New Moon: Deep Restorative Rest

Namaste and welcome. This will be our new moon practice and traditionally in Ayurveda, the new moon is a time to go inward and to be in silence and quiet and to do a little bit more self-care. Our practice today will be restorative and we're going to start off with Nadi Shodna, alternate nostril breathing just to bring a little bit more balance into our bodies and our minds before we start. You can take your right hand and fold in the index finger and the middle finger into the palm and extend the pinky, the ring finger and the thumb. With the left hand, individual is represented by the index finger and thumb represents the collective so you can bow the index finger to the thumb, pressing the tip of the index finger to the first knuckle of the thumb and place it upright on your left thigh.

Hover your right hand in front of your nostrils, take a full breath in through both nostrils and then use the thumb and close off the right nostril and exhale through the left and that is the moon side. And inhale left, close it off and exhale right. And inhale right, close it off and exhale left. Soft gentle breath, inhale left, close it off, exhale right. Inhale right, close it off, exhale left.

We'll take three more, inhale left, close it off, exhale right, inhale right, close it off, exhale left, inhale left, close it off, exhale right and inhale right, close it off and exhale left. And then you can let your right hand fall down to your lap. Just take a few gentle breaths and then if the eyes are closed you can blink the eyes open and we'll come into our first restorative. You'll need a bolster, two blankets and one block for this one. I will take my first blanket just like this and place it behind my bolster and you can smooth it out and then you can come to kneel on that and the bolster is going straight out in front of you.

Take one block and I'm going to place it horizontally on the lowest level underneath the far end of the bolster. My second blanket, open it up like this and then you'll fold it non-fringe to non-fringe and make a little pillow and you can place that more towards the top of the bolster. And then I'm scooching my knees in around the bolster and when I come down one side of my head will turn and halfway through we'll switch sides. So you can walk the hands forward, turn the head to one side and you might need to slide the blanket down to fill in the gap of the neck there and then allow the elbows to come down to the ground. Legs can be up.

Some like to hold onto the block here if that feels comforting, you're welcome to do that. And let your breath start to fall in. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

And then you can lift your head and just change sides. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And then coming out of it, bringing the head back to center. Palms come down to the ground and gently walk yourself up. And just pausing there, sitting on the heels or sitting on a block if you need it. See if you can feel the breath moving around the circumference of the waist. Creating a little bit more space in the back body.

And then our second pose will be mountain brook pose. So you can actually leave the bolster and the pillow blanket exactly as it is. And take your second blanket and I'm going to roll this one up to a tight roll starting with the fringe side first. Smooth it out and this will go underneath our knees. And coming into this one, you can slide the sacrum back to touch the bolster.

And then you might take a hold of the blanket that will be behind your knees and adjust it as necessary. Tuck the chin in and roll yourself back and you might need to adjust the blanket behind the head. Now I do advise like do the little adjustments, do the minute adjustments. It can make such a difference. And if you need a nice sigh coming down. And if you know that the lower back or hips is super open here and this feels like a lot on your lower back to stay in, you can press into the heels, lift the hips up slightly, tuck your bum under and then release yourself back down.

And that should lengthen the lower back a little bit. And then just let go. And there you go. And there you go. And there you go.

And there you go. And there you go. And there you go. And there you go. And there you go.

And let your next breath come in a little bit deeper. Exhale it away. Make some little movements with your fingers and your toes. And then coming out of this, you can step your feet down to the ground or you might step them onto the bolster that was underneath your knees, the blanket underneath your knees. And see if you can roll onto your right side but stay on the bolster so you can just adjust the hips back a little bit.

And then pressing into the hands, come on up to sit. And you can slide your blanket off to the side. We're going to keep the blanket pillow but take the bolster away. And blocks can go one on either side within hands reach. We'll take the blanket pillow and put it towards the back of the mat.

Check in that the smooth end of the blanket is behind your neck and the rough edge can be more towards the back of your mat. Coming into goddess pose to close out our practice. Soles of the feet can be together and then the blocks, little trick here, I like to put the blocks on the diagonal because then the edge of the block doesn't cut into the thigh so I'll show you what I mean. Check it out if you're not sure. Lying down on my back, soles of the feet together, knees open, blanket pillow behind the head all the way to the line of my shoulder so it really fills up the gap of my neck.

And then I take my blocks and I place them on the diagonal. And your knees might be a little higher than usual but remember with restorative we don't want to go to the limit of the range of movement. I want to find the place where the body can feel safe and that might be a little less range of movement. Creases of the hips can be soft and then you can take that second blanket if you like and place it over the hips just to have a little more warmth or weight. Your arms come out to your sides like shavasana settling in.

And then it might be a sigh. Being in your Supta Baddha Konasana. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. And then you've got some options here. If you'd like to stay in the Supta Baddha Konasana to finish out your practice you can do that. Otherwise you might reach down, catch your blocks, slip them off to the sides. And take your hands out and stretch your legs and come right into your shavasana.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Take some little movements in your fingers and your toes. If the legs are long step your feet down to the ground.

If the knees are wide you can reach down and use the hands to close up the thighs. Carefully rolling over onto your right side. And maybe just a little bit more towards your belly using the arms to come on up to sit. And taking your hands to your heart. Eyes can stay closed here.

We'll finish with three soft ombs. Inhale. Shanti, shanti, shanti. Peace, peace, peace. Namaste.