In recent years I’ve fallen in love with the qigong, a Chinese movement practice that is sometimes called Taoist yoga. The practice is gentle and rhythmic and guided by the breath. It seeks to cultivate harmony and balance, as practitioners explore movements that are sometimes more yang - sunny and stimulating - and sometimes more yin - quiet and grounding.

This spring I have been craving the slow, deep, fluid movements of yin. These movements feel like quiet moon-lit nights and cool, cleansing calm. They are refreshing and restorative, and they nudge us back to a soft and settled way being. They feel like the perfect antidote to our loud, fast and over-caffeinated world.

I’ve found the qualities of yin slipping into my yoga practice, too, as I nestle onto the ground, exhale deeply, and rest in the quiet of pure being. My thoughts slow down, my belly relaxes, and my breath returns to its babylike freshness and ease. I feel drawn back home to my most steady and faithful self.

This 20-minute movement practice isn’t qigong, but it embodies the quiet and fluid qualities that feel like yin to me. In fact, all of these slow and earth-bound sessions are - in one way or another - explorations of slow, flowing yin. I hope you find them as soothing and restorative as I do.

You can learn more about all the many energies of embodied practice at my home website. If you’d like to learn more about qigong, this essay offers a primer, and this one offers a little more detail about the classic qigong practice of the Eight Silken Brocades. And feel free to join us for a Zoom class, where we incorporate qigong into our almost all of our mindful movement sessions.

If you’re enjoying these practices here at At Home in the World and would like to support this programming, please consider subscribing as a paid member. If you’ve already contributed, deep thanks to you. I am humbled by your generosity and your faith in these offerings.

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Amid the busy-ness of life, we all need reminders to take occasional time outs, so that we can give our minds and our bodies an opportunity to return to the healing balm of the present moment.

Whether meditating on your cushion, practicing savasana at the end of a yoga session, or just settling into a cozy chair, a few moments of peace and calm can help us return to our more balanced and steady selves. And when we grow quieter within, we are able to see more clearly the truths of our lives. And that, in turn, allows us to act in the world from a place of deeper love.

In this 10-minute guided relaxation, we’ll take a beautiful time out. Or, as some like to call it, a time in. Just settle into a comfortable position, exhale deeply, and just let everything go. Let the world spin off as it likes, as you practice self calm and self care.

If you’re looking for additional resources in the peace and calm department, please visit my website. If you practice yoga, you might enjoy this essay about the ways we can grow “as tension free as we can be,” as yoga teacher Erich Schiffmann says. Or, perhaps you’d like to let go while resting in one of my very favorite yoga poses, viparita karani, or legs-up-the-wall pose, as offered here.

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Every spiritual practice, one way or another, eventually brings us back to our own good hearts and to the love the shines forth from within. We may not join a yoga class because we want to soften our hearts. We may not begin meditating because we want to cultivate goodwill. But in some lovely and mysterious bit of spiritual magic, practitioners often end up saying that the greatest gift of their practice has been the way it has transformed them into kinder, more compassionate human beings.

The Buddhist practice of lovingkindness, or metta meditation, offers an explicit pathway to cultivating good heart. In lovingkindness meditation, we call up images of people, creatures and even places we know, and then we send wishes for happiness and wellbeing in their direction. We may not know for sure whether these wishes change others, but we very quickly learn that they can change us in profound ways.

In this 19-minute guided practice, we’ll explore a variation of the traditional Buddhist practice of lovingkindness meditation. This contemplation is a little more improvisatory and free-form than the traditional practice, but I hope it brings a smile to your face nonetheless.

So sit or lie down, and settle into your own good heart. Rest and breathe and be. And then follow along as we befriend the world, one heart to another.

I’ve written lots about the gifts of lovingkindness on my website, and I hope you’ll find something there that deepens your understanding of the practice. Several years ago, I wrote this essay about how metta helped me through a hard parenting moment. And nearly two years ago, just a few months into the pandemic, I wrote this this letter to my friends sharing how lovingkindness can serve as a secret superpower, during the pandemic and beyond. I hope it rings true, for you, even now.

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The promise of spiritual practice is that it will help us find our way toward a deep and lasting sense of peace in ourselves and the world. Call it enlightenment or nirvana or wholeness or simply wellbeing. The hopeful proposition is that there is a way of being in the world that embodies profound wakefulness and also deep equanimity, even in the very same breath.

Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh called this inner sense of deep wellbeing the “island of self,” and he urged his students to return to this quiet refuge every day.

“If you don’t go home to yourself, you continue to lose yourself,” he wrote. “You destroy yourself and you destroy people around you, even if you have goodwill and want to do something to help. That is why the practice of going home to the island of self is so important. No one can take your true home away.”

Many different paths will lead us there. I find gentle movement, easy breathing, and a return to the experience of the here-and-now to be reliable friends as we continue to cultivate balance and equanimity within. These experiences nudge us in the direction of a little less confusion and a little more clarity. Sometimes that’s all it takes to shift the course of a day.

The ultimate teaching, of course, is that peace is already here, that we don’t need to go out searching for it. Making sense of this koan is advanced practice, for sure. How is it possible that the very thing we are seeking is already nestled deep within us, just waiting to be found?

My hope is that this 22-minute reclined practice will nudge us toward an answer, as we slip in the direction of wholeness and wellbeing. As always, please use my words as suggestions rather than instructions, and take care to feed your own body and breath in the best way you know. I hope you feel both soothed and enlivened by the practice. Thank you for sharing this time with me!

If you’re inclined, please visit my home website to explore additional essays about cultivating ease and peace, including this article about seeking refuge in the classic yoga posture child’s pose. If you’re enjoying these practices here at At Home in the World and would like to support this programming, please consider subscribing as a paid member. If you’ve already contributed, deep thanks to you. I am humbled by your generosity and your faith in these offerings.

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Gravity is our friend. And yet so many of us spend so much of our lives fighting this primordial pull toward the earth. In this fight we miss the opportunity to cultivate deep connection, soul-satisfying rest, and a slow and unshakeable sense of vitality.

In this 22-minute practice we’ll explore the possibility of befriending the earth in ways that help us both release tension and cultivate renewed energy. This practice of befriending the earth can help nurture feelings of balance, well-being and ease.

The earth receives us and holds us. It offers us a place of deep rest and steadiness. By settling into its arms we are invited to let tension melt off of our bodies so that we may soften and settle into ease.

The earth also has the power to gentle energize us, to offer us slow and steady vitality that can buoy us upward and outward into the world in a calm and balanced way.

And somehow, magically, with just a little nudging from us, the earth knows just what we need in order to slip toward a more balanced way of being in the world.

I wrote about befriending the earth in this essay about one of my very favorite survival strategies. And you can find many more articles about the power of connecting with earth energy on my website. I hope you find something in these offerings that brings you happiness and inspiration!

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Look outside your window. What’s the weather like right now?

Now, look inside yourself. What’s the weather like within? Are you running hot or cold? Is the sun shining within or is this a rainy day? Are your thoughts stormy or serene? And is your heart shining brightly or hiding behind a few clouds?

In this 14-minute guided relaxation session, we’ll consider our inner weather patterns. We’ll let our bodies befriend the earth, and then we’ll watch the energetic weather pass through us. We’ll sharpen our powers of perception to see more clearly the sensations, feelings, thoughts and energies are passing through the inner world of our beings.

At heart, this is an awareness practice, helping us see more clearly what is true in our lives. Seeing clearly helps us to make wise decisions about how to respond appropriately - how to tend to the world with both intelligence and tenderness.

For example, when we know the sun is shining within us - when we are brimming with bright and clear energy - we might choose to tackle the to-do list and take on the world. And when we sense that our inner weather is a little unsettled, we might decide this is the perfect day to tend to quieter pursuits, to not tangle with others, to wait out the rainstorm at home.

Most of the wisdom teachings, as far as I can tell, are at heart about cultivating awareness both within and without, so that we may live and act out of wisdom and love. I love exploring the many shapes and colors of this understanding, and most of what I share on my website touches upon awareness one way or another. If you’re interested, here’s one short essay to get you started.

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Lately I’ve fallen in love with the haiku of Kobayashi Issa, a Japanese poet who was born in 1763 and wrote more than 10,000 haiku over the course of his life. The two poems that have lodged themselves into my brain describe snails. And that somehow feels just right in this oh-so-slow season.

The first is the sweetest four-word poem I know:

Snail

always at home

And the second has become my inspiration to tackle seemingly impossible tasks, or to at least get started with faithfulness and grace:

Oh, snail,

climb Mt. Fuji,

but slowly, slowly

My offering today - 25-minute reclined movement practice - takes its inspiration from Issa and his snails. We move slowly, in no particular hurry, enjoying every sensation along the way. And we breathe and rest in the faithful knowing that whatever we do and wherever we go, we are already home.

If you’d like to head down a rabbit hole of haiku, perhaps you’d like to (slowly) wander over to this lovely site, home of thousands of Issa’s poems. You can even search on a particular word, or pull up a random haiku. Enjoy!

And if you’re inclined, please visit my home website to explore additional essays about slowing down and savoring each moment, including this essay about the joy of focusing on one task at a time. If you’re enjoying these practices here at At Home in the World and would like to support this programming, please consider subscribing as a paid member. If you’ve already contributed, deep thanks to you. I am humbled by your generosity and your faith in these offerings.

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One of my very favorite instructions is to move like water. I love to soften the sharp edges of my being and let my body shift and slip and swirl in soft and liquid ways. I love to bob and sink on the ebb and flow of the breath, as if I were floating on my back in the deep blue Sea. I love to watch life ripple through the energetic rivers within me. Somehow this quiet and yielding movement convinces my mind to grow a little softer and easier, too.

In this 25-minute guided practice, we’ll stay close to the ground and invite the body to unravel and undulate in soft and gentle ways. We’ll let this liquid movement erode away our harsher beings, leaving us softer and perhaps a little more receptive. And perhaps we’ll re-emerge feeling restored and rinsed clean.

This quiet, reclined practice is inspired by the brilliant and blissful movements of SATYA, or Sensory Awareness Training for Yoga Atunement, offered by yoga teacher Tias Little. These practices fuse yoga, meditation, Feldenkrais and other somatic disciplines into a rich and fortifying exploration of inner ease and wholeness. I highly recommend them!

I have more practices on my website that speak to the healing power of fluid movement. This practice article written long ago offers a structured way to move like water in a few familiar yoga poses. It’s still one of my favorite watery body prayers. And fluid movement makes an appearance in this long-ago essay that was written while gazing at my very favorite body of water in the world, the Caribbean Sea.

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Throughout the pandemic, my primary practice has been befriending the earth. I’ve spent a lot of time on my back, resting in savasana, practicing the deep meditation of yoga nidra, and sliding and gliding through quiet, earthy stretches and movements. In the midst of so many challenges in the greater world, settling back into the arms of Mother Earth has been a true balm.

I’ve learned, as I’ve become so happily earthbound, that the earth not only willingly holds us close, but she also somehow magically buoys us upward again into the arms of the great blue sky. Earth and sky… they are good friends and they are good teachers, too.

Lucky for us, we don’t have to choose one over the other. In fact, we can’t really choose one or another. We get to be friends with both. We are invited to be as steady and faithful as the earth beneath us. And, in the very same breath, we are invited to be as clear and spacious as the sky above.

This 13-minute guided meditation explores just that possibility. We are invited to melt into the earth, we are invited to bloom into the sky, and then we consider the possibility of embracing both in the very same breath. The recording quality isn’t quite as clear as usual, and my apologies for that. I’ve been exploring different ways of recording these audios and am still finding my way. I hope you enjoy the exploration nonetheless.

If you’re inclined, please visit my home website to explore additional ways of cultivating ease and wellbeing, including this essay about how befriending the earth saves my soul daily. And if you’re enjoying these practices here at At Home in the World and would like to support this programming, please consider subscribing as a paid member. (Visit the site and click the subscribe button or select “My Account” in the dropdown menu.) If you’ve already contributed, deep thanks to you. I am humbled by your generosity and your faith in these offerings.

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Thank you for joining me for another guided practice. My hope is that each of these sessions will shine a little light on ways we can live in greater steadiness and peace. Life can sometimes be filled with bumpy roads, and we all need strategies and skills that help us smooth out those paths as best we can.

This session offers one more survival strategy to help steady frazzled nerves and calm the nervous system: using the breath to ground and soothe us, to bring us right back down to earth.

This 16-minute practice - first recorded for my long-ago CD Mindful Breathing - explores the power of lengthening the exhalation. This breathing pattern typically calms and quiets the nervous system. Just a few moments of long, smooth exhalations can, quite literally, change our minds.

This session is guided from a belly-down position, which can help foster a long and steady exhalation. If lying prone isn’t your cup of tea, feel free to rest belly up, or to sit in a chair, or even to climb into bed. As always, if any suggestions cause unrest or feel inappropriate, then skip them altogether or modify the practice in any way that brings a smile to your face.

My website includes lots of information about the power of the breath to keep us steady and bright. It includes this magazine article I wrote years ago that introduces this calming breath as part of a general introduction to yoga breathing practices.

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