Recorded at Viveka Gardens in Devon, England, on 23.5.23 as the conclusion to our Tuesday evening yoga session, Gentle Yoga for Folk with Chronic conditions. A lovely May evening, the May blossom has been a-may-zing this year, so tap into this superabundance of lushness. This is an invitation to rest, let go and feel at home.

20 minutes or so: time to settle, the classic long-ish form rotation of awareness around the body, evoke gratitude in the heart, suffuse the body with light-love radiance and maybe end with a sense of at-one-ment. Ideal to doze off to at the end of the day.

My name is Fiona and I am a long-time yoga teacher and facilitator of nidra.

Do not listen to this while operating heavy machinery (driving), and if going out after ensure you drink, eat and sing or chat before getting in a car to bring all your senses back.

If you like what you hear and would like to contribute, buy me a coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vivekagardens

Monthly live nidras online, Friday Night Nidra https://vivekagardens.com/friday-night-nidra/

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In Episode 3 of the 22/23 season, life in the soil stirs, Brigid spreads her emerald mantle and we connect with the light of the world.

Imbold ('ee-mulk') is the Celtic cross-quarter festival midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It is lovely to mark the growing length of days, the stirring of life in the soil - sometimes you can catch a sweet whiff of the micro-organisms' exhale - and the emerging bulbs. St Brigid's day on 1st February has become a national festival (finally) in Ireland, and a Bank Holiday the following Monday, honouring the divine feminine in the pre-Christian druidic goddess, and the amazing fifthe century Brigid.

A feisty girl, she refused the suitors her father chose and instead took the veil, coming to found a monastery reknowned for its learning. St Kildare's was apparently founded on the site of a sacred flame kept alive, so she is the keeper of the flame. A bishop visiting was awestruck by the halo of flames she had and accidentally made her a bishop (the first one; the rest of the world caught up in the 21st century). Brigid symbolises the tender girl in the triple goddess also of woman and crone, tender like the shoots and the newborn lambs.

Imbolc is thought to have its etymology in the coming in of the ewes milk, and so is linked to fertility and all that is good in the grass and the good earth beneath it. Sarah, one of the regular students here at Viveka Gardens, says Devon with its gentle green rolling hills reminds her a lot of Ireland back home. Walking on the hare-prayer field here, you can feel the life in the rich soil beneath.

Candlemas is a church tradition where folk would bring their candles for blessing by the priest. It's at the time of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, when Mary and Joseph brought their baby into the temple for ritual and the old guardian Simeon recognised the divinity, the light of the world. Candle flames represent divinity, the light of the world and the lights of the world that we are too.

Lots to weave together in this nidra. I hope you find it restful for mind and body, inspiring for your soul.

Recorded at Friday Night Nidra Online on 3.3.23

https://vivekagardens.com/

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This nidra was recorded as the last 30 minutes of the weekly Gentle Yoga Class Online. We started back after half term on 1st November, the middle of the feast that stretches from All Hallow's Eve (Halloween, or Samhain) through All Saints and All Souls. A thin time of year, half way between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice. A turning point, a cusp, a liminal time, just as nidra is a liminal space between waking and sleep. A tipping over from Autumn to Winter, perhaps useful at any tipping point in any of your seasons.

I hope you like the floating pumpkin (squash), it was grown at VG

If you like and value this nidra you can make a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vivekagardens

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