At year’s end we practice yoga nidra, the yogic sleep, to empty our vessels and clear out the cobwebs of distraction and despair. And what a year it has been! In the days following the election so many of us have felt a collective clench, a kind of unconscious contraction. This December then is the perfect time to drop into the profound relaxation of yoga nidra. It reminds me of the teachings in Tibetan Buddhism on taking refuge. We can take outer refuge in enlightened beings, in power spots on the land, and in the goodness of others. And there is the innermost refuge that is a place of fearlessness and serenity. In this yoga nidra we will drop into this innermost refuge.
In yoga, savasana, and meditation laya yoga is a time tested technique to dissolve the obstacles of mind that block contact with this innermost refuge. In this practice of yoga nidra we enter a space not just of relaxation and ease– which are wonderful unto themselves– but a space of open possibility. In our practice of yogic sleep we go into the interstitial spaces—between cells and tissue fibers, around the brainstem and around the heart. Like the Japanese artist and haiku poet Yasunari Kawabata said, “The heart of ink painting is in space, abbreviation, what is left undrawn.” In the crutch of this year we lose sight of our own spaciousness, we forget that there is a whole world that can never be colonized and claimed by the men in power. As the poet Amanda Gorman wrote, “What we have left is all we need. We are enough, armed only with our hands, open but unemptied, just like a blooming thing. We walk into tomorrow, carrying nothing but the world.”
In yoga nidra, we drop into the rich soil of our being and rediscover a vast space within. And we open “just like a blooming thing.” In yoga nidra it is by dissolving the old worn out self that a new life is born.
So join me here in December and take refuge in your innermost source. For it is by profound letting go that we learn to love again with intimacy and a fearless resolve.
When: Wednesdays, December 4, 11, and 18 | 9:30 – 11:30am Mountain Time
