In the 1600’s Jan Baptist van Helmont studied plants. The prevailing theory at the time was that plants grew by eating soil, and van Helmont devised a clever investigation to test this idea. He weighed a willow tree and weighed dry soil. He planted the tree, watered it and then left it for 5 years. He then re-weighed the tree, which had increased in mass by over 72 kg. He dried the soil and weighed it, showing that the soil had only lost 60 grams. The conclusion is that trees are largely made out of air, more specifically, of the CO2. In the process they offer O2 back to the atmosphere.
As humans we breath in and utilise the O2 the trees breath out and we breathe out CO2 the plants breath in. In a sense then you are becoming the tree and the tree is becoming you. Another part of this picture yoga philosophy says is prana, we too are made out of light. Yoga philosophy has gone further to describe 5 kinds of prana; prana, samana, vyana, udana, apana.
The key to health is to keep our pranas working in harmony and our practice offers many ways to do that so that we can …. go easy, be filled with light … and shine.
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