To walk forward with integrity, we must know where we’ve been.

August Reflections: Slowing Down, Looking Back, Honouring the Path

As August approaches in Japan, the air grows heavy with heat and humidity. Everything slows—bodies, breath, even thoughts. In yoga, we are reminded to move with awareness, not against the rhythm of nature. This is not the time for intensity, but for sensitivity. For rest. For listening.

August also brings Obon (お盆)—a sacred time when we honor our ancestors, welcome their spirits home, and reflect on those who came before us. Just as we adjust our physical practice to the season, Obon invites us to adjust inwardly too. To pause. To bow. To remember.

How does yoga support this remembrance?

Yoga teaches us that we are not separate. Not from nature, not from each other, not from those who came before us. Through stillness, meditation, breath, and movement, we tap into the invisible threads that connect us to our lineage. We feel gratitude for the bodies we inhabit, the breath we receive, and the traditions passed down—whether through blood, spirit, or culture.

In a society that often values the new, yoga asks us to look back. Not to dwell in the past, but to honour it. Every one of us carries stories in our bones. Some are conscious, many are not. When we remember our ancestors—not just with rituals, but with embodied presence—we create space for healing, for understanding, and for peace.

Why is remembering the past important?

Because forgetting severs the roots.

Because remembering brings humility and perspective.

Because to walk forward with integrity, we must know where we’ve been.

Our personal and collective histories shape who we are. When we reflect on them with compassion, we reclaim the wisdom, resilience, and love that sustained those before us—and allow that energy to support us now.

This August, may your yoga be:

• Slow and intentional, like the flow of summer heat

• Grounded and inward, like the silent presence of ancestors

• Grateful and soft, like the heart remembering where it came from

Obon reminds us: we are never alone. And yoga reminds us: the past lives in the present, through breath, through practice, through us.

With warmth, presence, and quiet reverence, let us move through August not in haste, but in remembrance.