“The times are urgent; let us slow down.”

Bayo Akomolafe

Listen. Drop down to the delicate and necessary conversation going on beneath the chaos, the noise and the hum drum of ticking boxes. Turn towards the very place you may be so keen to improve, fix and get away from.

We can often hurtle, sprint and catapult ourselves into our pursuits until our bodies give us no other option but to listen. I am curious about a world where we are attuned to the subtleties of our bodies' messages, where we are receptive to the whispers, not just the screams. This journey of listening is a required course, it will take us at some point. We have an opportunity to walk willingly and bow humbly towards the nature of this intelligence.

To rest is mostly considered a luxury, an after effect, a reward. But (big ones) rest is foundational. Rest is imperative for our very being in the world. “Rest is the conversation between what we love to do and how we love to be…” (David Whyte)

When we are rested we not only digest our food, but we digest life.

We might think we are resting, slouched in front of a TV or having a wine after a hard day, however the collapsing and running pattern we play so commonly doesn’t afford our bodies the effective nature of true rest. It doesn’t offer the breeding grounds for the essential relationship to sensory information and imagination we are being called to.

“...Rest is the essence of giving and receiving, an act of remembering, imaginatively and intellectually but also psychologically and physically.”

This is a call out to everyone to come practice the art of wait. To learn the practice of slowing down. To re(member) how our body quite simply innately knows how to breathe steady and deep. How to be well. How to heal. And how to guide us home again and again. We just need to gift it the right conditions and allow.

This Rest Nest is intended to be both the deep experience of and embodied education of those conditions through the woven science and art of rest practices. Empowering you to leave with tools in your kete (woven basket) to return to and the alluring decadent taste on your tongue of that place (magnetising enough).

This style of Restorative practice is inspired by Terra Soma Yoga, the dreaming earth embodied, a practice synthesized of Hatha Yoga (Kashmir Shivism Tantra), Somatic(s) inquiry, and embodied nature / wilderness connection. We also will be touching into Yoga Nidra, yogic sleep. A deeply restorative practice that just 1hr of is equivalent to 4hrs of deep rest!!

It is a possibility to draw back, draw in, to gather the material and sense of foundation, to then be flung into a more truer, richer, sincere expression of what is meant for us.

A poem for you…

Song for the salmon

By David Whyte

“For too many days now I have not written of the sea,

nor the rivers, nor the shifting currents
we find between the islands.

For too many nights now I have not imagined the salmon
threading the dark streams of reflected stars,
nor have I dreamt of his longing
nor the lithe swing of his tail toward dawn.

I have not given myself to the depth to which he goes,
to the cargoes of crystal water, cold with salt,
nor the enormous plains of ocean swaying beneath the moon.

I have not felt the lifted arms of the ocean
opening its white hands on the seashore,
nor the salted wind, whole and healthy
filling the chest with living air.
I have not heard those waves
fallen out of heaven onto earth,
nor the tumult of sound and the satisfaction
of a thousand miles of ocean
giving up its strength on the sand.

But now I have spoken of that great sea,
the ocean of longing shifts through me,
the blessed inner star of navigation
moves in the dark sky above

and I am ready like the young salmon
to leave his river, blessed with hunger
for a great journey on the drawing tide.”

Supportive for you to hear of other people's experiences? See below

https://www.bhavabody.com.au/yoga

Coming along to the Terra Soma Yoga event the week prior too? Use code 'doubledip' to activate a discount for both events :)

https://events.humanitix.com/terrasomayoga