The Orenna Journal is a yoga and wellbeing journal exploring yoga practice, philosophy, history, rest and the wider ideas that shape how yoga is understood and experienced.
Through considered writing, it offers space to look beyond the surface of practice and explore its traditions, contexts and contemporary interpretations with greater depth and curiosity.
The Orenna Journal brings together considered writing on yoga, philosophy, history, wellbeing and place. Articles move between tradition and contemporary understanding, exploring not only how practices are approached, but where they come from, how they have developed and how their meanings can differ across contexts.
Rather than offering quick answers, the Journal creates space for thoughtful enquiry, evidence-informed discussion and a more nuanced understanding of yoga and wellbeing.
Discover the Journal through four interconnected areas. Each offers a different way into the wider conversation around yoga, rest, wellbeing and the relationship between practice, evidence and place.
Explore yoga practices, philosophies, texts and traditions, from their historical contexts to the ways they are understood and practised today.
Consider restorative practice, meditation, stillness and the different ways attention and awareness are approached within yoga.
Find contemporary wellbeing through an evidence-informed lens, distinguishing emerging research from established knowledge and examining claims with appropriate context.
Writing shaped by landscape, seasonality and the quieter observations that connect practice with everyday experience.
Written & curated by Orenna Wellness
Thoughtful writing exploring yoga, philosophy, wellbeing, evidence and place.
In premodern Haṭha Yoga, mudrā could mean far more than a symbolic hand gesture. Practices such as Mahāmudrā, Khecarī Mudrā and Viparītakaraṇī involved the whole body, breath and subtle-body models. Explore what these practices reveal about the historical meaning of mudrā — and why modern hand-mudrā charts tell only part of the story.
Hasta mudrās are the hand gestures most people associate with mudrā today, but their meanings are more complex than a chart of finger positions. Explore what hasta mudrās are, how gesture communicates meaning, where familiar forms appear, and how to approach their symbolism and modern interpretations with greater context.
The history of mudrā is much broader than the familiar hand gestures of modern yoga. Explore what the Sanskrit term means, how mudrās developed across Buddhist, Hindu, Tantric and yogic contexts, and why medieval Haṭha Yoga transformed the idea of the “seal” into sophisticated bodily practices.
Mudrā is often understood as a symbolic hand gesture, but its history is considerably broader. Explore what mudrā means, where these practices appear, why different traditions use them, and how hand gestures relate to the more complex mudrās of Haṭha Yoga.
Discover the latest articles from The Orenna Journal, with new writing across yoga practice, philosophy, history, rest, wellbeing, evidence and place.
