Yoga Nidra For The Seasons Within

Hello and welcome.

My name is Allie Middleton and today's practice is a yoga nidra for being with the many seasons and cycles within.

This practice is designed to accompany you through any seasons in which you find yourself.

A practice to be with and stay with yourself as you move through it and your many phases.

To prepare for this practice please come to a comfortable physical position.

You may choose to lay down on the earth on your back or on your side or you may choose to do this practice seated.

Please recruit any supports be them pillows or bolsters or blankets so that you may ground yourself by way of points of contact with the earth.

Notice where in your body you're in contact with the earth and notice the spaces between the earth and your body and ask yourself if there's anywhere you could use a little more support so that you may more fully release.

Your body may move through a range of temperatures during this practice so you may choose to drape a blanket over yourself.

Arrive here in a space as close as possible to what it feels like for you to surrender if only for the next moments to let go to relax into stillness and invite a sense of non-doing into the physical body.

And if you haven't already you may choose to close your eyes or perhaps to take a gentle gaze.

Relax your eyebrows and the corners of your eyes,

Your jaw and let your skin and the muscles of your face hang heavy.

In a few moments you will hear some music which is intended to support your journey within but for now just notice any ambient sounds in your surroundings.

Allow your attention to wander from sound to sound noticing what you notice.

And the practice of yoga nidra begins now.

In your mind's eye trace a circle around your physical body here.

The circle may grow and descend into 3d space so that it becomes an orb,

A sphere with you at its core.

And place whatever sounds you just noticed or noticed in your environment at the periphery or borderline of this orb so that within your sphere the only movement or sound that you hear is initiated from your natural breath.

Without moving to change it just be here you with your breath.

Notice how your ribs steadily expand to make room for your lungs to take in and inhale and how your ribs subtly contract to hug in towards your center on the exhale.

Inhale a sense of expansion,

Space,

Letting in.

Exhale a sense of contraction letting go.

This ongoing life-giving cycle of your breath is one of the most intimate and universal of cycles.

Stay here with this expansion and contraction in your body.

On your next inhale welcome in some wind into the house of your body.

What is the weather of your breath on this inhale?

Is it cool?

Warm?

Humid?

Dry?

Let a long exhale out and notice if there is a different felt quality,

A different weather.

Contain in this part of your same breath.

Notice how with the inhale perhaps the body feels a little lighter and the earth beneath you rises up to meet you.

So that with your exhale as your body heavies you sink a little deeper into the earth below.

Inhale lightness the earth rises to meet you.

Exhale heavy you sink in a little deeper.

Here at the center of your orb as you stay with this cycle in your body,

Your breath.

A reminder that cycles surround us everywhere.

Cycles in the natural world,

Weather patterns,

The seasons,

The way that the Sun marks the beginning and end of a day.

The way that the moon guides the tides in its many phases.

The seasonal nature of the earth reminds us that the sprouting and sowing of seeds,

The growth,

The harvest,

The abundance of fruits is inevitably followed by a fallow period as the earth restores itself and its emptiness so that it may begin again.

Cycles surround us in our social built world.

The rise and fall of regimes and revolutions,

The many phases of our multiple relations.

So to move our creativity,

Our energy,

Our inspiration through phases of expression and expansion as well as of latency,

Emptiness,

And pause.

In what cycles are you moving and circulating here?

How can you be in whatever cycle in which you are?

Return to your breath with its expansion and contraction in your body and notice if there is any space of resistance.

Is there a place that you prefer to be?

Is there a part that you are trying to rush through to arrive at the next?

Try as we might,

We cannot subsist upon an endless stream of inhales.

There is no expansion without a contraction.

Recall once more the orb that you traced around yourself and place yourself at the center once more.

We will travel through a rotation of consciousness visiting parts of our physical body only for a moment placing in our mind's eye a little star or a light of awareness as we travel to the next.

Begin with me here at your third eye,

The point between your eyebrows and the surface of your forehead.

Place a drop of light here,

Whatever color comes first.

Travel now to your right eye,

Your left eye,

Your right ear,

And your left ear.

Your right nostril,

Your left nostril,

Right cheek,

Left cheek,

Upper lip,

Lower lip,

Upper teeth,

Lower teeth.

The entirety of your face.

Travel now with your awareness to your throat center.

Place a drop of light here and now over to your right shoulder,

Your right elbow,

Your right wrist,

Your right thumb,

Right index finger,

Right middle finger,

Right fourth finger,

Right little finger,

Right palm,

And your whole right hand,

Your right wrist,

Your right elbow,

Your right shoulder,

And your whole right arm.

Return now to your throat center and over to your left shoulder,

Your left elbow,

Your left wrist,

Your left thumb,

Index finger,

Left middle finger,

Left fourth finger,

Left little finger,

Your left palm,

Your whole left hand,

Your left wrist,

Left elbow,

Left shoulder,

And your whole left arm.

Return now back to your throat center and travel down the plumb line of your body down to your heart center.

To the left side of your chest,

Right around the heart,

Your left ribs,

And the spaces between the ribs,

Your left hip,

Your left knee,

Your left ankle,

The top of your left foot,

The sole of your left foot,

Back up to your right ankle,

Your left calf,

Your left thigh,

Your left hip,

Your whole left back body here alight in the points of light you've traced,

And your whole left front body here.

Back to your navel center and traveling up the plumb line return to your heart center once more.

Over to the right side of your chest,

Your right ribs,

And the space between them,

Your right hip,

Right knee,

Right ankle,

And top of your right foot,

The sole of your right foot,

Your right ankle,

Your right calf,

Your right thigh,

Back to the right hip,

And the entirety of your right back body here,

The entirety of your right front body here,

Your whole right side body awash with light.

Travel now to your pelvic center,

Up towards your navel center,

And land at your heart center,

The center of you,

Mediating here the polarities of right and left,

Up and down,

Behind and in front.

Constellation of light remains from all of the points of the body visited here with your awareness.

Travel up now to your throat center and land finally back to your third eye,

Your whole body here alight.

With this awareness of your whole body,

Return once again to this orb with you at the center.

Behind you,

Your past,

Your history,

Your inheritance.

In front of you,

Your future,

Your potentiality,

Your possibility.

To your left on the side of your heart,

A sense of innocence and curiosity.

To your right on the side of your liver,

Your wisdom of experience and resilience.

Above you,

All that is universal and ubiquitous.

Below you,

All that is personal and particular.

Occupy the center here of your very present,

Your reality,

Your circumstance.

Now bring your awareness to the felt sensation of heaviness in your body.

Notice where in your body you feel heavy and what sensation heaviness brings.

Now notice where in your body you feel light and what sensation lightness brings.

Now welcome in the sensation of coolness.

How and where in your body do you feel cool?

Now invite the sensation of warmth.

How and where in your body do you feel warm?

Invite the felt sensation into your body of contracting.

Where and how does contracted feel in you?

And now invite the felt sensation of expansive.

Where and how in your body do you feel expansive?

Welcome the sensations that come along with feeling drained.

Where and how in your body do you feel drained?

And now welcome in the sensation of feeling energized.

Where and how in your body do you feel energized?

Now a feeling for the sense in your body where you feel lost.

How and where and what is the sensation of lost in you?

And now the sense in your body of where and how you feel belonging.

What is the felt sensation of belonging in you?

Hold yourself here in the tension and multiplicity of all of these feelings,

Temperatures,

Sensations,

Emotions.

Notice how you inhabit them and how you leave them.

How they cycle in and cycle out.

How no feeling,

No matter how lovely or difficult is final or permanent.

Now I will name some images and moments.

And just allow these moments or images to land in your body,

Bringing whatever sensations they bring.

A fallow field coated in a blanket of snow.

The very first lilac bud of spring.

The caress of warm sun on your skin.

The crunch of a leaf underfoot.

The glow of a candle in a window on a dark winter night.

A school of swallows soaring through the sky.

The taste of ocean salt water.

The smell of soil after a rain.

The sound of a wave breaking on a sandy beach.

The sound of the wave of your own breath.

The sound of the wave of your own breath.

Slowly begin to deepen your breath.

And remember where you are.

Remember that you have a body and you are so much more than just a body.

That here you cycle in stillness as much as in movement.

Notice how you feel here right now.

Take a deep inhale,

Feeling the lungs expanding,

The ribs expanding.

And exhale.

Allow the contraction to hug in closer to the core of you.

Trace your next inhale like a gentle arc in front of you,

Like the rising of sun,

Potential,

Promise.

Hold at the top of the inhale for a moment in your fullness,

Your expression,

Your ripeness.

Your exhale,

Descending into your breath.

Your exhale descends behind you like falling rain,

The sweetest release.

And hold at the bottom of your exhale for a moment in emptiness.

In this fallow space from which we can begin again to receive the next breath,

The next cycle.

With openness,

Curiosity,

And trust.

The practice of yoga nidra is now complete.

Gently lift yourself from the earth if you are laying down to a gentle seat.

And if your eyes are closed,

Maybe you welcome in and trust in yourself.

If your eyes are closed,

Maybe you welcome in a gentle soft gaze.

And just notice the feeling of the earth beneath you supporting you here,

Held.

And place one hand over your heart center and the other over your navel center.

And bow your chin toward your heart.

Hold your heart in your hand and your navel center in your other hand.

And be here with a sense of gratitude for you,

For all of your cycles and phases.

Thank you for your practice and I wish you peace and trust in this season you are in.