiger;
• Studio 54 sounds like it was a pretty radical place to hang out at back in the day or so Max, the 84-year-old yogi tells me of his frequent disco nights spent there;
• The 1998 movie 54 was about Studio 54 and starred Ryan Phillippe and Salma Hayek (I didn't see it);
• And there are 54 cards in a deck of playing cards, if you include the two jokers.