Day 4: Listening

Welcome to day four, where we will explore our sense of hearing. If you bring your hands to the side of your head, kind of cupping over your ears, you'll start to say hello to your temporal bones, these bones right here, where your ears and your inner ears live inside this bone, and it's quite deep, so if you bring your fingers to your cheekbones, and then with your felt sense, go in to the center of your skull, your inner ear is that deep. Place your hands and notice what it's like to listen from deep inside your skull, sound touches us, we are constantly being vibrated by the world around us, and by our own voice. If you're comfortable with it, close your eyes and learn about your environment through sound. Let sound touch you, and notice what it's like to listen with more detail, find one sound to focus on, and notice what it's like to receive more sound in a wider way, it's like seeing peripherally, that word didn't want to come out.

Now gently let yourself sway a little side to side, to let sound move you, the way sound vibrates water, and as you move, can you still tend to the sounds in the room, and the sounds outside and sounds inside, inside your body. Then we'll find some stillness, and then transition up to stand, and we'll try that on here. So again, letting yourself sway a little bit side to side, and if it's helpful you can close your eyes, to again be with sound, and to learn about your environment through sound, through listening. And gently allow your eyes to open, and can you see while simultaneously tending to what you hear? Can you see while simultaneously listening?

And find some steadiness, and we'll find a few sounds, a vibrating sound in the mouth. Do that several times for yourself, big inhale, and as you do that, listening for the vibration and feeling the vibration, sound as vibration. Noticing it back in the skull. Gently releasing, and coming to center. Bend your knees, and then extend your legs.

Bend your knees, and extend your legs. Notice the distance between your feet and your head, and as you extend your legs, let your feet and your head move away from each other, like you're pulling two sides of a thing, and then again, bending your knees and let them come closer together, and extend your legs, again feet and head, they're moving apart. And then let's do that same thing kind of with the arms, so your arms will go out wide to the side, and reach through both hands, let them move apart, and then bend your elbows and let your hands come together, and then again, move your hands apart, and stretch them apart, and then bring them together. Now let your hands move away from your feet, so hands and feet go apart, and releasing them down, and again, hands and feet move apart, and releasing them down. And now let's do right hand, right foot, let them go apart and find a little side bend there, and releasing, and then left foot, left hand.

How far can those two points go apart, and releasing, one more time, finding that side bend, and you might find the desire to sigh, to moan, find an audible exhale, other side, left foot and left hand moving apart, and coming through center, shift your weight into your left foot, hover your right foot up off the floor, feel free to use any support you might need, hand can come to a wall or a chair, and we'll move our right foot away from the right hip joint, like they're stretching apart, and then bend your knee, just release that, and then move it to the side. How far can your right foot move away from your head? And bend your knee a little bit, come in, and then let the right foot go back, how far can your right foot move away from your head? And release that, come back, shift your weight into your right foot, hover your left foot up off the floor, and then left foot away from hip, they're going apart, like pulling two sides of a string, and then releasing, left foot to the side, letting it move away from your head, and then back, left foot reaches back, and then back, and then two minutes where you'll play in your own way of letting two parts move apart from each other. What would happen if your right foot moved away from your knee?

That's different, and then releasing, what would happen if your head moved away from your tail, your tail moved away from your head, and releasing? What would happen if your feet moved away from your hips, and your hands moved away from your hips, and releasing? Couple more moments with this, letting parts of you move apart and feel into their relationship. They move apart, maybe finding some sighing, maybe letting your feet explore the air. Feel the sound of your breath, again, maybe sighing as you extend and release, and we'll find center, and release that.

Start to transition into a squat, so you'll let your toes come out wide, heels turn in, coming down into a squat, and then using your hands to transition onto your back. So we'll play with a similar kind of two points moving apart, but now we'll do it with the support of the floor. So extend your right leg out long, and reach your right arm up overhead, and find those two points moving apart, and then release that, and extend your left leg, and reach your left leg away from your left arm, and release that. Extend both arms out wide, and stretch through both fingers, and release that. Let both arms reach up overhead, hands moving away from feet, feet moving away from hands, and relax, release that.

What would it be like to move your head and tail away from each other? And then let your right arm go up and overhead, and roll to your right side, reach your left arm up towards the sky, and let your left hand move away from your ribs. And can your ribs rest down into the floor? And release that, and now reach your left leg down, and your left fingertips up and over your head, and those two points are moving away. And release that, and now let your left leg go up towards the sky, and can your left foot move away from your left hip, left hip settles down towards the floor, and release that.

And now on your side, so you'll stay on your side, but play a little bit. Can your arm and leg move apart on a diagonal? Feel these two points in relationship, and let them play in space. Now as you do this, open up to be touched by sound. And what would it be like to be moved by sound?

Maybe the sound of your breath or audible breath? Maybe sounds in your environment? And gently come back through center, and come back onto your back in a moment, simply to pause and to notice. Again, learning about this space, your environment through sound, and being touched by sound. And we'll head into the second side here, so your left arm will lift up, and then you'll roll to your left side, reach your right arm up towards the sky, and let your sternum know its weight.

Let your ribs know their weight. They move down to the earth, and your right arm reaches up, and reach your right arm up and overhead, and reach through your right foot to feel into all of that length, and release that. Let your right leg go up, let your hips go down, and release that, and then a moment to play in your own way. I love these diagonals, where the right arm reaches out in the diagonal, the left leg reaches out in the diagonal. What would it be like to reach your knee away from your hip?

So playing with reaching, expanding, two points moving away from each other, getting long, and then maybe including some sound, and being moved by sound, being inspired by sound. And we'll release that, come back, onto your back, moment to pause, again learning about your environment through sound, sound touching you, and again we'll find the mmmmmm sound. So a few times like that, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm. One time with the oh sound, notice where it lands in the body, ohhhh, ohhhh, ohhhh, ohhhh. One time with the ah sound, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.

And then moment to rest, feeling the echo of the sound, the sound that vibrated your insides. Bring your knees into your chest. Bring your hands to the backs of your thighs and roll on up to your seat and let's come to all fours. Moment to orient yourself here, touching the ground, feeling the mat, wagging your tail, eventually finding neutral spine. And then passing through neutral spine to find your backbend.

Head and tail go up towards the sky and exhale, round your spine. Continue like this, your cat-cow, finding your own rhythm. And as you're in your movement, extending and flexing your spine, be with sound and listen from deep inside the skull. What is it like to move through cat-cow while also tending to sound? Now find neutral spine again and extend your left leg back behind you.

Notice the relationship between your foot and your hip and your foot, your lifted foot and your head and simply allowing there to be length between those two points. Well inhale here and on an exhale, bring your knee to your nose, curling in, rounding your spine. Inhale lengthen back to where you were. And exhale drawing it in, knee to nose, inhale extending back. And exhale drawing it in, curling in, inhale extending it back, pausing here, pushing through both hands and send your left leg off to the side, pause, lift your left leg up a little bit higher, find a few pulses up and down and release your left foot down.

Reach your right arm up towards the sky, feel the distance between your two hands and thread your right fingertips underneath your left arm coming to your outer shoulder. You can keep your left hand there or maybe extend it up and over your ear. Notice in these postures if there's places where you stop listening, listen to the sounds in your environment and listen to your inner world, bring your left hand underneath your left shoulder, push down to come up, right arm reaches up towards the sky and release your right hand down, come back to all fours and then again moving through some cat cows. Inhale through your nose and let your head and tail move up towards the sky, exhale out the mouth with an ah sound, ah as you round your spine, inhale head and tail up towards the sky and again with the ah sound, ah. And make your way towards neutral spine, wag out your tail a little bit side to side and then find center, shift into your left shin to reach your right leg back, notice the distance between your foot and your head, inhale and exhale bring your knee to your nose round your spine, inhale lengthen back to where you just were and exhale knee to nose round your spine, inhale lengthening back, one more time exhale knee to nose we're rounding our spine, inhale breath, reach it back and sweep your right leg off to the side and then again lift your right leg up a little bit higher and then find some pulses and with this posture there's a lot of sensation here in my outer hip and I'm going to see can I still listen and release the right foot down lift the left arm up towards the sky feel the distance between your two hands and thread your left fingertips underneath your right arm you can hold on to the side of your leg or your foot right hand can stay there or it can extend out in front of you and then we there's a bit of a spiral as we bring the left shoulder blade closer to the earth being touched by sound of your own body in the world around you constantly being vibrated by sound bring your right hand underneath your right shoulder push down into your right hand to lift your left arm up towards the sky and release your left hand down come back to all fours and find your downward facing dog find a bit of a bear crawl forward and back so you'll take your little dog a big dog for a walk walking a bit forward on your four limbs and then walking back walking forward and walking back a couple more times like that I've just started to let my cat go outside and it's been so amazing to watch him sense the world for the first time be like a cat that's just been allowed to go outside feel the ground hear all of the sounds taste and smell the world around you and then steady yourself in down dog few breaths make your way towards a standing forward fold listening to the sounds hear the sound of your breath being touched by sound bend both knees drop your tail and start to roll up your spine and once you're standing lift your arms skyward and release your arms down bring your hands out in front of you and begin to clap and then bring your hands to your chest and pat pat pat pat play your body like you're playing a drum listen to the sound and feel the pressure that is good for you and then travel down one arm again finding a pressure that feels good and listen to the sound playing your body and then into the other side and down down down the torso patting the backs of your legs again finding the pressure feels good to you listening to the sound travel back up pad out your legs all around your pelvis and torso into your arms and then pad out and your neck and up into your head and release your arms moment to pause and listen notice inhale lift your arms up towards the sky exhale fold forward over your legs lengthen halfway and fold rise all the way up to stand root down rise up arms skyward and release your arms down so that's pretty familiar familiar movement for most of us let's see what it's like to be inside of that a couple more times just those three gestures while being with listening while being with hearing while being with sound it's an experiment so learning about ourselves learning about the world through sound lift your arms skyward fold forward lengthen halfway and fold again rise to stand arms up release your hands down that again arms rise fold forward lengthen halfway fold again rise to stand release your arms down lift your arms skyward fold forward lengthen halfway and make your way to a downward facing dog come forward to plank and lower down to your belly rise up into a local breath you're down through the tops of your feet lengthen the whole front of your spine and now a different kind of inner listening would it be nourishing for you to travel into upward facing dog and notice if there's any shoulds inside of that notice if there's any expectations any preferences or a hierarchy of choice like do you think one choice is better than another and come into that deep inner listening what would be nourishing and does your body carry you to up dog or not and in a few breaths with that we'll meet back up and downward facing dog bend your knees bring them all the way down to the floor open up your feet or you can sit on your heels I'm gonna grab a block put it between the heels and pause for a moment in Virasana heroes pose with your eyes closed and opening up to be touched by sound it's like you're listening through your pores or listening from deep inside the skull letting sound come to you interlace your hands and reach your palms up towards the sky notice the distance between your sitting bones and your arms and move them apart inside all of this length still listening and gently bend your elbows release your hands change the interlace reach your palms up notice the distance again between your hands and your sitting bones and gently bend your elbows release your hands come forward to all fours close your eyes listen to sound to silence and now move your spine through space so that could be cat cow could be some side-to-side movement could be some circles and be moved by sound like you're exaggerating the vibrations in the space as they touch your body or you could find some sounds again audible sounds through your mouth and let that vibrate your body to move you be moved by sound I mean certainly we do this when we dance put on some good music and be moved as you're ready we'll head back to a downward facing dog transition to a standing forward fold lengthen halfway aarda uttanasana and fold forward again come all the way up to stand root down rise up arms skyward lengthening your feet and hands away from each other and release your arms down shift your weight into your left foot and bring your right knee into your chest we'll externally rotate our right leg to bring the soul of the for the the soul of the foot the bottom of the foot to your left inner thigh bring your hands to your heart the inner ear also supports us in balance as you're balancing listen from deep inside your skull feel your whole left foot learning about the floor as you balance shifting weight and then from there if you like you can let your arms reach up maybe to the high diagonal and feel the distance between your supporting foot and your hands and your head and your tail release your hands down hug your right knee in set your right foot down and pause and that inner listening second side shifting weight to the right foot hug your left knee into your chest externally rotate your left leg coming into rishasana tree tree pose notice the distance between your foot supporting foot and your head balancing and listening and if you like you can let your arms go up one more full breath here release your hands down hug your left knee in and then set your left foot down and then again with both feet on the ground we'll pause and listen listen with your whole body what would it be like to listen from the skin on your back let's move towards artachandrasana if you know you want to block for your half moon pose you can set that up for yourself so we'll shift the weight into our right foot and hug your left knee into your chest already notice if you have stopped listening so I've said the pose we know we're going notice if there's any expectations have you tightened any of the senses and then opening up to have more content or like a wider map of yourself and then from here we'll start to reach the left leg back and it's like in a way we know where we're going but then in this other way can we not know where we're going start to reach your left leg back to bring your right hand down to a block or you can bring it down to the floor in the balance oh tending to the inner ear listening from deep inside the skull and then feel your arms and can they move apart and feel your inner thighs and can they move apart feel your head and tail those two points can they know each other like they know they're part of the same hole and now keep reaching back through your left leg it's going to reach so far away from your head that it wins it like takes you into warrior two and then settling here in your warrior to find a nice big inhale and a sigh out the mouth one more time like that like your sign from your belly a couple more breaths here push down into your right foot to extend your right leg turn your right toes in heels in bend both knees for a goddess and swing your arms down and out a couple times like that and with the exhale out the mouth inhale we extend exhale out the mouth and again last time pause bring your feet to parallel and then together and again these pause it we pause and we listen this is a pretty beautiful practice to incorporate throughout the day pause check in learn about myself learn about the world through sound through listening okay and then we'll head into the second side so you'll prepare your block if you're using one and then shift your weight into your left foot really standing down hug your right knee into your chest and just noticing so we did it on the first side we know where we're going and how can we still be in freshness here be in the aliveness of touching the aliveness of breathing smelling tasting the aliveness of listening being met by vibration by movement both inside and out and we'll start to reach the right leg back like we don't know where we're going as we move towards artichandrasana it is a process and then eventually we're playing inside of this posture and finding two points hand to hand and let them spread apart inner thighs spread apart supporting foot rooting down being really curious with the ground breathing listening and now we'll reach through the right foot it's like we're going to reach so much and then we let it wind it takes us somewhere moves us into space it moves us into warrior too we'll settle here two hands moving apart the front inner thigh moves away from the hip you can actually play with different ways of course of like what's moving apart what's moving together and i like to do it in different ways at different times for different reasons and we'll push through the left foot extend the left leg bring your left leg to parallel heels turn in just a couple times arms drop and out arms drop and out and then we'll bring the feet to parallel wiggle your feet in come to stand lift your arms forward and up and swing your arms forward and then up and again and up so you can stay there with the arms if your spine would feel okay with it then we're going to let our spine tip forward as well so this is an inhale and then exhale you let your spine swing forward your head releases and then you bounce yourself back up so a little momentum there's an inhale the exhale we swing forward two more times feel the ground listen to the sound we're up and release your arms down send your right arm out wide to the side and up towards the sky and find a side bend move down to your right foot right fingertips up and over notice the distance between your foot and hand and then we'll come back through center left arm up and over and notice the distance between your left foot and your left hand and we'll release that hands to your belly again we pause and we listen we receive the touch of sound and open up your legs a bit wider turn your toes out and start to head down into a squat and then bring your hands back behind you and have a seat extend your legs and lay down on the ground and now we're listening here with all the support of the ground and what would it be like to listen from all of your skin sound vibrates us be touched by sound and stay here as long as you wish if you'd like to join me in a seat then you can start to find little bits of movement like you're being moved by sound you're dancing to the silence and you're dancing little bits of movement that come from the sounds in your environment and the sounds of your body and the sounds of your body and as you're ready you'll transition up to your seat bring your hands together in front of your heart and notice how you feel and we'll close our practice today with a bow your homework suggestion for this week is to spend some time in a comfortable environment with your eyes closed and listen and learn about your environment through sound thank you so so so much for practicing with me thank you