Yoga instructors often use animal imagery to prompt participants into a succession of moves. The downward dog, the monkey pose, the swan dive, the cobra, the cat, the cow: these remind us that the animal kingdom is part of our own being. We are induced to reflect that the often nasty or clichéd attributes we ascribe to animals are character traits of ourselves: cunning of monkey, viciousness of cobra, self-containment of cat, faithful-to-mate swan, gregariousness of dog, docility of cow...
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