So,
Inviting yourself into the most deliciously comfy position that's available to you just now.
In late summer,
We can enjoy lying on our front as well as on our back or our sides.
The benefit of lying on your front is simply one of connection with the earth.
As we come into this wonderful season of transition from the exuberance of the yang seasons of spring and summer,
Nature hangs in the balance before the inward draw of the yin seasons of autumn and winter.
And yet,
Here in Glasgow and in many other places throughout our beautiful planet,
That transition can be a bit jaggy,
A bit jumpy,
A bit all over the place.
And so,
What's really beneficial is a practice that can allow us to feel really centred and really steady amidst all of that.
And so,
I'm inviting you to explore the sensations,
The weight of your body lying,
Reclining,
Resting.
Exploring the relationship with the earth where it feels really supported so it can completely let go.
Bringing the awareness to the softness of the breath,
Flowing in,
Flowing out.
No effort,
Just easy.
And there is an effortlessness about our earth energy.
Key aspect of the earth is her ability to negotiate,
To navigate her way through perpetual change effortlessly.
And here in the microcosm of the body,
We can experience that through our breath.
And we've done all our lives without thinking.
The breath flows in and the breath flows out.
And so,
I'd like to invite you to take your awareness down to chi hai,
That place,
Just a couple of finger widths below your navel.
Or if that's too obscure,
To your navel,
Wherever feels like your centre.
Understanding how the breath moves in and out of your centre.
And so I'd like to invite you to map,
In whichever way feels good,
A little bit of that journeying in and out.
Some people might experience that as almost like rays of light coming out in every direction and then back in or imagining ripples from a central circular point,
Eddying out and coming back in.
Or in another way,
Completely different to that.
What is the rhythm of that pulse?
What do you have coming in and out of your centre?
You think about the rhythm,
Pulse of the earth,
Spinning on her axis,
Moving around the sun.
The light shining and then darkness falling,
Day in and day out.
The flow of the light,
The oxygen from all of the trees and all of the plants.
The ebb and flow of the breath of the land.
We can home right in,
Into ourselves,
Into our own cells.
And the mitochondria in ourselves that enable us to live.
And at that very level,
When they release energy,
It's in the form of light.
The light in ourselves,
The light of the sun.
Encapsulated so effortlessly by our own breath,
Flowing in and flowing out.
So you may like to imagine yourself as your own planet,
As your own earth.
Or the opposite,
Something so tiny,
You're inside your own cell.
And then swap from the vast to the tiny,
From the tiny to the size of the universe.
The effortless ease at which we can affect that transition in our minds through the breath.
Becoming once again curious about the body and the floor,
In the very place in which you are right now.
And there may be sounds of life happening around you in your home,
In your neighbour's homes.
Or there may be silence,
The sound of your own breath.
So through our practice,
Feeling connected with the infinitesimally small and the vast.
And the millions and millions of cells in our body,
We are vast.
In comparison to the universe,
We are tiny.
In the midst of the hugeness and the tininess,
There is the breath and our body lying on the floor.
And so just exploring that,
Noticing the changing pattern of sensations of touch and pressure.
Noticing what feels really good.
And if we focus our awareness there,
Can that sense of nourishing enjoyment become as vast as a universe?
And so journeying around yourself,
Around your body,
Around your current experience,
As if you're journeying through the universe,
Finding new frontiers,
New planets of comfort and release.
Starting to deepen and lengthen the breath,
Bring awareness to the breath,
Notice the breath,
Invite the breath to fill and to fall away.
And if you're lying on your back,
It may feel quite nice to bring little movements into fingers and toes.
And if you're lying on your front,
Maybe that feels good too.
But sometimes you want to do something else and so whatever really feels lovely in this very moment,
I invite you to explore that,
To invite movement in a delicious way back into your body.
If you're lying on your front,
You may end up coming into child's pose,
Knees wide,
Toes together,
Hips towards the heels and the forehead on the floor or in your hands,
Something like that.
And so as we navigate our way back into this very moment,
Back into the scale of being the size of ourselves in the space in which we're in,
That very human sized self of our lived experience,
This practice of yoga nidra inspired by late summer and the earth is now complete.
This practice is now over.
Thank you very,
Very much for listening.
