Once upon a time I relished traveling to the far ends of the earth. I loved pushing the boundaries, seeing just how far my body and brain could go. I found sweet medicine in setting goals that seemed beyond my abilities and then somehow - through drive, grit, or sheer luck - finding ways to overcome the impossible.

Obviously, I was young.

I doubt that I’m alone in finding that with age comes a renewed interest in the middle way. Heading off into far-away worlds can wake us up to possibility and adventure, for sure. But day by day and year by year, the sweet relief of coming home feels more like the balm we need.

We warm to the possibility that we already have everything we need. We notice that we don’t have to travel far from home in order to feel content. We consider the possibility that less is sometimes more. And blessedly, our expectations of ourselves and the world begin to soften just a bit, and in a good way. Sometimes - in a pandemic, for instance - we even embrace the possibility that good enough might just be, well, good enough.

Committing to these possibilities requires relinquishing some long-held beliefs and welcoming some new ones. It asks us to forsake the “no pain, no gain” mentality of our younger days. It requires a certain flexibility in spirit and in soul. As the poet Louise Gluck once wrote, “The extremes are easy. Only the middle is a puzzle.”

The SATYA movement practices of Tias Little feel to me like the perfect exploration of the middle way. SATYA explorations are soft and gentle, with rocking, sliding and gliding movements that can offer profound relief to the body, breath and mind. They are akin to the fluid movements of qigong, but they are done while lying close to the ground. And they offer the same feelings of renewal as restorative yoga, even though gentle movement is involved. I’ve never not felt better when I’ve emerged from a SATYA practice.

This 35-minute gentle movement sequence is an introduction to SATYA practice. It embodies the possibility that we don’t have to reach to far extremes in order to cultivate balance and wellbeing. Lying on our backs, close to the ground, we commit ourselves to soft, easy, pain-free movement. I hope you enjoy SATYA as much as I do.

You can explore this practice and all of my other guided practices any time at our At Home in the World website. 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, a million miles of thanks!

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Ahhh, the breath… It’s our constant companion, our link between inner and outer, our good friend from the beginning to the very end.

We tend to take the breath for granted, though, unless it fails us or until we need it most. How lovely it might be to enjoy this ordinary miracle when it’s quietly humming along, keeping us alive without making the least bit of fuss.

In this 15-minute breath awareness session, we’ll do just that. We’ll cultivate a deep and abiding interest in the breath as it pours into us and back out into the world again. We won’t do anything fancy - holding our breath until we’re blue in the face or wheezing like Darth Vader. We’ll just let the breath unfold in its own beautiful way, like waves rolling up and down a beach, each breath as long or as short and as deep or as shallow as it would like to be.

Resting in any comfortable position - upright or flat out on the ground - we’ll explore the power of the breath to steady the mind, calm the body, and anchor us in the here-and-now. We’ll invite the breath to lead us to a space where we feel both vibrantly awake in the moment and at contentedly at home in the world.

This guided audio was created years ago for my Mindful Breathing CD as a gentle introduction into basic breath awareness. My hope is that it will share a taste of what spiritual adepts the world over have taught for centuries: The breath is a potent gateway between the outer and inner worlds. Anchoring our awareness in the gentle, oceanic quality of the breath can help us find our way back to the deeper waves of life that flow within us and beyond us, too.

Once we find our way to the breath in this way, we befriend the breath as a patient teacher and steadfast ally in our lives, grounding us when we’re spinning out of control and uplifting us when we’re feeling stuck.

My home website shares many more resources about the breath. This article about listening to the breath would be a good companion to The Mindful Breath. And this article I wrote long-ago for Yoga Journal offers a more structured introduction to the yogic breathing practice of pranayama. 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 15-minute 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 our backs 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!

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Some practices are simple and straightforward: We practice yoga asana or we practice qigong or we practice mindfulness meditation. Others take a meandering path, dipping into a variety of awareness practices as we slip easily downstream.

Breathing With Heart is the second sort of practice. In this 30-minute session, we start out with a breathing practice designed to help cultivate balance and steadiness. Then we let go of shaping the breath and simply watch it as a form of meditation. And then - as often happens for me - the breath meditation awakens a quiet light in the heart and we find ourselves slipping toward lovingkindness meditation. That makes this session either a mutt of a practice, or perhaps just an improvisatory one!

My friends sometimes tell me that if I get tired of teaching yoga and meditation, I should go into business offering practices for insomnia, since sometimes my sessions put them right to sleep. Breathing With Heart, I think, would be a good one for such a project. I’ve left lots of quiet space nestled in between the words here. So if you find yourself up in the middle of the night and would like a little companionship until you drift off to sleep again, this one might do the trick.

My home website includes many more explorations and quite a few articles that dive into the power of cultivating deep and clear awareness in the world. This article shares some of my favorite meditation resources, and this one shares a few of my favorite breathing practices. If you’ve ever studied with me in person, you likely know them well.

And although subscribers to At Home in the World receive emails only when new practices are released, the website hosts dozens of guided practices that are available to you any time. And 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.) Thank you!

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In yoga philosophy there is a belief that life - at its most basic level - is comprised of an endless flow of subtle vibrations. All of creation is said to hum with pulsation, with a wavelike alternation of rising and falling, of reaching and returning, of becoming and being. The flow of these subtle vibrations is called spanda in yoga philosophy, and much of our practice is about settling into these waves of life with an ever deepening clarity and ease.

This 27-minute reclined movement practice explores the magnificent way that life is expressed through us, as we move and breathe and rest. We explore the possibility of rooting, of reaching and of returning, all in ways that key us into the springy and wavelike flow of movement both within and beyond us.

Like waves, we aren’t meant to only rise or only fall. We aren’t meant to only reach out and never return home. Our lives are expression of the beautiful play of ebb and flow, of movement and stillness, of giving and receiving, of self and other. What a relief to know that life is ever-changing. We are verbs just as surely as we are nouns!

If you’d like to learn more about cultivating this gentle exploration of spanda and other practices, please visit my website.

Paid Memberships

Most of my offerings are freely offered, with deep appreciation for those who choose to offer financial support. I feel both humbled and honored by the generosity of those who are supporting the site with a paid membership. I truly believe in the power of slowing down, of moving gently, of breathing freely, and of listening deeply to the song of the universe. This is the best way I know to return to a state of wholeness and peace, and this is what I hope to offer here.

At Home in the World’s hosting platform (Substack) manages all payments via credit card, and the paid subscription options I’ve established are $6/month or $60/year. (There is also a Generous Patron option of up to $100 a year, but only because the hosting site wouldn’t allow me not to!) You can subscribe to a paid membership by visiting the At Home in the World site and clicking the subscribe button or selecting My Account in the dropdown menu. Thank for your support!

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One of the great gifts of contemplative practice is the ability to simply drop into the experience of the moment without demanding that it be anything other than it is. With this open-hearted attitude, we are able to rest in the greater flow of life and savor the experience of simply being here in the moment to enjoy the passing show of life.

This experience is deeply restorative and helps us to connect to something far larger than our own small egos and our own small lives.

This 18-minute practice offers a taste of this experience. I hope you’ll be able to settle into the moment and savor the experience of resting deeply in the experience of being alive. I hope you find this exploration as soothing and healing as I do.

If you’d like to learn more about cultivating this gentle experience of presence, please visit my website for more resources and practices. You might like to start with this essay about savoring the first few moments of the day simply by listening to the greater world.

Paid Memberships

Jus a reminder that I’ve added a new paid subscription option for those who are moved to financially support this programming. At Home in the World’s hosting platform (Substack) manages all payments via credit card, and the paid subscription options I’ve established are $6/month or $60/year. (There is also a Generous Patron option of up to $100 a year, but only because the hosting site wouldn’t allow me not to!) You can subscribe to a paid membership by visiting the At Home in the World site and clicking the subscribe button or selecting My Account in the dropdown menu. Thank for your support!

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In this session of At Home in the World, I share one of my very favorite breathing practices. It is an ages-old yoga pranayama practice called bhramari breath, or buzzing bee breath. It is simple, portable, and deeply steadying. When the magic happens, this breathing practice also fills the heart with a sense of quiet joy and contentment.

Best of all, if you know how to hum then you already know how to practice bhramari breath! Sit upright (or if you’re tired, lie down). Close your lips gently, and relax the jaw. Inhale normally through the nose, and then exhale through the nose while making a gentle humming sound.

In the beginning, you may like to take a few easy breaths between each humming exhalation. Once you feel comfortable, you can hum all the way through each exhalation for several rounds of breath. If you're like me, a few minutes of this practice will soothe and settle the mind while offering a gentle buzz of uplift and delight.

I hope you enjoy bhramari breath as much as I do, and I hope you’ll experiment with creative ways to integrate it into your life. Next time you need to hit the pause button on the world’s stresses and strains, give it a try and see what happens.

Please visit my website to find additional resources about bhramari breath and other breathing practices. Here’s an essay I wrote about the the joy of humming like a bee, and here’s an exploration of some other favorite breathing practices.

I am so happy for each visitor to At Home in the World and I hope the offerings nurture happiness and ease. Enjoy!

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

The sages of ancient China envisioned a world comprised of two complementary and interconnected types of energy. Yang energy is bright and uplifting, while yin energy is cool and steady. Yang sometimes is described as the sunny side of the mountain where the light shines brightly, while yin is offered as the shady side of the mountain where the air is moist and cool.

In our culture, we are often primed to embrace the bold energy of yang, while perhaps steering clear of yin’s darkness and depth. But the ancient sages taught us that yin and yang can’t exist without each other. We need to nurture both, they taught, in order for our lives to flow with true vitality and health.

Everyone needs this healthy balance of yin and yang in their lives. It is said that women in particular - and especially women as we age - need to nurture strong reserves of quiet, cool, nurturing energy in our lives.

This 28-minute movement practice - done in a reclined position close to the ground (or perhaps nestled in bed) - offers a taste of the quiet and restorative energy of yin. The movements are slow and gentle and almost liquid in quality. The emphasis is on yielding, allowing and harmonizing, with no feeling of aggression or ambition or heat.

Many of the movements in this sequence are inspired by Tias Little’s method of SATYA, or Sensory Awareness Training for Yoga Atunement. These practices fuse yoga, meditation, Feldenkrais and other somatic disciplines into a rich and fortifying exploration of inner ease and wholeness.

Yin isn’t weak or static, but rather flows like the current of a river deep beneath the surface - with quiet strength and steady purpose. In the heat of summer, this watery coolness might feel especially delicious. I hope you’ll enjoy this way of being in the world as much as I do.

All of the practices I teach are fundamentally about ways we ride the vital energies of life into full fruition. You can learn more about these practices by visiting my website. In particular, you might enjoy this essay I wrote about my introduction to Chinese medicine through the mindful movement practice of qigong. I hope I can entice you to welcome qigong into you life, if you haven’t already given it a try.

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Hatha yoga classes traditionally end with a guided relaxation called savasana, or corpse pose. After having moved the body and freed up the breath, we rest in stillness. Within this quiet space, we cultivate a steady, rich awareness that helps us feel deeply alive in the moment and utterly at home in the world.

In many ways, the entire session leading up to the last few minutes of yoga class is preparation for savasana. In the more active portion of class, we move and breathe and release tension, so that when we come to stillness at the end of class, we are primed to open to the clarity and tenderness deep within.

I like to think of savasana as dessert, as the sweetness that follows the nourishment of rest of the meal. These few quiet moments feel like a balm and a gift, especially amid the din of our busy world.

This 10-minute guided relaxation is, in fact, a savasana from one of the yoga classes I offer each week. (It even includes a little birdsong and a gentle rain shower.) I hope it gives you a taste of contentment, even if you haven’t enjoyed a session of mindful movement beforehand. Or, better yet, stand up and move gently for a few moments, and then settle onto the ground for what I hope will be a tasty dessert.

Please visit my website for additional offerings designed to help cultivate ease, clarity and loving awareness. Or, better yet, join us for a yoga or meditation class to experience savasana together. I offer sessions on Zoom for both local and long-distance students. (This summer I am also leading outdoor pop-up classes for local friends). All are welcome!

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Sages teach that the secret to living happily is to rest with ease in each moment, with a sense of openness and freedom. This is easier said than done, of course, but with practice we can nudge our minds in that direction.

This 20-minute guided practice offers an opportunity to settle into the moment, to let go of excess tension, and to offer goodwill toward ourselves and the world around us. We learn to befriend what is, in our bodies, our breath, our mind and our world.

The practice is explored in a reclined position, so you can really settle into the earth and let go of stress and strain. It could also be explored seated, or even standing up.

My website includes lots of essays and practices to help us remember how to meet each moment with friendliness and equanimity.  I wrote this short piece to remind myself of the possibility of living with ease, no matter how challenging the outer world. Perhaps you, too, have your own image or muse to help you find your way. If not, keep on the look out for one to appear!

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