Meditation arrives at the Turin Book Fair

The occasion was the presentation of the book 'The Salute to the Moon' by former Paralympic athlete Patrizia Saccà

ROME – The public of the International Book Fair, at the ‘La Stampa’ stand, stopped in meditation for a few minutes. People closed their eyes, felt their body breathing and watched their mind go everywhere, accompanied by the multiple noises in the Lingotto Oval pavilion. Everyone inhaled together and exhaled in unison, but always in silence. The occasion was the presentation of the book ‘The Salute to the Moon’ by former Paralympic athlete Patrizia Saccà, in a wheelchair due to an accident at the age of 13. “Yoga is for everyone, for those who practice and those who don’t,” says the writer who has been working with the Italian Hindu Union since 2018 to create yoga without barriers. She became a Yoga teacher and has already invented the ‘Free Ray Yoga‘ method, the subject of another of her books.

“The unifying principle in yoga is the well-being and happiness of all living beings, because happiness arises from love. Everyone has their own condition. No matter what we are, we are what we are and the the basis for everyone is breathing– says the former paralympic athlete – yoga is union, because we are all different notes. I don’t like the words disabled, differently abled, inclusive – Saccà continues – they are all words that have no meaning because everyone has their own voice and body. Maybe people have had an accident or have blindness, but what does this mean? Why do we have to exclude everyone in this symphony? >”. A concept which, according to the author, applies “to gender identity and everything else”.

The moon salute is a more advanced practice. “Here there are people who have been practicing with me for years and I have seen the evolution of their bodies, I notice greater resistance and greater capacity for strength. In the moon salute there are sitting positions for which you need to have a lot of strength”, recalls Saccà.
“We are always compressed with the diaphragm and we need to breathe and practice. This helps us a lot. I have seen the difference in the quality of life of people with disabilities who practice. Imagine that I have brought the sun salutation to 1,500 people at the yoga festival in Milan last autumn. Yoga is for everyone, for those who stand and those who sit.Time passes and we need to look at old age. – he states – and have the strength to try to live and feel good. There are pills to tell us how to love ourselves and accept that we are no longer the same as yesterday. Yoga helps us see our thoughts and recognize them – he concludes- because the mind tends to lie”.