“Yoga nidra (Sanskrit: योग निद्रा) or yogic sleep) is a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping, like the ‘going-to-sleep’ stage. It is a state in which the body is completely relaxed, and the practitioner becomes systematically and increasingly aware of the inner world by following a set of verbal instructions. This state of consciousness (yoga nidra) is different from meditation in which concentration on a single focus is required. In yoga nidra the practitioner remains in a state of light withdrawal of the 5 senses (pratyahara) with four of his or her senses internalised, that is, withdrawn, and only the hearing still connects to the instructions. The yogic goal of both paths, deep relaxation (yoga nidra) and meditation are the same, a state of meditative consciousness called samadhi.”
Confession time. Apart from the odd twenty-minute practise here and there, Miss ‘I love yoga, you should try yoga, omg yoga yoGA YOGAA’, didn’t practise yoga for the best part of last year (spiritual plateau, if you were curious). I watched new yogis pop up on Instagram, re-read the benefits, knew how necessary on a personal level it would be to get my energy/prana/chi flowing and noted how much better I felt after one of those twenty-minute flows. But the cba hurdle (means ‘can’t be arsed’ if that’s unfamiliar) I had to get over to start each practise always had me torn between two mindsets – if you want it, make it happen (à la Liz Gilbert walking around her house saying random words to get that creative energy flowing) and waiting to feel like doing it… and I usually favoured the latter. However, sometimes, when I felt I had no time, when I’d been on my feet all day and only wanted to binge Netflix, when I was mentally drained, when I felt way too vulnerable to unfurl myself or when all I felt like doing was lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling – well, there’s a pose for that, that’s when a down-dog could’ve really come in handy. Yoga, with its’ push for self-awareness and acceptance, is so much more than just a physical practise after all. Of course, sometimes it’s best to trust your instincts and not force yourself to do something you don’t feel like doing, it’s just, in times like I described, monkey mind was often drowning out whatever my instincts may have been saying.
If you too are figuring out the balance between flow and force, the following basic poses and gentle stretches will get you tapped back in to help you determine how much to push yourself.
And look, you don’t even have to leave your bed to do it!
1. Sit in a comfortable position, where you won’t be disturbed and relax your shoulders (rolling them up back and down will help this or even just lifting your shoulders towards your ears and just dropping them). Inhale for 4 counts, hold your breath for 7, then exhale for 8. Repeat this 4-7-8 pattern three or four times. This count will really help slow down your breathing and focus your mind to the present. As this won’t take much more than a minute, it’s great to do whenever you feel you need grounding. If you’ve more time or you feel you want to continue, some gentle seated twists would be great to massage your lower organs and stretch your abdominal muscles, often where stress is held. Place your left hand on your right knee, and your right hand behind you. Sit up taller on an inhale, then twist gently to your right on an exhale. Do this a couple more times before repeating on the other side.
2. Heart openers help with tightness in the chest and opening your heart chakra, helping release emotions. Start on your belly and extend your left arm to the side. Slowly roll over it so that you feel a stretch in your chest and use your right arm for stability in front of you (or if it’s comfortable, rest your hand on your lower back). Stay here for about five breaths before rolling back onto your belly and repeating on the other side. If you want to kick things up a notch, some other chest openers you could try, include cat-cow, camel pose, fish pose, sphinx pose or bow pose.
3. Legs up the wall is such a simple pose, yet the benefits feel so pronounced! Just move your hips as close to the wall as possible and walk your legs up. Let your arms rest gently to the side. In this position, gravity will help with circulation in your upper body and brain, you will feel a stretch in the back of your legs and your lower back gets some yummy relief. Fantastic if you’ve been on your feet all day and great coming off a flight if your legs or feet have swollen.
4. The physical nature of child’s pose is looking in, it is a physical representation of reflection. Aside from opening your hips, stretching your back and being fab for your digestion, this restorative pose offers relief, comfort and grounding, relaxing your entire body and slowing your mind as you curl into yourself. Start on your hands and knees, bring your big toes together and open your knees as wide as feels comfortable. Move your hips towards your heels and extend your arms out in front of you, letting your head rest on the floor (or bed) or a block. Stay here for at least five deep breaths.
I just wanted to say, that of course, yoga is not the be all and end all, it doesn’t solve everything and the way in which something works for one person won’t be the same for someone else. Finding what feels good (a phrase coined by Yoga with Adriene) for you, is always key.
Namaste!
[Next lesson: Yoga For Your Chakras: Muladhara/Root]
“Dreams have much to teach us about how we “construct” our experiences and sense of identity or self in our waking life. During mindless daily life, we seldom look deeply enough into our perceptions, conceptions, and projections to recognize that our selective attention, biases, preconceptions, and assumptions are actually weaving together to construct our experience. Properly understood as expounded in the philosophy of Tibetan dream yoga, our ordinary life is seen to be a “waking dream” subject to many of the same conditions of our “sleeping dreams.” Learning to wake up within our dreams, and see and understand deeply and clearly what is going on, can be a profound path of awakening. As Thoreau said, “Our truest life is when we are in our dreams awake.”
Excerpt from Shaping Formless Fire by Stephen Mace
The major point of yoga for magick is to train your body, your breathing and your thoughts so they don’t bother you while you’re trying to do magick. This is especially important for astral projection, which is a sort of conscious journey into the unconscious, but it’s also helpful for the various types of conjuring—just to train you to keep your mind on what you’re doing. Here are some ways you can get started: 1) Posture. You need to train your body so it doesn’t bother your mind. To do this, simply sit in a chair with your back straight and your head erect. You can put a cushion on the seat, you can find the most comfortable place to put your hands, and so on. Then decide how long you’re going to sit (fifteen minutes is good to start) and do so, without moving, until the time is up. Don’t lift your hand to scratch your face. Don’t shift your thighs to readjust your weight. Just sit until the time is up. Of course you won’t be perfect at the start. Your face will itch so much that you will scratch it. Your head will sag and you will straighten it again. This is understandable at the beginning, so it’s nothing to worry about. The important thing is not to quit before the time is up. If you’ve decided on twenty minutes twice a day, sit for twenty minutes twice a day, and only sickness or the death of a near relation should be sufficient excuse to break your schedule. The results here are remarkable. When you start the practice, it will seem easy. Then you will realize that it’s only easy because you aren’t doing it properly—which is to say, you’ll be moving without realizing it. If you persist and correct yourself, you will succeed, but you will find that it hurts, and you will be so stiff when you finish that you’ll have to take some minutes to stand up. But then if you still persist, you will reach a point where you can sit without moving and stand without pain. And so you will have succeeded, and the posture will be your tool for the rest of your life. 2) Breathing. You can do this while you work on the posture. Simply breathe in to a count of four, hold to a count of four, breathe out to a count of four, and hold your lungs empty to a count of four. Don’t breathe so deeply that you hyperventilate and fall over. Just make the patern a habit so the need to breathe doesn’t bother you anymore. 3) Concentration. For this, simply visualize a simple object—say a red square. Do not let it change in shape or color. Do not let it sprout leaves or develop a background. Do not let it spawn thoughts of the Kremlin or Lenin’s Tomb. At first you should be able to do this for about three-tenths of a second. Keep at it, and at the end of the two years maybe you’ll be up to five or ten seconds. But don’t try too hard. It is possible to strain the mind.
Stephen Mace, Shaping Formless Fire (Temple: New Falcon Publications, 2005), 34-35.
Shavasana (Corpse Pose) is fundamental to modern yoga and has been essential for several hundred years. But it did not start as an asana, and its earliest iteration wasn’t even technically part of hathayoga.
The earliest instruction describes this practice as part of layayoga or the “Yoga of Dissolution,” in which we strive toward “dissolution of the mind.” At this point in history (12th century) the techniques of layayoga are separate from hathayoga and include meditating on emptiness, staring at the tip of the nose and staring between the eyebrows. You may recognize some of these techniques from modern yoga, especially the focused gaze which is now commonly referred to as drishti.
Forgotten Early Yoga Teachers in America: William Walker Atkinson
Perhaps the most significant early American yoga teacher was a Baltimore-born attorney named William Walker Atkinson. After experiencing a mental breakdown at the turn of the century, Atkinson found solace in the positive thinking school of New Thought. He promptly left the law to pursue a new career as a prolific New Thought author and exponent. Under the pseudonym “Yogi Ramacharaka,” Atkinson wrote 13 books on yoga between 1903 and 1909. The yoga offered by Ramacharaka was approachable and practical, an eclectic mix of self-help, positive thinking, theosophy, physical culture, and medical science. Quickly translated into other languages and distributed around the globe, these books influenced everything from the acting method of Konstantin Stanislavski, the practice of Reiki in Japan, and the writings of Carlos Castaneda. They even inspired a young woman later known as Indra Devi to travel to India and study yoga.
Occult Aspects 