Hi,
I'm Christy Kelly and welcome to the practice of Yoga Nidra,
An invitation to return home,
Home to your heart.
And in these initial few moments you allow yourself the grace to arrive,
Lying on your back seeking the support beneath.
Perhaps you slide a bolster or a pillow beneath the knees,
A pillow beneath the head,
A blanket atop the body.
Your arms and your legs are equidistant from the midline,
With the palms upturned,
Invoking the essence of receivership.
And as you settle towards stillness and you bring into view your choice to practice,
And the shoulders drop,
And the breath settles,
And a welcoming acceptance ripples throughout your systems.
And you allow the eyes to soften toward the deepest recesses of the skull,
An invitation to turn the light of your awareness inward,
Not in retreat,
But as a means of remembering.
For you see,
When you first entered this earthly plane,
You moved outward as all things do.
You were born into the world as breath meeting breath,
Skin meeting air,
Soul wrapped in motion.
And you reached for the light,
For sound,
For belonging.
And as you grew,
You learned the language of outside,
Of forward momentum,
Of becoming more,
Of being everywhere all at once.
And the world praised all of your giving,
Your doing,
So you gave more,
And more.
Until something within you,
Quiet and ancient,
Beneath the noise,
The pull to prove and perform whispered,
There is another way.
Not out,
But in.
Not more,
But less.
Not away,
But home.
Such is the resonance,
A spark of light illuminated from within,
The light charging the body,
Your field.
And you find yourself at the threshold of a return,
A call to your own ground,
A call to your own guidance,
A call to your quiet power within.
And you heed this call,
And thus the practice of yoga nidra begins now.
Resting into the cocoon of remembrance,
You welcome the gentle agreement to unfurl into wakeful presence throughout this divine appointment.
Although you may find that as the space of rest amplifies,
Sleep may envelope you.
If you find your consciousness fades and you can't seem to move beyond this,
Trust that you will receive exactly what you need,
And there is a part of you that is always listening.
And in this moment,
All that is being asked of you is to follow the sound of my voice,
Knowing that if needed in moments of intense discomfort,
You can meet the rhythm of your breath,
The felt sense of the body on the ground,
And come back to the guidance of my voice when you're ready.
There'll be moments when my voice dissolves,
Know that my presence is very much here in support of your exploration.
And sankalpa,
Sankalpa,
Sankalpa.
In the quest to return to your guide of deep inner knowing,
Your practice is shaped by a sankalpa,
The seed of intention you wish to grow.
The sankalpa is stated in the present,
It is positive and concise using the powerful words,
I am,
And what follows is the quality desired.
And what is the quality that your heart desires to be made manifest?
And you state your sankalpa three times,
Silently to yourself with conviction.
With the light of your awareness,
I will guide you to map the terrain of your physicality,
Locating you within the here and now.
And so we begin as a spark of light enlivens the heart,
Where you awaken to the space deep within the midbrain.
And the light illuminates the right temple,
The right shoulder,
The right side of the chest,
The right upper thigh,
The right ankle,
The entire right side of the body bathed in the soft tender light of your awareness.
And the light of your awareness illuminates the left ankle,
The left upper thigh,
The left side of the chest,
The left shoulder,
The left cheek,
The left temple,
Where the spark of light settles at the midbrain space.
And you feel the whole left side of the body illuminated.
And the soft tender light of your awareness illuminates the felt sense of the whole body,
Alive to the light of the whole body,
Bathed within a field of light,
Softening and releasing the ways you hadn't realized you were holding yourself.
And the tender glow of your awareness dances with the fluency of your breath.
And silently you're drawn toward the base of the spine,
Where the breath fills the base of the spine in all directions and begins to ascend the central column of the spine toward the crown.
And at the crown of the head,
As the breath begins to dissolve,
It makes its descent down the central column of the spine to meet the base of the spine once more.
And you watch as the breath fills the base of the spine and makes its ascent along the channel of the spine to the crown of the head,
Where the breath then dissolves and makes its descent down the spine to the base once more.
My voice fades so you can be with the intimacy of your intricately dancing breath,
Led by the body and your deeper inner knowing.
And as the breath washes the central channel of the spine,
The experience of the spinal wash recedes.
Yet the natural rhythm of your breath weaves throughout the fabric of your being.
Every single cell,
Muscle,
Bone,
Organ and tissue is nourished with life-giving energy and pulsating light.
And the light of your awareness welcomes the exploration of sensation through the interplay of opposites.
There will be named polarities where you're guided to meet the field of names sensation devoid of story as emotions rise like clouds and dissolve without resistance.
And this experience of playing with polarity is a pathway to draw the body-mind toward homeostasis.
You become alive to the feeling of connection,
Connected to self,
To others,
To something greater.
You feel the warmth of connection,
The invisible thread that joins you to every breath,
Every star and every tree.
This feeling blooms and then dissolves,
Where you invite the feeling of disconnection,
Adrift,
Apart,
Where things don't quite connect.
And this feeling of disconnection amplifies and dissolves.
Where you call in to your awareness the felt sense of both connection and disconnection,
Arising within the same space,
With you as the silent witness and the capacity to hold both connection and disconnection in seeming opposition.
Connection and disconnection dissolve,
And you rest in open space where your experiences rise and fall.
And you invoke the feeling of alignment,
Body,
Breath,
Soul moving as one,
Like stars in their rightful orbit.
And you rest in the harmony of alignment,
And you feel this vibrate throughout you.
And the essence of alignment dissolves.
And you call forward the felt sense of misalignment,
Out of rhythm,
Out of sync.
A note slightly off in the music of your being.
And you let misalignment be there.
Misalignment dissolves.
Where you now call forward both states,
Aligned and misaligned,
Shifting,
Flowing,
Balancing one another,
Neither defining.
Holding alignment and misalignment.
Alignment and misalignment dissolve,
And you rest in open space where your experience rises and falls.
And you invoke the feeling of powerless,
Small,
Unseen,
The current of life flowing without you.
Deferring your power outside of you.
And you accept the feeling of powerless.
And then it dissolves.
And you call forward the feeling of powerful,
Rooted and radiant,
The light of the sun moving throughout you.
And you stand within this strength.
And this feeling of power dissolves.
And you call into your awareness the felt sense of powerlessness and power.
And you effortlessly hold these within the same breath as mirrors.
Both are temporary.
And behind them you remain.
And the essence of powerlessness and power dissolve.
And you rest into the still point between opposites.
A place beyond effort,
Beyond emotion.
And in this quiet space,
You find yourself barefoot on the earth.
The ground beneath,
Warm and familiar.
The buoyancy of excitement is carried within the air.
For before you is a curious path carved into the land,
Framed with hedges filled with wildflowers and stars of light.
And it would appear that the pathway is spiraling inward and counterclockwise with slow,
Winding,
Sacred curves.
The walls glow with soft light,
Seemingly pulsing with magic,
Which stirs something ancient within,
And you respond to this spark.
With no choice of direction and no decision to make,
A quiet relief floods your systems.
And with slow,
Tentative steps,
The outer world fades away and trees blur into soft greens.
Each footfall in rhythm with your breath,
The ground beneath texturized with stone and grass and earth.
Every step ceremonial as your body lets your mind know that there is time.
The spiral path folds inwards,
Each curve drawing you forward.
A flash of recognition pulses as you realize you're meeting the call of the labyrinth.
A welcome dance between the seen and unseen,
Known and unknown,
A calling toward your deepest knowing.
As you purposefully and slowly walk this winding path,
Your curiosity grows as you pass old memories,
Familiar and unfamiliar.
Not as stories,
But as feelings.
A breath held,
A moment missed,
A joy forgotten.
The magic of the labyrinth keeping you warm within her embrace.
The walls alive with shimmering lights.
Each encounter on this spiraling path reminding you of something new about yourself.
Showing you where you have turned away from yourself.
The messy parts,
The younger parts that are longing to be seen.
The tired parts,
Parts you have overextended,
Forgotten or pushed away.
And the path of the labyrinth winds like the mind.
At times the spiraling feels frustrating,
And other times it brings with it a wave of grace as masks you wear are seen.
The armor held feels safe to be witnessed.
The labyrinth doesn't ask that you push away what you are shown.
In her gentle way she continues to wind and coax you to move forward.
And you surrender to the winding hedged path,
Each footfall increasing in surety.
And the deeper you spiral the labyrinth path,
Each step feels less like effort.
And the edges of you blur and soften,
No longer separate from the path,
But part of it.
And as the body mind softens and the more you remember,
Not facts nor names but something older.
Something beneath the labels,
Past the noise of needing to be more,
That is so easily offered in place of the experience.
And knowing a truth emerges,
And the light of your awareness amplifies within.
And throughout the spiral pathway,
The warm light and the wildflowers dance with joyful abandonment,
Fluidity and grace.
And you realize that this is you,
Your own light,
Your own vibrancy,
Calling you home.
And the light magnifying the hedges draws you forward,
Confidently,
Quietly.
And your breath slows,
You are here,
In the center of the labyrinth.
And you stand within the middle,
Just as you rest into the deepest recesses of you,
Held by something vast and timeless,
The hum beneath all things.
And within this stillness,
You remember,
You have never been lost,
Only circling your way back to what has always been lost.
And here,
Within the sacred heart of the labyrinth,
You meet your truest self,
The quiet iridescence of your essence,
Untouched by the cacophony of the outside world.
And in the hush of your own heart,
You receive,
The light of your soul,
Sinking beneath thought,
Beneath feeling,
Beneath form,
A soft remembering of your ground,
Of your quiet power.
And you are reminded that there is nothing outside of you that could be more true than that which lives within.
And you listen to the echo of the soul,
Listening within.
And if it seems that nothing rose to the foreground,
Know that this messaging may arrive in dream time,
Or as you move throughout your day.
What matters is that you're creating space to begin to feel how it is to listen.
And so it comes time to walk the path outward.
The lights shimmer,
The wild flowers vibrant,
Your footfall lighter,
The mind clearer as the center of the labyrinth is carried within the fabric of your being.
Alive in your breath,
Anchored within your heart,
Guided by your soul,
You are reminded that the spiral path may call again,
As all sacred things do.
And walking the labyrinth is to walk the mirror of your inner journey.
And as you emerge from the labyrinth,
The hedge of light and the wild flowers shimmer,
Just as the morning dew evaporates beneath the rising sun.
And the path of the labyrinth dissolves.
And in your quest to be led by the guide of your deep inner knowing,
You curl toward the seed buried,
Folded within the dark fertile earth,
That holds the seed of intention you wish to grow.
Sankalpa.
Sankalpa.
Sankalpa.
And silently,
You repeat the song of the I am statement with your desired quality,
Making manifest your heart desires three times with conviction.
The practice of yoga nidra is now complete.
Soft glow animating the body shimmers as you call yourself back.
Cleanse,
Cleared and healed,
And you grow more and more awake to your divine presence within this time and space.
A fullness radiates as you sense the spaciousness surrounding you,
The potency within the air.
You become increasingly sensitized to the earth below,
The cosmos above,
And grounded within your center,
You're reminded of your unique medicine and your deep belonging.
And as you return to your wakeful presence,
You bring a soft movement to the fingers and the toes.
And that ripple from within that's expressed at the extremities may be more than enough.
Or you may feel drawn to take the arms overhead and reach into the canvas of the skin.
Further solidifying where it is that you end and the world around begins.
Haryam tatsa.
