BIRDNOTE®: The Birds of Yoga
Air Date: March 29, 2024
Bird-inspired yoga poses, from eagle to crow to peacock pose, have deep roots in Hindu mythology and philosophy. BirdNote®’s Trisha Mukherjee explains.
Transcript
O’NEILL: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Aynsley O’Neill.
DOERING: And I’m Jenni Doering.
BIRDNOTE THEME
DOERING: For thousands of years humans have looked to the skies for spiritual inspiration, as BirdNote’s Trisha Mukherjee explains.
BirdNote®
The Birds of Yoga
Calming yoga music
Eagle pose. Crow pose. Peacock pose.
Each of these bird-inspired yoga poses has deep roots in Hindu mythology and philosophy.
Changeable Hawk-Eagle call
Eagle pose in Sanskrit is garudasana. Garuda is a giant mythical sun bird with a golden body and eagle’s beak. His wings have so much power that by flapping them, he can stop the spinning of heaven, earth, and hell.
House Crow call
Crow pose, or kakasana, harkens back to a legend in the Indian epic The Mahabharata. Many Hindus believe that crows bridge the worlds of the living and the dead. In an annual ritual called shraddha, people cook a feast for the crows outside to satisfy their ancestors who have passed on.
Indian Peafowl call
Peacock pose, or mayurasana, is a challenging arm balance pose. The peacock in Hinduism is a symbol of beauty, grace, and pride. Legend says that the peacock used to have dull feathers, but during a battle it shielded Indra, the god of the heavens. In return, he made the peacock’s feathers iridescent.
Calming yoga music
Next time you take a yoga class, breathe deeper, stretch longer, and rise higher by channeling the ancient energy of these fearless birds.
For BirdNote, I’m Trisha Mukherjee.
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Written by Trisha Mukherjee
Senior Producer: John Kessler
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Changeable Hawk-Eagle ML182224751 recorded by Rajiv Kalsi, House Crow ML514775631 recorded by Samim Akhter, and Indian Peafowl ML111560 recorded by Linda Macaulay.
Music: “Element Airborne” by Blue Dot Sessions.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote October 2023
Narrator: Trisha Mukherjee
ID# yoga-01-2023-10-26 yoga-01
https://www.birdnote.org/listen/shows/birds-yoga
DOERING: For pictures, glide on over to the Living on Earth website, loe.org.
