Yoga for Digestion, Abdominal Breathing, and the Body's Capacity to Discern
New Moon + Solar Eclipse: August 12, 2026 | Full Moon + Partial Lunar Eclipse: August 28, 2026
A Year with Astrology and Parts of Our Bodies
Welcome to Nectar Retreat’s blog, and the energy of August! If you’re reading this at the start of the month, you’d be feeling the heat of the astrological sign of Leo. If you were practising with us through July, you may have felt that heat through chest opening backbends, jaw releasing Lion's Breath, or maybe you contemplated the energy of the Strength card, Leo’s corresponding Tarot card. August contains that heat through the first three weeks, and then, on August 22, we enter into Virgo season.
Leo governs the heart and the upper back. Virgo governs the gut, the small intestine, the nervous system's capacity to sort and integrate. The elemental shift from Fire to Earth three quarters in the month is a shift that is both seasonal and energetic, where we move from the expansive outward brightness of Leo into Virgo's more exacting, inward attention.
This August’s lunar cycle is also marked by eclipses, with the new moon on August 12 is a solar eclipse, and the full moon on August 28 is a lunar eclipse. Eclipses are thought to ignite what is ready to end and open things that have been waiting. Practices that support the nervous system's capacity to integrate are vital during eclipse season.
August: From Fire to Earth
We explored Wheel Pose in July's post, the body simultaneously open and strong. Leo opens the front body outward, followed by Virgo drawing attention back into the inner body to organize.
Virgo governs the gut, the small intestine, and the nervous system. In yogic and Daoist traditions, the gut is where we metabolize experience, not just food. As Virgo season also occurs during a time of harvest, it inevitably brings up digestion in somatic, emotional, and spiritual ways.
We’ve designed this month's practices to work with these themes.
August's Zodiac Focus and Body Placement
Leo (Fire): Heart, upper back, thoracic spine, circulatory system (through August 21)
Virgo (Earth): Gut, small intestine, enteric nervous system, diaphragm (from August 22)
Practices for August: Yoga for Digestion, Grounding, and Nervous System Integration
Solar Plexus Breath (Hands to Belly and Chest): Abdominal Breathing and Stress Relief
Purpose: Solar Plexus Breath places one hand on the belly and one on the chest, filling both zones in sequence. Research on diaphragmatic breathing exercises finds that breath reaching the lower belly activates the parasympathetic nervous system more fully than breath staying in the upper chest.
How-to:
Sit comfortably or lie on your back. Place one hand flat on the lower belly, below the navel, and one hand flat on the sternum.; or both hands on lower belly (as photographed above).
Begin by exhaling completely, feeling both hands drop.
On the inhale, let the lower hand rise first. Feel the belly expand outward before anything else moves.
Once the belly is full, let the breath continue into the chest. The upper hand rises last.
Exhale in reverse: the chest releases first, then the belly draws gently inward.
Repeat for 5 to 10 rounds, until the two zones feel connected rather than separate.
Focus: Concentrate on letting go of your stressors as you breathe.
Supine Twist (Supta Matsyendrasana): Yoga for Digestion and Relaxation Exercises for Stress
Purpose: Supine Twist compresses and releases the abdominal organs by stimulating peristalsis and supporting the gut-brain axis. Gravity and the breath work together, making it one of the more effective relaxation exercises for stress that requires no muscular effort. In Virgo season, when the body is sorting and integrating, this is the pose!
How-to:
Lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat on the floor.
Draw both knees toward the chest, then let them fall together to the right, stacking if possible. Extend the left arm out to the side at shoulder height, palm facing up.
The gaze can stay at the ceiling or turn gently to the left, opposite the knees.
Stay for 1 to 3 minutes, breathing into the left side of the ribcage. Let each exhale deepen the rotation slightly.
To switch sides, use an inhale to bring the knees back to centre, then let them fall to the left.
Variations: For tighter hips or lower back sensitivity, place a folded blanket between the knees before letting them fall. For a deeper spinal rotation, extend the bottom leg long while the top knee drops.
Focus: The tendency is to hurry through the twist, spending 30 seconds a side and moving on. The digestive benefit requires 1-2 mins per side.
Goddess Pose (Utkata Konasana): Grounding and Lower Body Strength for the Fire-to-Earth Transition
Purpose: Goddess Pose widens and descends, rooting through the feet while the chest lifts. It carries Leo's heat into the legs and pelvis while beginning the grounding that Virgo represents. The wide stance and turned-out feet open the pelvic floor, the seat of apana in yogic anatomy, the downward-moving energy that governs release and letting go. As a full body mobility routine element, it builds lower body strength while maintaining hip mobility.
How-to:
Stand with the feet wide apart, roughly three to four feet, toes turned out at 45 degrees.
On an exhale, bend the knees directly over the toes, lowering the hips toward knee height. The pelvis stays neutral, neither tucked under nor exaggeratedly arched.
The arms can extend out to the sides at shoulder height, elbows bent, palms facing forward (cactus arms), hands can rest on the thighs, or reach above you.
Hold for 5 to 10 breaths. On each inhale, lengthen through the crown of the head. On each exhale, soften slightly deeper into the position without losing the lift of the chest.
To release, straighten the legs on an inhale and step the feet together.
Variations: For a more restorative version, sit the hips onto a yoga block placed on its highest setting beneath the pelvis. This allows the inner thigh opening without the muscular demand of a full hold. For greater intensity, pulse gently in the bottom of the position for several breaths.
Focus: Though the adage of ‘quality over quantity’ is true for all asanas, it applies especially to the Goddess Pose.
Supported Bridge with Abdominal Breathing: Yoga for Digestion, Grounding, and Nervous System Regulation
Purpose: In this position, the diaphragm has more room to descend, belly-led breath stimulates the vagus nerve and supports peristalsis, and the supine position makes abdominal breathing easier to access compared to when sitting upright. This pose is often practiced after periods of stress, or when the gut feels tense or sluggish.
How-to:
Lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat on the floor, hip-width apart.
Press into the feet and lift the hips, placing a yoga block under the sacrum at a comfortable height.
Let the hips settle fully onto the block. Place both hands flat on the lower belly, below the navel.
On each inhale, direct the breath toward the hands, letting the belly rise. On each exhale, let the belly fall slowly.
Stay for 5 to 10 minutes, keeping the breath slow and belly-led throughout.
To come out, press into the feet, lift the hips slightly, remove the block, and lower the spine slowly.
Focus: The block height matters here too, as it did in July, though for different reasons. In this version, a medium block height tends to work better than high.
Full Moon, New Moon, and Astrological Tarot Correspondences FOR AUGUST
August begins with Strength still present, Leo's card, an archetype associated with resilience, the enduring spirit.
Then the Hermit arrives with Virgo on August 22. The card is frequently misread as isolation. What it depicts is discernment and courage to to hold one's principles.
Strength (Leo): What part of you feels steadier and more resilient compared to earlier this year? How are you showing up for yourself more?
The Hermit (Virgo): How are you walking more consistently with your commitments? What do you already know, that you've been postponing acting on? Where are you no longer excusing your own excuses?
Journalling for August
It is recommended for readers to practice five minutes of Supine Twist before journalling.
Solar Eclipse New Moon (August 12): What is completing in me? Where do I feel it in the body?
Virgo Season Opens (August 22): What is my gut telling me that I have been avoiding to hear?
Lunar Eclipse Full Moon (August 28): What has been held in the body long enough, and is ready to express outwards?
August Events and Activities on Bowen Island
In keeping with Leo and Virgo's themes, here are a few upcoming events and retreats:
Release, A Somatic Ritual For Letting Go is a guided somatic practice designed for exactly what Virgo season asks: moving what the body has been holding, with intention and care.
Touching the Bruise is a grief retreat led by Chloe Dierkes and Andrea Clark, held in August on Bowen Island. The Hermit's quality of honest inward attention is the container this retreat holds.
For those who want to carry the month's integrative work into September, Meditation and Relaxation Through Silence is a full day retreat in guided silence, moving through meditation, restorative yoga, and breathwork.
There’s also Mist Thermal Sanctuary, a private sauna and cold plunge located in the same forest as Nectar. Contrast therapy moves the lymphatic system and supports circulation to the abdominal organs. Book a Mist Circuit.
Practise with Nectar at Home
The practices in this post are designed to be done at home, with minimal equipment. A yoga block and a blanket are sufficient for everything here. If you want to practise them within a guided sequence, with breath cues and transitions in video-form, Nectar at Home offers a library of on-demand yoga and breathwork classes that follow the seasonal and astrological arc of this series through the year.
September classes, which move into Virgo's later body work and begin to introduce the first Libra practices, will be available soon. Explore Nectar At Home’s library of yoga and meditation classes.
About Nectar Yoga Retreat Centre
Nestled in the heart of a temperate forest, Nectar offers British Columbia vacation packages with 2-night stays on Bowen Island, nourishing vegetarian breakfasts, and daily guided yoga and meditation. We host mindfulness and meditation retreats, yoga retreats, sound healing, and other wellness practices with experienced instructors in holistic practice. Alongside our sister brand, Mist Thermal Sanctuary, we welcome guests from Vancouver and the lower mainland of BC, Victoria, Seattle, and beyond, to relax and renew the mind, body, and spirit.
References:
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00874/full
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6189422/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4959333/
https://www.nature.com/articles/nrgastro.2016.107
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6122068/
https://bonniegillespie.com/astrology-body-parts-ruled-by-signs
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00484-019-01717-x
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and does not replace medical expertise. Please consult a healthcare provider before beginning any new movement or health practice, particularly if you are pregnant, or if you have health, physical, or mental health considerations.
