Ardha Chandrasana

The story behind the pose ardha chandrasana  (half moon pose) is a story about Ganesha. Ganesha removes obstacles in your path, and sometimes he turns them into sweets. Ganesha, the son of Shiva with the head of an elephant and the body of a boy, loves to eat sweets. So, it is common to leave offerings to Ganesha in the form of sweet buns, candy, and cakes so that he can eat our sufferings.  

As the story goes, one evening after gorging on sweet buns, Ganesha was riding home balancing on his mouse when a snake crossed the path and scare the mouse. Ganesha toppled off his mouse's back and when he fell his belly burst open and the sweet buns spilled out everywhere. The moon, Chandra, was watching this whole debacle and began to laugh which angered Ganesha. He broke off one of his tusks and threw it at Chandra, piercing her and putting her light out. 

So the moon couldn't shine and the world was cast in endless light. After a few days, Ganesh took pity on Chandra and made a compromise - that she could only shine at her full brightness once a month. This became and origin story for the phases of the moon. Hence the name, half moon pose. 

In the pose, your bottom arm is like Ganesha trying to pick up all his sweet buns from the ground, and the top arm is throwing his tusk at Chandra. It's a balance pose to represent Ganesha balancing on his mouse. The posture is a reminder that though we may act out of our anger, you can always take responsibility for your actions and make amends where necessary to make things right. Ganesha wears his tusk around his neck as a reminder of his temporary loss of equanimity.