Winter Solstice Yoga Nidra

We are deep in Giamos- the cosmic Celtic principle of the dark, nighttime, the Otherworld, death, chaos, the wild, and the magical. Lose your shape in the network of dark intelligence to become unstuck. Dissolve into ‘Dreamtime’ (the period from Winter Solstice to Imbolc) to co-shape with the planet and access the riotous life force that lives underground.

Transcript

Welcome,

Welcome,

My name is Kathy French and thank you so much for joining me for this Nidra practice to honour the Celtic Wheel of the Year.

As you get yourself set up now with all your lovely stuff,

Maybe a blanket,

If you have an eyepillow,

And any warmth and comfort you might need,

And start to feel your eyes drift away now from all artificial light.

Any electronic frequencies,

Pixelated screens,

Letting your eyes close and calling all of that light and energy of seeing and looking and understanding back into the cave of your skull.

Imagine the flicker of a simple candle flame now,

As you soften your gaze at the space between your brows.

Heavy eyeballs and eyelids,

And the muscles broaden and become effortless as you sink into darkness.

Be cuinne gada inoc fuinneo glasda is tinn a bhfona ar chealach ainge.

Shining candles will be lit in every window,

And a fire of turf on each hearthstone kindled.

Situate yourself in the centre of a perfect circle,

Directly above the throbbing heart of the planet,

With this image of a candle flame anchoring your vision to the space between your eyebrows,

Your little candle in the window.

This nidra invites you to engage with,

Rather than isolate from the world.

We don't live on a planet.

We are the collective unfolding of a planet,

In a cosmos.

We take our place in an unbroken tradition of surviving under one another's shadows.

Ar sgá a chéile a bhfárin na díní.

Co-shaping with the land,

Life force,

And biodiversity.

We are the collective unfolding of love.

And now this practice invites you to feel into your cellular entanglement with all that surrounds,

Supports,

Moves through,

And receives us,

Both seen and unseen.

To slip into the streams and become with the world that you inhabit.

And within that becoming,

To lose shape.

And in that freedom of form,

To untie yourself from individualism,

Perfection,

Purity,

And control.

This practice is a strategy to break loose from attempts to make us legible and measurable.

The invitations today are somewhat of a provocation.

You're invited into incapacity.

A sort of getting lost in the network of intelligent dark,

In order to become unstuck.

And there's a likelihood within this stumbling,

Humbling surrender to the web of life,

That you'll access that within you which is disruptive,

Unknowable,

And wild.

There is an activism to this practice.

It's a way of de-centering the human and returning to a porous,

Lively state of loving and belonging.

This is a state rooted in mutual empowerment.

Power with the world,

Not over her.

Invite in all your silences,

Your scandals,

Your subversions into this practice with you now,

As you sink into the palimpsest of layered alterations that is your beautiful becoming body.

And in this ongoing becoming,

Nothing you do or say is fixed.

So you can call on your sankalpa if you work with one now,

Or simply reach down into this body for a felt experience of utter aliveness.

This may come in the form of a naturally arising image or memory of your body at its most sensuous,

Celebratory,

And alive.

Inhabit this feeling of aliveness completely for a few moments.

Notice what arises and then drop it into the sweet darkness of your practice.

Within this biology of your body,

There is biography,

Sinew,

Archery,

As well as the stories of the old ones of bone,

Blood,

Land,

Tree,

Wind,

And sky.

The history,

Legends,

And myths that bore us.

Your body,

The fruit of collective genius back and forward through time.

Notice the ally of your breath wave expanding and condensing to guide you back to presence and to the collective unfolding of love.

One breath at a time.

Thinking dissolves into sensing,

Feeling,

And breathing.

Dropping into what's known as deep time.

And your relationship to geology.

Summoning the solace and care of the land beneath you to hold you now.

As we collectively turn our attention toward restoring and regenerating our love of earth.

Maybe you can feel the land respond to that love.

And take you in her arms.

Sliding down toward deep rest.

Let the cartography of your attention travel without effort through your sprawling,

Shimmering body now.

Beginning with the pulse of life that flows through your hands.

Both hands emanate aliveness in the primordial dark.

Awareness now toward your back body sinking into darkness.

And to your heart energy radiating into the dark space above you.

Dark space below you.

Space to your right.

And space to your left.

The heart.

The center of your throat.

The root of your tongue.

Tip of your tongue.

The roof of your mouth.

Teeth.

Gums.

Jaws and lips.

Your whole mouth and throat.

Your cheekbones,

Chin,

Nose.

Bridge of nose.

Right nostril.

Left nostril.

Eyelids.

Eyeballs.

Eye sockets.

Eyelashes.

Eyebrows.

Temples.

Forehead.

Whole face dissolving into darkness.

The back of your skull.

The contents of your brain.

Back of your neck.

Right shoulder.

Armpit.

Upper arm.

Thumb.

Wrist.

Palm.

Your right thumb.

Index finger.

Middle finger.

Ring finger.

Little finger.

The tips of your fingers.

The dark space between your fingers.

Left shoulder.

Armpit.

Upper arm.

Forearm.

Wrist.

Palm.

Left thumb.

Index finger.

Middle finger.

Ring finger.

Little finger.

The tips of your left fingers.

Dark space between your fingers.

Both hands.

And both arms together.

Your shoulder blades.

And the weight of the contents of your chest.

Upper back.

Mid back.

Lower back.

Sacral bone.

Pelvis.

And buttocks.

Edging your way up and down the channel of your spine.

To your right hip.

Leg.

Ankle.

Heel.

Sole of your right foot.

Toes.

Right big toe.

Second toe.

Third toe.

Fourth toe.

Little toe.

The spaces between your toes.

And the tips of your toes.

Your whole right foot and leg.

Left hip.

Leg.

Ankle.

Heel.

Sole.

Left big toe.

Second toe.

Third toe.

Fourth toe.

Little toe.

The spaces between your toes.

The tips of your toes.

Your whole left foot and leg.

The whole back side of your body.

The whole front side of your body.

The whole left side.

The whole right side.

Darkness enveloping your whole body.

Aliveness of your heart being breathed.

Brightening and thrumming.

Broadening and spreading.

Supporting.

Loving.

Unfolding.

Holding your entire form in the same awareness.

Sliding into an earthy connection.

Utter surrender to spilling out of the human.

To merge with what surrounds you.

Attention moves from matter to movement.

Witnessing life move through the human form on the breath.

Breathing earth extending herself to move as the force of life through you.

Breath moves through the collective unfolding of love.

Life moves through every aspect of this planetary existence.

Breath the fulcrum around which you exist.

Keeping your spirit anchored.

Every cell held and protected.

And in this safety emerging the ability to grow.

Sink back into remembrance of what you came here to be a part of.

Landing on a cycle.

Humble.

Humble to the web of life.

And as a gesture of your humility sink,

Soften and lose your shape here.

Slipping into deep time.

Dream time.

Becoming with the world.

Attention in all directions at once.

Resting in shimmering darkness.

Anchored to the certitude of aliveness on your breath.

Without grasping.

Attention in all dimensions at once.

Staying with it.

Effortless.

New spaces of power and potential coax open inside of you.

As you rest in the fallow space.

A cocoon of heart,

Light and energy.

Your candle in the window of your forebrain.

Shining for your community.

Full of the promise of the life we'll create together.

The presence of the old ones holding you on your journey.

And in this darkness the land below you becomes new with color,

Joy,

Biodiversity.

As you breathe,

Rest and sink back into the unknown.

Your body the intuitive pioneer of a new world.

Soft alien body awaiting new ways to imagine,

To envision,

To squirm free of conditioned experience.

Breath moves from an autonomic occurrence now into a conscious experience again.

Welcome back your breath with vigor and gratitude.

Still immersed in the dark.

Surrendering to this growth that takes place out of sunlight.

Uniting with the wisdom of the land,

The ancestors.

The encounters that undo and remake us.

The world between worlds that you've inhabited.

Now breath becomes such a source of pleasure and refreshment that it begins to animate you internally.

But you don't have to move from stillness.

These rounded,

Soft,

Smooth micro-movements from within bringing you back into the tangible community of life.

The unfolding of love beaming from your heart through your back body.

Through stratified layers of earth down into the heart of the planet.

And see this radiant loop continue back out through earth.

And up through ether,

Wind,

Clouds,

Dark and light.

Looping up and out in front of your chest.

Connecting you to all the others practicing Nidra today.

And our various pinpoints of geographical connection across the planet.

And start to welcome this body back into this space.

And return back to your stuff.

To the stories of the stuff that surrounds you.

To the blanket you have draped over you and how you came to acquire it.

Bringing back this awareness of every object threaded with story and history.

This broader than human relationship to that which surrounds you.

This loosening of the boundaries that separate the material and the non-material.

And bring the alien,

The creature body back online through movement of your fingers and toes.

Allow yourself to mimic any aspect of nature as you come back into embodiment.

Maybe you stretch and slither and wriggle around like a snake or a fish.

Maybe you unfurl your fingers and toes like claws.

And stretch and open your mouth and bare your teeth.

And when you're ready,

Take your time to roll over onto your side.

Maintaining this restful state that you've cultivated.

And then gently pushing yourself up.

And there's no rush or hurry if you would like to maintain this connection to the darkness and sit at the altar of the unknown.

For a little while longer.

But when you are ready to make your way onward with aliveness.

I invite you to step outside and look at the horizon before you look at screens again.

Take a moment to pray to the sun or the moon.

Whichever luminary is present for you at this moment in your day.

Continue on with the practice of becoming with earth.

Unraveling and reforming creation.

The practice of Yoga Nidra is now complete.

Hari Om Tat Sat.

Lekhele Gud Lua.

Le Gra.

Together again soon.

With lots of love.

Reviews

Wonderful, thank you so much for this offering Cathy! 🙏🏼

Beautiful, magical practice connecting light, body, the wilds, and deep rest with the cycles of nature. Thank you ✨☀️

what a delicious invitation to reconnect with all that is! thank you!

Precious. An invitation to be one with this magical time of year. Embrace the darkness and discover the Light within. Love and blessings to you and all Beings.. 💙🙏