Wild & Rooted: Yoga Reflections

🌞  Yoga as a Pathway to the Divine

7/26/2025

How Ancient Practices Open the Door to Sacred Connection

 

In the stillness of breath, in the quiet pause between movements, in the heat of discipline and the tenderness of surrender, we often meet something larger than ourselves. For many of us, that “something” is hard to name. Spirit. Source. God. Kali. The Divine. Whatever name we use, yoga gives us a way to remember that connection again and again.

 

 

🕉 Yoga Means Union

The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit root yuj, which means “to yoke” or “to unite.” While modern yoga often focuses on the physical side—flexibility, strength, posture—the deeper purpose of yoga is spiritual integration. We aren’t just moving our bodies; we are moving toward wholeness. Yoga brings breath and movement together, mind and body, self and spirit.

 

 

📿 The Many Systems of Yoga

Yoga isn’t one practice. It’s a whole system of paths that guide us toward divine connection. Each system speaks to a different part of us, and they all lead to the same center.

 

• Bhakti Yoga is the path of devotion. Through prayer, mantra, chanting, and ritual, we grow love for the Divine in all its forms.
• Jnana Yoga is the path of wisdom. We study sacred texts and reflect deeply, asking “Who am I?” until the illusion falls away.
• Karma Yoga is the path of selfless service. Our actions become offerings, not performances.
• Raja Yoga is the path of meditation and inner stillness. Through pranayama and meditation, we learn to experience Spirit directly.

 

These are not separate paths. They often weave together. You might light incense and chant to Kali, then roll out your mat for breathwork and movement, and later offer your time to help someone in need. That’s yoga in all its forms.

 

🌬️ Breath as a Bridge

In Sanskrit, the word for breath is prāṇa, which also means life force. Through conscious breathing, we begin to slow the fluctuations of the mind. In doing so, we touch something eternal. The breath reminds us that we are not separate. It flows through all beings. It carries the rhythm of the universe and brings the sacred right into the body.

 

🔥 Turning Practice into Prayer

When we step onto the mat with intention, yoga becomes a prayer. Every movement is an offering. Every breath, a blessing. We bow, rise, soften, strengthen, and in that cycle, we remember the truth of who we are.

 

The Divine doesn’t only live in temples or mountaintops. It lives in your spine when it lifts with breath. It lives in your tears during pigeon pose. It lives in the sacred vibration of a mantra that ignites your heart.

 

🌺 My Personal Rituals

For me, the Divine speaks in vibration and rhythm. I feel closest to it during morning candlelight, when I chant the Gayatri Mantra, or when I move through my Ashtanga practice with soft music playing in the background. Some mornings I chant. Some mornings I weep. Some mornings I sit with my handpan and let sound be my offering. Each of those moments is part of my spiritual conversation.

 

This is yoga. This is devotion. This is how I remember.

 

✨ An Invitation

Where in your practice do you feel most connected to something sacred? Is it in the stillness or in the sweat? In silence or sound?

 

Let yoga become your sacred doorway. A ritual. A daily conversation with the Divine.

 

Because yoga doesn’t create the Divine. It helps us remember what’s always been within.