How To Be Here Now

Talk

And we'll play with filling and belonging to the ground, to that which actually belongs us, and then emptying. And in the empty side, this creativity to gesture, and to feel and to touch and to explore space. Yeah, and part of my questioning in that is, can I recognize gravity and receive the support from gravity? Because of course, that belonging is always there. But if I don't recognize it, then that support actually isn't available to me. Yeah. Oh, the suniti. So gorgeous. We're all so lucky. Can't wait to practice with you this morning. I feel like it's already happening. The floor is yours, love. Thank you. Make

Practice

Once you're up lift your arms up towards the sky. And release your arms down. Open up your feet wide enough so that you can shift your weight here now on your feet. A little bit to the left and then a little bit to the right. And at first I'm letting my knees bend so my legs feel really available and easy. And at first I'm really tending to my relationship into the ground. You could say we are filling, filling. And now as you shift your weight filling I'm kind of just moving my arms how that how it feels good. But as I feel I'm going to notice the empty side and let the empty side float as though it were a feather and then shifting again. Filling, emptying until it floats. Filling and emptying until there's no weight. It floats. We'll fill until we empty. And now let your right leg have the weight. Left leg will be empty and now hug your left knee into your chest. Notice if there's more weight to one side of the foot and what would it be like to let your whole foot curiously touch and be touched by this ground. And now let's release the left knee and find some circles with the left leg. In this circling let it be a creative gesture into space. Reverse your circle. And we'll bring the left knee back in. Find your version of tree pose. Maybe we bring the sole of the foot to the inner thigh. Maybe towards the ankle. And then again how can my whole foot touch and be touched by this ground. And then that inspires the creative reach into space. Lengthening up through each fingertip. And release your arms down. Hug your left knee in. And slowly release your left foot down to then again fill. So shifting your way to the left to fill your weight and then empty the right foot. And we'll go side to side again. So shifting to the right. Filling, filling, filling like a scale. Until this side is so light it floats. Shifting, shifting, shifting to the left until the right foot is so light it floats. And then we keep rising up to bring the right knee in. Again we'll release our hands to find a few circles. Sometimes I like to do this with a little bit of support so I'll let my hand rest on a wall or a ledge of some kind. And then we'll reverse that circle. Belonging, rooting to find some creative expression here. And we'll bring the right knee back in and find your tree. And as your whole foot touches and receives the touch of the ground we lift the arms up. And again this question that was offered to me by one of my teachers Susan Harper. How do I belong to that which belongs me? Can I kinesthetically feel the support of gravity?

And we'll bring our hands down, hug your knee in, release your right foot to the side and then again we'll shift and float and shift weight to float. And now shift your weight to center. Root down to your feet to then extend your legs and bring your legs just a little bit closer together so they're about hip-width distance apart. Lift your arms skyward for Urdva Hastasana, upward hands. So sometimes I can feel that there's a holding or a tension pattern that is somewhere here around my shoulders and neck as I lift my arms. And for me that's a cue that I need more support or like I need to know that the support is here. So I'm going to give even more attention to my earthly body and then oftentimes I just that tension can feel there's some safety to unravel, to reach. Release your arms down. We're going to come into high crescent lunge. So you'll shift your weight into your left foot, bring your right knee back into your chest and now begin to reach your right leg back. So I'm shifting weight back, back, back, letting the right foot be curious, touches the ground eventually and there we are in our high crescent lunge. Let's play with a touch of a back bend here by again reaching up through each fingertip and going up and back. And now as you've gone up and back, how are you doing with your sense of knowing gravity? Like you're pasting the floor with your feet. A few more breaths here. Alright, let's release our hands down. Take a quarter turn to your right and we'll organize our feet here so they're nice and wide and parallel to each other. And we'll bring our hands to the floor or you can always bring your hands onto blocks and begin to lengthen your spine forward. And now bring a little more attention to your feet and here. What's it like to have equal weight? And now turn your heels in, toes out. You might even want to wiggle your feet a little bit closer together so you can bend your knees nice and wide and we'll start to rock our weight side to side. Both knees bending, a little bit of a rocking. Feeling the shift of weight. And let's take a quarter turn so we'll come to our second side. So for me, my right foot is forward here. Root down into the ground. Reach your arms up. High crescent lunge. And then from the earth, rising up. A little bit of a back bend. And can we release tension? Face and shoulders and neck. Easy lips. Taste the ground with the bottoms of your feet. And release your hands down. Take a quarter turn. Again, we're here in this wide legged place and we'll let ourselves fold this time. Shift your weight just slightly towards the balls of the feet and then release the weight of your head. Release the expression of your face. Lengthen up about halfway again. Hands underneath the shoulders. Once again, we'll turn the heels in and the toes out and bend both knees. And then staying nice and low like this will rock out a little side to side. Some of us will want to stay up on our hands. Some of us will feel comfortable coming down to the forearms. And we're rocking just a little bit outside to side. Walk up to your hands if you're on your forearms and then walk your hands up to your legs for goddess. Coming down nice and low. Open your arms up wide. Again, feeling your reach. Bring your arms out in front of you. Bring one arm on top. And then wrap your arms around to hug again. And then even with a bit of fire in your legs, can you receive this gentle hug of the arms? Again, a greeting, a hello. And we'll open the arms wide again. And bring your arms forward, other arm on top. Giving yourself a little squeeze. Receiving that squeeze. Receiving the support, the love of the arms. And we'll release the arms. Root down through both feet. Extend both arms out wide, maybe a little bit up. And let's release the arms down. And walk your feet a little bit closer together. Shift your weight again, side to side. And this time we're going to add a bit of, in one of the Tai Chi forms that I practice. There's a gesture like this called cloud hands. And I love it so much. So my hands, it's like they're holding a big fluffy cloud. And I'm emptying and filling as I've been doing, shifting weight. And the top hand is going to the direction that my weight is going. So my right hand is on top as I shift right. And my left hand is on top as I shift left. And it's pretty casual here. So you can, it's more about the experience of emptying, filling, and then this creative gesturing of the arms in space. Like a cloud's creative expression, making pictures in the sky. And we're going to come back through center, equal standing. So now we have both feet meeting the ground equally. The right side and the left side meeting the ground equally. We'll root down through the feet to extend the legs if they're not already. And feel your front body and your back body equally. Notice your interior, so deep inner listening. And here tending to the outer world and let that be equal, equal inner and outer, equal standing. Lift both arms up towards the sky. And again, this play of can my arms float like the clouds? Because I know I belong to gravity. And we'll release our arms down. So one more time with high crescent lunge. This time we'll bring the left knee into the chest. And begin to reach back through your left leg. Until your left foot finds the floor and rise up for high crescent. Again, we'll play with a bit of a back bend here. And this time we'll release both hands down. Push down into your hands and find downward facing dog. Step your left foot forward between your hands.

Rise up for high crescent lunge. Second time, second side. And release both hands down. Down into your hands and find a downward facing dog. Come forward to plank and lower your knees down. And then again, we'll shift our weight a little bit side to side again, like the kitty cat paw pawing on the pillow. And you'll shift your weight into your left hand until your right hand is light. And then again, reach your right leg back and reach your right arm up towards the sky. Again, for this variation of Vashisthasana. And slowly start to shift weight back, back, back towards your all fours. And then we'll shift our weight into the right hand until the left hand is so light it floats. Very little effort there. And the left arm rises. And then take your time and travel back to all fours. So we'll do that again. This time, you're welcome to keep your knees down as we just did. Or you can come into your full plank. And here, if you're in your full plank, then you would open up your feet to their outer hip width distance. And then you can rock your heels to the right and to the left. So we'll shift our weight into the left, the whole left hand. So don't forget about the thumb side of the hand and the pointer finger side of the hand. You'll keep shifting until your heels go to the left and your right arm rises. And now slow motion, we're heading back to plank. And then shifting weight into the right, filling, filling, filling into the left side is empty and it rises. And take your time and shift back to plank. So do that a couple more times on your own, finding your own rhythm, your own pacing. When you're feeling balanced side to side, so you'll have shifted your weight to your right and allow the left arm to rise. Then again, finding your own rhythm, come back to a child's pose, offering rest to your shoulders, rest to your wrists. And now here, noticing the subtlety of surrender, maybe arriving for that sense of belonging, belonging to gravity, being held, hugged. And we'll come on up to sit on our heels and find a little rocking moment forward and back with your pelvis. So I'm rocking my pelvis forward, bringing more weight to my pubic bones, letting that increase the whole length of the front of my spine, and then rocking the pelvis back. And that increases the length of the back body. And a few times like this, and in a way it's like we're filling the front and then filling the back body. And now rise up onto your shins and reach your arms skyward, often called celebration pose. And now feel the relationship of the ground through your shins. And then the celebration, the creative gesture into space. And we'll come forward to all fours. And if this feels reasonable, you're going to tuck your toes and press yourself back into a squat, if that seems reasonable. Of course, you can always put a blanket underneath your heels or you can come up a little bit higher. So from here, we're going to root down to rise. And then imagine that you have like a whale spout out through the top of the head. And we'll lower down, but feel space like from the crown of your head as you lower. And then we'll come up and I'm going to pretend or feel or imagine that I'm pulling up Earth's energy up through my whole body to rise. And then like a whale spout traveling back down and noticing space. So a few more times like that. So we'll inhale rise like I'm bringing up Earth up through my body. And then exhale lowering and really touching feeling being with the space around me. We rise and we travel down. One more time rising and release your hands down. And one more time, come to stand in equal standing pausing, noticing, listening. And then one more time here. Swaying side to side. And one more time, let your hands gesture like you're holding a cloud. Being with the, with the earthiness, the body, the weight shifting, emptying and filling. And then this creative expression and space, like a cloud, making shapes, shape shifting. Include your breath. And release that coming to center again for equal standing. So a balancing of weight. And of course, there's so much movement inside what we think of as being balanced. So much movement and what we think of as being still. What is it like to both equally inhabit the right side and the left side of your body? What is it like to attune with gravity? And when I think of that, I'm letting the earthy substances of me, like, you know, my skin, my flesh, my bones, my muscles, my organs, all of me, like the earthiness of me know the ground. And again, let's reach the arms up. And in this gesture, let's have the space of us know the space. So of course, if we were to go smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller into our bodies, we would find space. Can the space of you know space? And let's release our hands down. Open up your feet a little bit wider, turn your toes out.

We'll travel through a squat. And then down. And if it works for you, you'll simply bring your hands behind you and have a seat on the floor. Cross your legs. I'm going to grab my blanket again and have a seat on it. Cross your legs so you have your right shin in front of your left shin. Then again, let's move the right hand to the side, give a little bit more weight into the right, and then come over to the side, a little bit more weight into your left. Shifting to the side, right hand to the side, left arm up. Full breath here. And shifting to the other side, right arm up and over. Full breath here. And we'll travel through center. In the same gesture of rocking the pelvis forward and back, we'll find here. So we'll rock the pelvis forward and let the arms open. And we'll rock the pelvis back and bring the hands into the heart. So we have a moment to bow. And we rock our pelvis forward and open up the front of the chest, open up the arms. Rock yourself back and we bow. And this is, you know, my mantra these days is what am I bowing to? What am I bowing into? What am I devoted to? And then we open up. And we fold or just allow that rounding and practice or be inside our bow. And we'll open up. And then this time, bring your hands to the floor. Keep tipping your pelvis forward. Your hands can come out in front of you and maybe allow yourself to fold. Here there's a possibility that you will start to notice more subtlety. So there's continues to be little bits of weight shifting, little bits of filling, little bits of emptying, all because you are alive and you are breathing. Just little bits of movement. And now what would happen here if you sprinkled in a little bit of pleasure? Where's the pleasure? And follow that and let it melt you more into your hands. And let's slowly start to press into the hands and we'll come back up. Unravel your legs and for a moment bring your knees together, wrap your hands or your forearms around your legs and fold in. And let this again have the quality of the hug, the offering of the hug and the receiving of the hug. And we'll come back up to find a cross legged left leg in front of the right. And again, this rocking. So the left hand comes down and then we'll shift. One of the things I've been playing with with gravity is that there's an attraction here. And as we know, we go towards what we love. And that is part of our life force. So we move towards what we love and towards what loves us. So what if in the shifting side to side there is an attraction? Something to play with. So the next time your left hand goes to the side, we'll let the right arm go up and over. And we'll come back through center, right hand to the floor, left arm up and over. Coming back through center, open up your arms, tilt your pelvis forward, opening up the front body, rock your pelvis back, lengthen your back body and bring your hands together in front of your heart. Prayer. And then we open up. And we find our bow. Again, what do we bow to? What do you bow to? The next time you open up your arms and you're lengthening the front body, moment to pause and then keep tipping your pelvis forward to bring your hands out in front of you, can be your hands, could be your forearms, could be blocks. So you want to come, you don't want to go too deep that you start to move into a holding pattern where it's impossible to connect to pleasure there. So you want to come out a little bit so that you can be with subtlety, so that you can melt into what feels like a mystery to me, feels like wonder. Oh my God, a magnificent body touching a magnificent earth, an infinite space. And in this you might find little bits of shifting, little bits of movement. And we'll slowly start to walk ourselves back up.

And then again, bring your legs together and hug your knees in. And one more time we'll fold in. And here I'm offering myself a hug. I'm receiving that hug in the same way that gravity holds me. Again, allowing for that sense of belonging. This is my spot. I have a place here. And we'll slowly start to lift our heads and transition now to your back. So constructive rest, where we bend our knees and we place our feet on the floor. Hopefully there's very little effort to be here. Very gently begin to roll your head a little bit to the right, and a little bit to the left. And as we've been doing throughout the entire class, there's a filling. So as you roll your head to the right, the right side gets heavier and heavier and heavier. And as you roll your weight to the left, the left side gets heavier, fuller, more weighted. Continue to rock your head side to side, taking your time and noticing when you rock your head through center, the balancing. As you rock your head side to side, become aware of the contents, the contents of your skull shifting side to side. And notice what that is doing to your overall sense of being here. What's happening to your breath? What's happening to your energy? What's happening to your nervous system? Let's find center and begin to root down through your feet, which will bring your low back closer to the floor. Keep rooting down to your feet to lift your hips up for your bridge. So any arm variation is fine. Your hands can be to the floor, your elbows could bend, you could interlace your hands. Notice more equal weight between your feet, more equal weight between the shoulders. And that equal weight allows there to be this creative lift through the pelvis and spine. A few more breaths here. Do you have equal weight between the inner foot and the outer foot? Let's release the hips back down. Pausing, resting, noticing. And let's come up again. So again, feeling the feet rooting down. Let that energize the back of your legs to support a lift of the pelvis. And then again, you're choosing your arm variation here. So I want my whole foot to know, each foot to know the ground, to know gravity, to know I'm, I'm here, I belong here. And that allows for this movement through my pelvis to rise the backs of my legs to be energized. I'm going to be easy in my face. What a relief. And gently release your hips back down. Open up your feet so they're wider than your outer hips.

And begin to rock your knees to the right and rock your knees to the left. Just like we were doing with our head, just like we've been doing with our weight through this whole class. Shifting side to side. And now as you move your legs side to side, notice your feet. What sides of the feet are getting more heavy, more weighted, more full? And how is that allowing the other side of the foot to get light, to peel away, to float? So just again, a gesture of the legs, the knees side to side with some curiosity around what's happening with your feet. And when you're balanced, we'll come to center and let your knees come together. Reach your arms up and bring your right arm over your left. So my right forearms in front, right elbows in front, and then bend your elbows to once again, bring your hands around to touch your shoulder blades and feel the hug. Being held, being hugged. And opening up to receive that hug. Find a big round of breath here, letting the hug come a little bit closer in. Melting. Lift your arms up towards the sky and we'll switch sides. So your left arm will go in front and the elbows will bend. Your hands can come around to again touch your shoulder blades. And again here we have a hug. And it's so sweet, so simple, and yet quite profound if we let it in. If we let ourselves melt enough to receive this generous contact. Release your arms and then hug your knees into your chest. Send your legs over to the left and open your arms up wide for a supine twist. Now check in with your neck and make sure that there's freedom there. Be with your breathing body. And again, subtle movements. A subtle experience of rising and falling. It's like a wave. Emptying and filling.

Let's slowly travel through center. And make your way to the other side. So legs to the right, left arm over to the side. And again, maybe we could notice where the pleasure is. You can find a bit of melting. And we'll slowly start to come back through center. Hug your knees in towards your chest. One more offering of a hug. Receiving the hug. Drawing in the legs. Maybe it would feel good to rock out a little side to side. And let's start to organize ourselves in Shavasana. Of course if there's any movements that you'd like to explore along the way, feel free. And as you organize your body here, then we begin the process of settling in. In and in and in. Melting. Into the ground. Melting into the support of gravity. Melting into that which belongs us. Melting into the belonging that comes from being held and hugged into this ground. Melting into the space. Melting into the space. Melting into the space. Melting into the space. Melting into the space. Melting into the space. Melting into the space. Melting