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 fall I have been craving the slow, fluid movements of yin. These movements feel like moonlit 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.

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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 wellbeing. The hopeful proposition is that there is a way of being in the world that embodies both wakefulness and also equanimity, even in the very same breath.

Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh called this inner sense of 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 truth 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. Enjoy!

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As I write this, we are settling into the heart of fall. The world is growing quieter. And, perhaps, so are we. We sense a stilling within, a settling of our energies inward.

And yet, we’re not quite ready for hibernation. We still feel life stirring and we still feel a need to move and stretch ourselves out into the world. In this lovely space we are invited to inhabit the middle ground, the place where movement and stillness meet, where doing settles into being, and then being rises back into movement. And on and on and on.

Enjoy Being, a gentle reclined movement practice, explores these various energies and the possibilities of saying yes to them all. We explore possibility of settling in and down, while still maintaining a sense of inner agency and freedom. We say yes with one possibility without saying no to the other. We affirm the possibility of simply enjoying the sensations of being alive, right here and now.

The 15-minute practice is explored on the back and close to the ground. As always, though, feel free to vary the practice in ways that work best for you.

Many more practices are available for you to explore any time at our At Home in the World site. If you enjoy what you find 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.) And if you’ve already done so, thank you for your generosity!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claudiacummins.substack.com/subscribe

We spend so much of our lives thinking, planning, replaying, figuring things out. Sometimes we even begin to feel like one big brain with a body whose job is simply to carry around all of our thoughts.

We are so much more than our puny thoughts, though, and it can be such a relief to remember this truth from time to time. Embodiment brings us back to life - to real life in its full range of experience and feeling and sensation. Embodiment tethers us to the here-and-now, to the feeling of being awake in this moment, connected to all of the other lives that are also living right here and right now.

We know how to be fully present in the world when we are babies and small children. But often as we grow up we lose touch with this sense of being alive in not just our brains but our bodies, too. We sense that something vital is missing from our lives. And then we do crazy things like sign up for yoga classes (or even listen to guided audios!) to help us find our way back home to a deeper sense of presence in the world.

This 30-minute guided practice offers an invitation to return to our sensing, feeling, breathing and perceiving way of being. Through gentle organic movement, we remember the sheer delight of being able to move through space. We explore the possibility of riding the waves of life as they pulse through us. We remember how to trust our deeper intelligence, how to climb out of habits and ruts of own making. We remember how to shine.

And maybe, just maybe, for at least a few moments, we’ll even tap into the profound wisdom of the Zen masters, who taught that in the end “everything flows, nothing remains.” Enjoy!

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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. 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.

Get full access to At Home in the World at claudiacummins.substack.com/subscribe

Through much of 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 that as we settle happily into the ground, the earth not only 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 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.

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. Enjoy!

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Would you like to restore your spirit and save your soul, right here and right now? Here’s an idea: Turn off your computer for a little while. Turn away from the news of the day for just a bit. Bury your phone underneath a pile of pillows in the farthest reaches of the house.

Settle down and settle in, perhaps on the floor or a bed or even your favorite easy chair. Exhale deeply and turn your gaze inward. Notice the gentle drumming of your heart. Watch the wave-like rise and fall of your breath. Shift out of doing mode for just a little while, and enjoy the possibility of settling into a deep state of being.

Pay attention and be amazed, as poet Mary Oliver once advised. You have a body! You have a heart! You have tender thoughts and emotions. You care, you love, you are.

Just rest in the sensations of being alive, maybe even moving a little bit from time to time, when the spirit moves you. While you do this, know you are resting in the sensations of being alive. Be aware of your awareness, and be amazed by that, too.

If you need a little help, feel free to rest and breathe and move along with my words and suggestions in this 19-minute restful flow. The movements are simple - a little spinal undulation on the back, and then a little rocking and rolling on the side - and the instructions are gentle and welcoming. You don’t need me to guide the way - you know the way back home inside - but sometimes it’s nice to travel with a friend.

Not much has to happen, it turns out, to soften and to settle, to return us to our sane and steady self. To refuel and recharge. To just be present.

And then, after a little while, my hunch is that you will rise back up and out into the world again feeling just a little bit clearer, a little bit shinier, a little more whole.

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 earthsaves 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. If you’ve already contributed, deep thanks to you. I am humbled by your generosity and your faith in these offerings.

Get full access to At Home in the World at claudiacummins.substack.com/subscribe

Would you like to restore your spirit and save your soul, right here and right now? Here’s an idea: Turn off your computer for a little while. Turn away from the news of the day for just a bit. Bury your phone underneath a pile of pillows in the farthest reaches of the house.

Settle down and settle in, perhaps on the floor or a bed or even your favorite easy chair. Exhale deeply and turn your gaze inward. Notice the gentle drumming of your heart. Watch the wave-like rise and fall of your breath. Shift out of doing mode for just a little while, and enjoy the possibility of settling into a deep state of being.

Pay attention and be amazed, as poet Mary Oliver once advised. You have a body! You have a heart! You have tender thoughts and emotions. You care, you love, you are.

Just rest in the sensations of being alive, maybe even moving a little bit from time to time, when the spirit moves you. While you do this, know you are resting in the sensations of being alive. Be aware of your awareness, and be amazed by that, too.

If you need a little help, feel free to rest and breathe and move along with my words and suggestions in this 19-minute restful flow. The movements are simple - a little spinal undulation on the back, and then a little rocking and rolling on the side - and the instructions are gentle and welcoming. You don’t need me to guide the way - you know the way back home inside - but sometimes it’s nice to travel with a friend.

Not much has to happen, it turns out, to soften and to settle, to return us to our sane and steady self. To refuel and recharge. To just be present.

And then, after a little while, my hunch is that you will rise back up and out into the world again feeling just a little bit clearer, a little bit shinier, a little more whole.

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. Enjoy!

What a relief to have a practice to return to when the waters of life grow choppy. What a gift to remember to turn away for a little while from the news of the world and reclaim our inner sense of steadiness and light. And what a balm to restore our whole beings to a place of tenderness and ease, to remember the way back to unshakable wholeness and light.

I hope that you, too, find these practices to be little life rafts that help keep us afloat. I hope that you find the simple act of lying down, exhaling, and settling inward to be a wise and necessary act, in good times and in bad. I hope that you, too, find your practices to be good friends always ready to soothe the soul.

I’m here with another good friend to help us stay steady and bright in the season ahead. This 27-minute practice offers gentle reclined movements for the hips and the shoulders that help create spaciousness within. We surrender into the moment, we relinquish stickiness and stagnation, and we welcome into our beings a sense of tenderhearted vitality. Slowly but surely, breath by breath and stretch by stretch, we find our way back to calm and clear state of being.

I once heard a yoga teacher describe nirvana - the state of enlightenment yogis are supposedly seeking - as simply “an untroubled mind.” I loved that possibility so much that I scribbled the words onto a sticky note and stuck the note to the wall by my computer. Something in me softens every time my eyes land on those words: an untroubled mind.

Why stop there? How about an untroubled body? An untroubled heart? An untroubled soul? My wish is that somehow these practices nudge us - at least a little - toward that direction of being utterly engaged in the world, but with the mind, body and heart untroubled… calm, steady, bright and free.

Please visit my home website to explore a range of articles and essays I’ve written through the last several decades that I hope will help us move toward untroubled ways of being in the world. 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. And if you’ve already done so, a million miles of thanks!

Get full access to At Home in the World at claudiacummins.substack.com/subscribe

Movement and stillness practices for vitality and ease, with Claudia Cummins. Learn more at www.ClaudiaCummins.com.