Wednesday November 22
Meeting the evening before Thanksgiving. Most years we skip this evening but we had a special request to hold a meditation session. Guess what the topic may be?
Wednesday November 15
This week brought a clear calling for a guided meditation on inclusiveness and universality. So many of the challenges in this life experience are made worse if we think of ourselves as separate beings existing within the boundary of the skin of our bodies. Outside of the body: not me. Inside the body and mind: that must be me.
So many ways to work at breaking free of this limiting and incorrect assumption. This week we used a guided meditation from Ram Dass titled ‘Guru Meditation’. The script can be found on this page: https://www.ramdass.org/guided-meditation-library/
Wednesday November 8
This evening’s meditation was done lying down, in the yoga pose called Shavasana (or Savasana or śavāsana). Lying down sounds simple. Meditation can sound simple. Just lie down or sit, and close your eyes.
But the details matter, and practice and effort leads to deeper experiences and improved results.
In this Shavasana we used 3 techniques:
- Tense and relax each group of muscles (legs, hips, belly, chest, shoulders and arms, face and head, neck)
- Mental suggestion — say to yourself “I relax my feet”, pause and concentrate on that, then say to yourself “my feet are relaxed”.
- Concentration — while lying relaxed don’t just leave your mind free to wander as it pleases. Concentrate your awareness on something, initially most useful is concentrating on breath or body awareness.
No snoring was heard!
Savasana is a foundational part of the yoga asana sequence I’ve been teaching lately. Practicing moving from effort to stillness, alternating between physical exertion into a posture, and then relaxing into Savasana.
Here’s a link to a page with a discussion on shavasana techniques:
Wednesday November 1
Shortly after the full moon. Many of us feeling low-energy. To balance us and raise energy levels we worked on alternate nostril breathing, including pausing on full breath, working at our own pace, breathing as slowly and deeply as is comfortable. For details on this and other pranayama techniques please contact me and schedule an in-person or online session. Details matter, and not all these practices are appropriate for all people and all situations.