HeartMap - Spirit Practice 1

Welcome to the practice of yoga nidra.

Set yourself up in a comfortable position in an environment that supports the feeling of safety.

Take a long lay down,

Let both arms and legs fall heavily away from the midline.

Support yourself with a blanket over the entire body,

But release the palms up towards nothingness.

Let each fingertip rest gently across the open expanse where the limited wind inside of the room moves between each finger,

Uninhibited and completely unobstructed.

Use a pillow to support the back of the head and take this time here as a symbolic gesture of self-care to find complete and total comfort where the weight of gravity can be felt as you are secured into your platform.

And it's here once the body becomes still where you find the gentle breath that moves slowly and tenderly nourishing the body,

Feeding each cell with oxygen,

Creating the nature cycle of receiving and releasing.

And once you settle,

Check for any dis-ease or discomfort and make this effort here to ensure complete and total stillness.

Take this time to show compassion and whole kindness to the eternal self which exists inside of this physical body.

And once you are completely comfortable,

Stable and steady,

Let go of any holding of weight.

Place all of you into the gentle supportive lap of the earth where all of the weight of worry,

Fear,

Any emotion that you've been hanging onto that has brought extra weight into your body can be completely released.

Knowing that the earth is able to take this from you,

To hold this in safe space so that you may drop into a level of higher consciousness where this weight cannot follow.

And now begin to feel the skin,

The tensile separation between you and the energy that exists outside of you.

And inside of the skin,

This beautiful wrapping exists the muscle body,

Bone,

Tissue,

Ligaments,

And joints.

And through all of that is the endless flow of blood.

And I'm so aware of this flow of blood that rushes underneath the surface of the external eye.

Land into your inner body.

Attune the inner eye,

The inner knowing,

Inner hearing,

Inner seeing to the rush of blood that's moving underneath the surface.

And you are so heightened and aware that perhaps there is even the sound of the rush of blood.

Let awareness fall into the gentle breath,

Which rocks your body,

Watching it with the higher seat of self,

A higher knowing of the intelligence at work through breath.

The gentle breath coaxing the mind into a completely passive yet aware state.

With the intellectual mind at ease,

The explorative mind senses into the energy field just outside of our physical dense nature.

And perhaps you can feel the energy field wrapping around the total body in all four directions,

Even through the dense support that you lay upon.

It radiates into the earth.

It cycles around the whole body.

Inside of this auric bubble,

Release the weight of yourself.

Release any heaviness that followed you into this space.

Let go of any tension that exists in the jaw,

Any lifting of the shoulders,

Any gripping of the muscle.

And it is here now where the truth of the practice begins,

Where we reach for and find the sankalpa,

The heart's truth.

And we are remembering the truth of this vow to our heart,

The one that our soul has made before the intellectual body created stories,

Created beliefs.

Go back to the time when you remembered with conviction your sankalpa.

And it is here in this fertile soil of soft body and awakened awareness where the heart can remember this truth.

Repeat your sankalpa silently three times and see it being dropped into the center of your heart.

Three times,

Repeat your sankalpa.

I am.

I am.

I am.

You can let the sankalpa go.

Let it be absorbed by the mantra of your heart,

The endless beating,

The unique drum.

Allow your heart to absorb your sankalpa,

Releasing it entirely along with the weight of you and hold consciousness in the palm of the right hand.

Hold conscious awareness into the right thumb and then let it travel to the index finger and be brought over to the middle finger of the right hand.

And then the ring finger and your baby finger,

All five fingers and palm of the right hand.

And pull the awareness upward into the wrist,

Into your forearm and the whole of the elbow joint.

Upper arm.

Right shoulder girdle.

Right clavicle bone.

The right half of the sternum.

And the right rib cage which wraps from front body to back body.

The organ body that exists through the right side belly.

Moving down the right side into your hip.

Muscle and bone of the whole right leg.

The heel of your foot.

The sole of your foot.

The five toes.

Big toe.

Second toe.

Third toe.

Fourth toe.

Fifth toe.

Have awareness of the whole right side body.

Fingertip to toe tip.

Shoulder to heel.

Whole right side body.

Land the awareness of self into the left palm.

Let all of your attention be pulled into the left palm.

And from the palm into the left thumb.

Index finger.

Middle finger.

Your ring finger.

And your baby finger.

Awareness of the whole left palm.

And all five fingers.

Upward into the wrist.

Forearm.

Elbow joint.

Upper arm.

Shoulder girdle.

Clavicle.

Left sternum.

And the floating rib cage which attaches front to back.

Left side of the organ body.

And continuing down the left side body,

Land into the hip.

Muscle and bone of your whole left leg.

Heel.

Sole of your foot.

All five toes.

Big toe.

Second toe.

Third toe.

Fourth toe.

Fifth toe.

Whole of the left foot and all five toes.

Bring total awareness to the whole left side body from fingertip to toe tip.

Shoulder to heel.

Whole left side body.

Now we'll move from the heels up the back body and then down the front body.

Simply choose the heels of your feet where they're meeting the earth held in sacred.

Each point of view in contact as we move our way up the back body from the heels to your calves,

Hamstring,

Right and left glute,

Lower back,

Mid back,

Upper back,

And down the length of both arms.

Backs of the hands.

Back of your neck.

And the skull where it rests against the earth.

To the tip of the head that touches nothing but a connection to consciousness.

And from that space we'll move down the front side of the body over the forehead.

And the eyelids where they gently meet each other.

The whole of your nose.

The softness of your cheeks.

The parting of your jaw.

Chin.

Whole of your throat.

Both arms.

Palms touching nothing.

Right and left breast.

Sepal belly.

The hip points.

Tops of the legs.

And all ten toes.

Whole body awareness.

Whole body awareness.

Whole body awareness.

From here with awareness of the whole body,

Hold this awareness steady.

Soul of the foot to the top of the head.

Front and back.

Left and right.

Pranamaya kosha.

With awareness of the whole body,

Feel your breath being moved like the wind as it shifts through the nose and crosses over the entire inner landscape of the body.

From the crown of the head to the tip of the toes,

The breath washes through your body.

Each inhale being pulled in to the pool,

The tide of the body.

Each exhale releasing into ether,

Into the landscape of total consciousness.

Pulling breath into the tide and releasing.

Watching the endless cycle of receiving,

The full body wash with no rush,

No time set.

Continue to be bathed in breath,

To be washed clean of worry.

Stay with the cycle of breath.

Watch it move through your still body with its own innate intelligence,

Its own innate healing.

You just have to be present for this.

There is nothing else to do.

Stay present in watching the breath move through you.

Full body.

Manamaya kosha.

And the spectacular layer of the mind.

To be able to witness,

To see without judgment,

To feel with neutrality,

To experience each word with non-attachment and non-aversion.

To become wholly present through the next series of rapid visualization.

Stay with the guidance of my voice and the tempo of instruction.

As each word is called out,

Become the experience and then release the experience.

Three floating swans,

A light breeze across your face,

A vast expanse of open purple water,

A sea of swimming turtles,

A mother and her fawn,

A bed of moss,

A field of yellow flowers,

Clear quartz pendulum,

An open wound of a broken heart,

A child left alone with a free spirit,

A closed breath,

And an open door.

Realization,

Realization,

Realization,

A green cloudy sky,

A street filled with pink elephants,

A room of yogis dressed in all white,

An empty church,

The sound of a gong,

A sound of a gong,

The ancient wisdom of Aum.

As we enter Vijayana Mayakosha,

You will be given so much space to explore,

To be inside the mind released and free of its cage.

Encourage yourself to become so open to new ideas,

To see what comes and to trust what it is.

Through the cycle of nature,

The caterpillar finds a branch and this caterpillar is a beautiful lime green with a red horn on its head and the same on its end.

He slowly makes his way up the path to his inevitable death,

But he carries on inch by inch and he finally makes it to a safe place that he calls home and begins to spin an outer web that seals his fate as the creation of the cocoon is formed.

And this caterpillar is the soul of yourself.

And you can feel the walls closing in around you as you make your final bed.

And there is still a little light left at the top as you close the door.

Here you are in complete darkness.

Here there is the opportunity of transformation.

And the caterpillar has chosen this path.

Despite the unknown on the other side,

You are urged forward through instinct and not just instinct through inner knowing that the timing is now.

And as you close that door and darkness prevails,

That there is a death to mourn.

Inside of this cocoon,

There is something that must be left behind that cannot be carried with you into your new life.

And it is a deep sense of trust to go forward in this metamorphosis.

Inner is a strong inner knowing,

A calling for something more.

Inside of this cocoon,

Something must be shed.

And you could choose to die and to stay inside of this cocoon and to never be released into something that is completely unknown.

And that is absolutely a choice.

In order to move into this new life where ground becomes sky,

Where weight becomes wings,

There is no space for who the caterpillar was.

He has to completely let go to release all his feet,

To let go of his earthly body,

To become the winged,

Magical butterfly.

And as this butterfly is released from the cocoon and the transformation is made,

The brilliance of the silver wings on your back begin to take flight,

To leave and never look back the morning of the caterpillar because you have fully embraced that of the silver-winged butterfly.

Light as a feather,

No attachment to the old,

And a trust and knowing of the new.

And this transformation came at a cost of the old life,

Of the old body.

This transformation came with complete and total trust in the cyclical form of nature where we must release in order to receive the inner knowing that death is imminent in the physical form as well as the emotional form.

The butterfly cannot stay the caterpillar.

The butterfly has its own new outlook,

Its own instincts,

It has completely shed away what was the caterpillar.

By turning towards the darkness,

The butterfly found light.

By releasing himself from one body to find another,

The transformation is made.

The transformation is made.

And it's here where you can call back your sankalpa and you can assign it a home inside your heart that guides you into the knowing,

The remembering of who you are.

Simply repeat your sankalpa three times.

I am.

I am.

I am.

And you know this.

Your heart knows this.

And with that knowing,

You call to life the ideas that support it through the whole entire body.

You are the butterfly.

Beginning to gather awareness of the spatial self where you exist inside the room where you landed,

The distance between you and the closest object,

And the expansiveness of the energy body that surrounds you,

That touches virtually everything within distance.

Notice how far your hearing travels and then pull it back close.

Let yourself be breathed by something other than the mind.

Be in co-creation.

Feel your breath.

Let all of the wisdom of its teachings land so heavy into your heart.

And when you're ready,

Begin to release the stagnant energy inside of the narrowings of your body by moving first through the ankle joints.

And know that you are opening up a pathway of energy as you move towards the wrists and roll them open and turn your head from side to side.

And the Tao believe that this is an opening of the energy pathways.

And as you bring yourself back to life,

It is here where the practice of yoga nidra completes.

Hari Om Tat Sat,

Hari Om Tat Sat,

Hari Om Tat Sat.

Hari Om Tat Sat Sat.

Hari Om Tat Sat Sat Sat Sat Sat.