Today we reach the top of the tree and the end of our Intentions for 2025 series. At this point we’ve planted the seed, nourished ourselves from the soil, created heart coherence with our trunks and finally we are at the canopy – a time for light and movement.  Our final but key encouragement to you in this new year is movement.

Movement is a profound medicine, and here at Londolozi, we embrace motion with deep intention. Whether we’re silently tracking a leopard’s path through the wilderness or flowing through yoga poses on our elevated deck, each step and breath serves a greater purpose. Our physical practice becomes a gateway to cultivate that essential inner stillness – a centered presence from which we can move through the world with grace, awareness, and lightness of being. Just as the animals we track move with instinctive fluidity through the bush, here we try to learn to embody this natural wisdom, allowing our movements to become both purposeful and effortless. 

The ancient considered practice of tracking.

Moving in the presence of trees.

Think about how a tree’s leaves dance in the wind – there’s both a reaching toward light and a natural, effortless quality to their movement.

In yoga and mindful movement, we often begin quite rigid, much like a sapling that hasn’t yet learned to sway. Our initial attempts to find alignment and strength can feel mechanical, perhaps even forced. But as we develop our practice, something remarkable happens – we begin to discover what yogis call “sthira sukha,” or the balance between effort and ease. This mirrors how a mature tree develops both strength and flexibility, allowing it to bend without breaking.

When we look at how trees grow and how humans practice yoga, we can find some remarkable similarities in how we both respond to our environment and seek optimal alignment.

Trees exhibit what botanists call “phototropism” – the way plants grow toward light sources. Their cells elongate on the shadowed side, causing the plant to bend toward the light in a graceful, gradual movement. This natural intelligence helps trees find the energy they need while maintaining their structural integrity.

This mirrors how we practice yoga and mindful movement in several meaningful ways:

First, consider how we gradually explore our range of motion in yoga poses. Just as a tree doesn’t suddenly jerk toward the light but grows with patience, we learn to ease into stretches and postures, listening to our body’s wisdom. The slow, intentional nature of yoga practice resembles the tree’s measured growth response.

Second, both trees and yoga practitioners demonstrate remarkable adaptability. Trees will grow in seemingly impossible shapes to reach light, while maintaining their essential stability. Similarly, in yoga we learn to adapt poses to our bodies’ needs while staying grounded through our foundation, whether it’s our feet in Mountain Pose (Tadasana) or our hands in Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana).

The concept of “finding the light” takes on both literal and metaphorical meaning in yoga practice. Just as trees grow toward physical light, we often speak of moving toward enlightenment or inner illumination through our practice. The physical postures become a vehicle for this deeper journey, much like the tree’s physical growth serves its need for sustenance.

This comparison also extends to the principle of balance. Trees maintain equilibrium even as they reach and bend toward light, developing stronger roots and trunks to support their growth. In yoga, as we explore new poses and push our boundaries, we simultaneously develop core strength and stability to support our expansion.

 

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The concept of finding light in our practice operates on multiple levels. At the physical level, we quite literally expand and reach upward in poses like Urdhva Hastasana (Upward Salute) or Vrksasana (Tree Pose). These poses invite us to grow taller, creating space between vertebrae and lifting our energy upward, just as trees elongate toward sunlight. This physical reaching helps us discover a natural buoyancy in our bodies.

But there’s also a deeper dimension to this light-seeking. In meditation and more subtle aspects of practice, we learn to recognize our inner light – what yogic philosophy calls “prakasha” or pure consciousness. Just as a tree doesn’t question its natural orientation toward light, we begin to trust our innate wisdom that guides us toward growth and awakening. This inner light becomes our compass, helping us distinguish which movements and practices serve our highest good.

The concept of lightness of being – what Buddhists might call “non-attachment” or what modern practitioners often describe as “flow state” – emerges naturally from this practice. Consider how a tree’s leaves release their grip when their time has come, or how branches bend rather than resist strong winds. In our practice, we learn to hold poses with less gripping, to transition between movements with more grace, and to let go of unnecessary tension.

This lightness manifests in several ways:

• Physical lightness: As we develop better alignment and core strength, our movements become more effortless and floating
• Mental lightness: Our practice helps us release anxious thoughts and heavy emotions, much like leaves releasing from branches
• Spiritual lightness: We cultivate a sense of freedom and spaciousness in our consciousness, similar to how a tree’s canopy creates space for light to filter through

The beauty of this approach is that it’s not about forcing or striving. Just as a tree doesn’t strain toward the light but grows naturally in response to it, our practice becomes less about achieving specific poses and more about allowing our natural unfolding. We learn to trust that, like the tree, we have an innate wisdom guiding us toward what nourishes us.

Through mindful movement, we become like trees reaching toward the sun – not only growing stronger and more flexible in our bodies, but also cultivating an inner radiance that transforms how we experience our world, allowing us to embody both grounded-ness and luminosity, rooted in earth while dancing with light.

As we navigate through 2025, may we remember that cultivating our inner light is like tending a sacred garden – through consistent practice, compassionate self-awareness, and a willingness to grow toward what nourishes us, we can become beacons of warmth and clarity not just for ourselves, but for our entire interconnected world.