August 2 yoga nidra

a little story to start the practice

We are the Earth in motion, in action, in thought. We forget this. We think we are somehow separate. In yogic terms, any sense of separation is termed avidya. Yogic practices are ways we remember that we are part of everything. They aren’t how we reconnect - because we are never separate. They are the means by which we remember we are inherently connected.

Sometimes, getting really still is the way to fall all the way back into connection.

When the details of my life get loud it is easy to lose the perspective that I Am Everything. Over the past weekend I found myself positively graceless in a number of circumstances right before which I had whispered under my breath, “be kind, be patient, be kind, be patient,” to no avail.

But I did have the good sense to stop. To find a place that was quiet and cool and I could fall into a new perspective and start from there.

That’s what these Sunday nidras are for; the backpocket remedy when nothing else is working, when there is so much to do that you realize you need to stop doing all of it and see what remains.

This nidra is the first one I ever learned - taught to be by Shiva Rhea herself (if you are old enough to know who she is). It has always stayed with me.

I added a story beforehand that I have been playing with. My mom is 94 and asked me about my thoughts on what happens after death. This story came to me as the best means of explaining how I feel about it currently. As a seminarian and a spiritual director in her own right, it pleased me to see her smile, to think she found comfort in it.

May you find comfort too, and remember you are everything. Rest well.