Welcome,
We offer these meditations freely and your donations make a real difference,
So thank you.
Let yourself find a comfortable position.
You might choose to rest your eyelids or keep your eyes open as you prefer.
Either way,
Letting the gaze soften.
Naturally the breath starts to slow and deepen.
Letting your tongue rest up on the roof of your mouth,
Noticing the softening that that allows through the palate and the jaw.
Bringing your awareness to the muscles of your face,
Allowing softening and then letting that awareness drop down to the throat,
Allowing a sense of warmth and softening,
Almost like warm honey,
Moving down through the throat,
To the pit of your throat,
Softening across the shoulders,
Shoulder blades melting down away from the ears,
Softness in the palms of your hands,
Each of the fingers and the thumbs and the soles of the feet,
Softening each of the toes and bringing your awareness down into the pelvis,
Perhaps deepening the breath to allow the in-breath to travel all the way down to the very heart of the pelvis and the exhale to flush through from the pelvis,
Up through the spine,
Out through the nostrils,
Breathing through the nose if that's easy.
You might naturally find that you come to an ujjayi breath,
The muscles in the throat gently contracting so the breath becomes audible.
A moment just to notice how it's feeling to be in your body,
Noticing sensation,
If there is any sensation that's apparent,
Noticing reaction,
Noticing those mental rabbit holes that we sometimes drop into as we follow a line of thought off in another direction and then smiling and coming back to the body and the breath and the moment.
You might start to notice the heaviness of the pelvic bowl,
Noticing the sitting bones as they connect with the surface that you sit upon.
Let the experience be alive as you really notice how it feels,
Exploring the dense physicality of your pelvis and your hips,
The weight.
You might come into awareness of the floor beneath and the earth beneath that,
The soil,
The rock,
The heat,
The fire at the centre of our planet.
And as we come into awareness of our relationship with earth,
Notice how that feels.
It might start to change the way that the soles of the feet feel,
It may change the way that the tailbone feels.
Deep within the pelvis,
Mula bandha,
The reservoir of potential within the pelvis.
And as the spinal column moves up from the pelvis up through the waist,
Diaphragm,
Between the shoulder blades,
Behind the throat,
Back of the neck,
To the occiput ridge,
Where the skull rests upon that top vertebrae,
The atlas.
Bringing your awareness to this channel pathway,
Noticing a sensation perhaps,
An image of the movement of light.
As you continue to breathe,
Inhale to the pelvis and exhale up through the spinal column or the midline of yourself,
Coming up to the occiput ridge,
Inhaling to the pelvis,
Exhaling to the occiput ridge.
So we're going to move towards a harmonising breath practice,
Alternate nostril.
So you can choose how you practice,
Perhaps visualising the breath moving in and out through either nostril or maybe bringing your hand up.
If you choose to bring your hand up,
Your thumb rests against one side of your nose and your ring finger rests on the other side.
And the fingertips gently press into the nose,
Not so that your nose is blocked,
You're still able to breathe through the nose,
But it is obstructed.
And your elbows pointing down,
Your shoulders stay away from your ears.
And the practice we'll do,
I'll count us through it,
Perhaps we'll do a count of four and eight.
It's usually the most effortless count.
And if you want to explore doing longer,
You could do a count of six and twelve.
And of course that all depends on the speed of your count as well.
And I'll talk us through a few rounds and then I'll stop talking and you can find the cadence of the practice that suits you today.
Okay,
So begin by exhaling out of the left nostril,
Pinch both nostrils,
Inhaling right,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Hold,
Pinch both nostrils,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight.
Exhale left,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Inhale left,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Hold,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight.
Exhale right,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Inhale right,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Hold,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight.
Exhale right,
Left,
Sorry,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Inhale left,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Hold,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight.
Exhale right,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Inhale right,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Hold,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight.
Exhale left,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Inhale left,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Hold,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight.
Exhale right,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Inhale right,
Hold.
Exhale left,
Inhale left,
Hold.
Exhale right,
Inhale right,
Hold.
As you hold,
You might naturally lift the pelvic floor.
Exhale left,
Inhale left,
Hold.
Exhale right.
And carry on at your own pace for two minutes longer.
And bringing your hand down into your lap when you feel like you're ready to rest.
Staying in awareness of breath and body.
You might notice the sound of your breath.
So you allow your breath to deepen once more.
You might notice the sounds around you.
And even if your eyes are closed,
You can start to visualize yourself in relation to the furniture and the walls and the floor and the ceiling.
Perhaps finding the softness of the smile as you bring your hands to your heart.
And we offer the fruits of our practice up to all beings.
Namaste.
