Samhain Yoga Nidra

Samhain happens at the end of October in the Northern Hemisphere and is the threshold into deep dark winter yin time- the depths of the Underworld where transformation happens. This practice brings us up to winter solstice and invites you to remember your unoccupied Self.
It can be a container for you to dissolve into your grief or to reclaim your joy.

Transcript

Hi,

I'm Cathy French,

Daughter of Rose Brennan and David French,

And I appreciate you being here.

In the Gaeltacht Irish-speaking region of Connemara in the west of Ireland,

When a new person is introduced,

They aren't simply asked for their name,

But they're asked céileis who.

This translates as,

To whom do you belong,

Or who are your people?

So as you set yourself up for our Nidra practice,

And stretch your limbs longer,

Adjust your shoulder blades together and downward,

You might like to invoke the blessings of the lineage of human and other-than-human spirits who love you,

And who are loved by you.

Repeat your own name three times,

Along with the people who you consider yourself daughter or son of,

As you start to rest back.

Rest back and unclench to the point that you feel as though you're not holding on to anything.

Feel your body become unoccupied by the pressing demands of society.

No desire,

No lack,

No wish,

Just perfectly content,

Not seeking any result,

And resting in the pose of the corpse.

And now the gravitational pull of the planet invites the weight of your bones to sink down through layers of earth,

And merge with the continental crust beneath you.

And make yourself at home on the land,

As it takes your bones as its own,

Downward.

Your back body received,

And your front body receiving space,

Freedom,

Akash.

And now as you're held here,

You can spill over.

You don't have to contain yourself in this space.

And home becomes this present moment.

Feeling at home is fully inhabiting the generosity of presence.

So as you shapeshift into presence,

You might start to notice yourself fully for the first time today.

Slowing down the world as it's coming in,

And slowing down the world as you are giving out.

And we now begin the practice of yoga nidra.

As though you're entering a sacred place,

A sanctuary,

Somewhere where the extraordinary inhabits the ordinary.

Your body is a sacred site for worship now,

A sanctuary.

So approach your awareness of your physical form as you would approach a shaman's hut,

A cathedral,

Or a temple.

And start to step inside the presence of your holy body,

With the same reverence and humility as you would taking off your shoes.

As you step toward yourself,

We're moving into what's known in the Irish language as idir-an-dáling,

The in-between,

The nidra state of being halfway between waking and dreaming,

The other world.

As you lie down here in the pose of the corpse,

We pendulate across the boundary between sleep and waking,

And life and death,

And you know that as you descend backward through your back body,

That part of you is of the other world.

So give yourself permission to slip through the crack,

Knowing that you are safe and held here.

And this is a space to fully inhabit your grief,

Or to absorb your joy,

To collapse and dissolve,

And hover in the liminal boundary of the in-between.

All ritual is driven by necessity,

So if you work with a sankalpa now,

Allow for a sense of we to permeate your I am statement,

Feeling the support of your team,

Your loved ones,

And the collective practicing yoga and nidra here today,

Allowing your sankalpa to arise,

Your I am statement,

Feeling the collective force of manifestation and the potentiality that holds for shaping great change in our world.

And then in stillness,

Resting back into the presence that's always available to us,

Stepping towards it,

As you land at the space between your brows,

The centre of your forehead,

Awareness moves across your right eye,

Your left eye,

Both eyes together,

Your right cheek,

Your left cheek,

Both cheeks together,

Your tongue,

The roof of your mouth,

Tip of your nose,

Your right nostril,

Left nostril,

Both nostrils at once,

Your outer right ear,

Your inner right ear,

The very centre of your brain,

Your outer left ear,

Inner left ear,

And back to the centre of your brain,

Feeling both ears,

Inner and outer,

The front of your forehead,

The crown of your head,

The back of your head,

And the base of your skull,

And spreading awareness now over your face,

Head,

Mouth,

Eyes,

Nose,

And ears,

Awareness travels down to the throat,

The right side of your neck,

The left side of your neck,

Both sides of your neck at once,

The back of your throat,

All the way down to the centre of your chest,

Awareness moves from the centre of your chest,

Across your right shoulder blade,

And back to centre,

And across your left shoulder blade,

And back to centre,

Moving down your spine,

Awareness sweeps across your right ribcage,

And back to centre,

Across your left ribcage,

And back to centre,

Tracking your awareness further down your spine,

Tuning in to your pubic bone,

Your hip bones,

And now your entire torso,

Without any effort,

Aware of your entire torso at once,

And from your right shoulder,

Down your arm,

To your elbow,

Forearm,

Wrist,

Centre of your palm,

Thumb,

Index finger,

Middle finger,

Ring finger,

And little finger,

The space between your fingers,

All your fingers and your palm,

Your whole hand,

Lower arm,

Your whole right lower arm,

Elbow,

And upper arm,

And as much of your whole right arm and fingers and hand as you can feel at once,

And from your left shoulder,

Down your arm,

To your elbow,

Forearm,

Wrist,

Centre of your palm,

Thumb,

Index finger,

Middle finger,

Ring finger,

And little finger,

The space between your fingers,

All your fingers and your palm,

Your whole hand and lower arm,

Your lower arm,

Left elbow,

And upper arm,

And as much of your left arm,

Hand,

And fingers as you can feel at once,

Awareness moves back up the front body,

Your right thigh,

Knee and shin,

Right calf,

Ankle and heel,

Bottom and the top of your right foot,

Your toes,

Foot,

Lower leg and upper leg,

Your whole right foot,

Toes and leg,

Left thigh,

Knee and shin,

Left calf,

Ankle and heel,

Bottom of your left foot and the top of your foot,

Your left toes,

Foot,

Lower leg,

Upper leg,

And your whole left foot,

Toes and leg,

Awareness now of both legs,

Your torso,

Both your arms,

Your whole head,

Face and neck at once,

Journey into your breath,

And from your breath you can listen to your body,

Your whole body at once,

Listening to the consciousness of your whole body breathing,

Your awareness floats from the physical form to the drift and fluctuation of your breath,

Travelling deeper into the experience of your body breathing,

Pranamaya kosha,

Travelling deeper and deeper inside the breath,

Move deeply toward your exhalation,

Closer and closer to the feeling of your exhale,

A direct experience of sinking,

The wisdom of your exhale guiding you deeper and deeper into the subconscious world,

And watch yourself drift towards the terrain of the unknown,

The soft realm of possibilities awaits you,

As you bring your gaze to the centre of your brows,

And call forth an embodiment of mental and emotional realms of awareness now,

Allow yourself to fully inhabit what's suggested,

Releasing into the mental and emotional experience now,

How might it feel to be tidy,

Without moving into any narrative,

Try to coax out the felt sensation of tidiness and notice where it lives in your body,

And then return back to your heavy body,

And how does it feel to be messy,

Without gravitating towards a story,

Try to coax out the felt sensation of messiness,

And notice where it lives in your body,

And what does order feel like,

Notice the sensations that arise when you feel order as an emotional experience,

Allow yourself to feel being in order,

Without needing to retrieve a story from the past,

Just feeling orderly,

And what does chaos feel like,

Where does the frequency of chaos get stirred up,

And slip back to order again,

Allow order to flow through as an emotional energy,

Without restriction,

And does the tone of your nervous system alter when you experience order,

Releasing order to sense the heavy weight of your body,

And feeling chaos,

What is the tone of this emotional chaos,

And then order returns,

And what part of your body elicits a change in energy when you experience order,

And as order flows through it's now joined by chaos,

The body is steeped in both order and chaos,

Existing in your whole body at once,

And come back to the completeness of your body,

Perfect and whole,

Feel the land you lay on welcoming your bones as it's own,

And as you sink and drift,

A version of you moves away from this physical form,

Hovering the liminal boundary of the in between,

And as you lie here in your whole body at once,

You feel yourself inhabiting a cavern,

As though you had slipped through a crack in the earth,

And fallen backward between binaries,

All definitions of good to your left and bad to your right,

Order and chaos,

Right and wrong,

And you find your spine at the very centre of this cavern,

And you sense no trepidation or fear as you relinquish all of your weight into the crack beneath your body,

And your journey back down is soft and smooth,

You feel spacious,

Open and free in your front body,

Held,

Supported and contained in your back body,

And as you slip back into this cavern between binaries,

This multicoloured field of pure potentiality,

You recognise this as the other world,

You enter into a state of synesthesia,

You have the possibility to see through your ears,

To hear through your fingertips,

To breathe through your eyes,

And the world takes on so many different forms for you here,

And feel the bright light of this present reality,

Moving through the soft skin of your eyelids,

As you start to return back to this physical form,

Imagining yourself drawn back out of the cavern and onto solid land,

Your bones belonging to this land,

The bones of your ancestors,

Connecting you to different parts of the planet,

And as you arrive back,

You bring back with you your sankalpa,

You feel the potentiality of this statement of intent,

And you welcome the possibility that your intention,

Combined with the collective intention of every other being practising Nidra today,

Has the potential to bend the moral arc of the universe toward justice and liberation for everyone,

And as you come back into your body,

You feel this body of yours forming a prism of brightness and colour,

You send out a prayer to the others practising today,

And you might gently wriggle your fingers and toes and maybe take your hands onto your body,

And as you connect your palms to your body,

Thanking yourself three times for taking the time to meet this moment,

And as you stretch back into your limbs and spine,

Feeling the continued support of your team,

Orienting yourself to the time of day,

And maybe taking some time later in your day to pray to the sun and pray to the moon.

Thank you so much for practising with me today.

Practice of Yoga Nidra is now complete.

Hari Om Tat Sat.

Namaste.

Reviews

Beautiful and soothing. So grateful. Love & blessings. 💙🙏

Thank you and a good night.

Beautiful!

Such a lovely grounding and soothing practice thankyou!