After graduating from 200 hour Registered Yoga Teacher Training, there was no better way to celebrate than to ring in the New Year in Japan.

Whichever side of the decade debate you fall on (is it now or 2021), there’s no fault in enjoying 2020 as a reset, a time for new beginnings. New year, new you may be cliché, but it’s all what you make it and any day is a good day to set an intention.

I was never that ‘into’ numbers or signs, and found a lot of it to be a bit hokey, until of course, learning more about it and seeing it work in real life examples. Proof can make a non believer change their mind easily.

108 is a sacred number across many fields and religions, our friends at WHY did 108 Sun Salutations to welcome the New Year. Mala beads have 108 beads. (More 108 meanings here). I was curious why the number mattered and learned from our tour guide Michikio in Japan:

Your six senses (smell, touch, taste, sight, hearing and consciousness) can receive pleasant painful or neutral feelings. They can be externally or internally generated, and they can be past present or future. 36*3 = 108.

I found the Buddhist and even more so the Shinto culture in Japan to be fascinating. So on New Year we learned in Japan most shrines will ring their bells and the 108 tolls ring out the old sensory issues and clear your path into a new year as a reset. We visited maybe a dozen different places across our trip and both a Shinto and Buddhist temple on New Year’s Eve around midnight.

We learned the cleansing ritual to enter the shrines.

We were welcome warmly and gave our saisen donations (with the proper coinage).

We were in awe of the beauty of all the gates, festivities, people and beauty at each place we visited.

It was a truly magical experience to kick off 2020. Warmest wishes, prayers and good things to all of you reading!

Photos: us in market, Shinto temple, donation entry, large temple.