Keeping Time

Yoga International magazine came the other day, and per usual, it is filled with amazing wisdom and guidance.  The "Everday Ayurveda" section, written by a very respected friend, teacher and fellow Paryogi, Kathryn Templeton, spoke about living in harmony with the cycle of the day.

Cycles are my favorite topics - the cycle of the hour, the day, the month, and the year.  Ayurveda informs us on how to live in harmony with these cycles and suggests that for that day we: rise before 6:00 am to keep a sharp mind, eat the biggest meal at 12:00 pm to digest well, and go to sleep before 10:00 pm to rest well. While living this cycle has shown it to be true for me, there are other ancient wisdom traditions I've lived that also ring true.  They suggest that to live in harmony with ourselves and the world, we would most benefit to awaken as the sun warms the earth, which, for almost half of my year, is much later than 6:00 am.

So now what to do?  I hate conflicts.  It must be the Libra in me that wants everyone to just get along.  But really, I just want clarity on how to live well and feel good.  So, I decided to investigate further.  When IS the best time to wake up so that I feel alive, clear and vital throughout my day?

Since the conflict seems to rests with the time, let's start there.

Modern time as we understand it  - 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour,  60 seconds in a minute - is relatively new.  STANDARDIZED time is even more recent, starting about 150 years ago with the explosion of the railroads.  Everyone needed to be on the same page so that travel and shipping could run more smoothly - so 1:00 pm in Asheville, NC needed to correspond with 1:00 pm in Honesdale, PA.  Thus, began the synchronizing of clocks and creation of time zones.

But the great wisdoms for living well, both from Ayurveda and other traditions, are much older than railroads.  They date back thousands of years, and back then time was measured mostly by the position of the sun in the sky.  Mornings didn't start with an alarm clock and a cup of stimulation, but with the sunrise. It didn't end by shutting down the lights of a computer screen, but with the sunset or a certain constellation moving into the night sky.  

In Ayurveda, Vata is the air element, and air is about movement and mobility. Vata time of day corresponds to this, when the sun is moving most dramatically in the sky - sunrise and sunset.  Roughly, 6:00 am (and pm) in equatorial regions.  Living in the Northern Hemisphere, the time this happens varies with the cycle of the year.  In the summer, its around 6:00 am and 9:00 pm but in the winter its closer to 8:00 am and 5:00 pm.

I am by no means an Ayurveda expert, so I hope Katherine and others will weigh in, but I wonder about the very precise nature of the 6:00 am timeframe.  Is it really meant to be applied universally?  Perhaps it makes sense for those living on the equator, but maybe it has some flexibility for those of us farther North or South.  Yet, if my premise is wrong, and not simply based on me wanting to sleep in during the cold months, then perhaps this Ayurvedic wisdom is based on something much more subtle than the yearly rhythms of the sun?

From my limited understanding, the cycle of the day is held within the cycle of the year, therefore the time I for me to wake so to feel my best depends on the time of year and where I'm living.  This may not provide consistency through the whole of my year (which I think Ayurveda would prefer),  but it does harmonize with the yearly cycles. I like my theory, NOT because it would allow me to sleep later in the winter and watch the sunrise glow on the mountains to the West, but because it allows the various traditions to support each other.  Something my Libra brain likes.

It is simply harmony that I seek...harmony and deep understanding.  That...and feeling good too.

Thanks to Katherine and everyone at the Himalayan Institute for helping me to dig deeper.
May we all rise, eat and sleep well.

Learn more about Wellness by visiting www.TheAlchemyofTransformation.com