Free Yoga Nidra for Stress Recording and Script
12 years ago, Seneca and I were newly in love and visiting Paris for the first time together.
We stayed in an apartment that was so tiny that the bed was suspended on the ceiling above the coffee table and when it was time to sleep, a system of pulleys lowered the bed down which engulfed the entire living room.
One day we strolled about on an errand to buy some fruit. We stopped at a produce shop where you stand at the entrance to tell the grocer—the Pelé of produce, really—what you want. He might ask you for clarification about exactly when you plan on eating this fruit, immediately, this afternoon, or tomorrow, before carefully selecting the absolute PERFECT piece of fruit to sell to you.
He does not allow amateurs to squeeze his fruits or choose something that isn’t ripe, non, non!
Photo by Seneca Moore
We told him we wanted strawberries—to eat immediately. He returned with a basket of strawberries that were so beautiful, so idyllic, so bursting with color that I was hesitant to eat them.
When I popped one in my mouth, I almost wept. I was overcome with how delicious they were.
But then it made me angry.
For the previous 37 years of my life I’d been eating sour, pale, and crunchy strawberry— imposters—when I could have been eating these!
In addition to the best strawberries ever grown on God's green earth, while in Paris we also found the greatest crêpe stand in all of Paris. Like the produce guy, this dude’s genius was making crêpes. It was an art just to watch him do his thing, pouring the batter, turning the crêpe at the perfect moment, dressing it with Nutella or sugar and lemon or whipped cream.
Also on that same trip, one evening we sat down for an organ concert in Notre Dame cathedral and as the organist leaned into the keyboard, the entire building shook to its foundation.
Neither of us are catholic but both of us appreciate the beautiful spirit that often can be found in all religions and especially in a cathedral. But on this day, for some reason, the spirit hanging in the air was very heavy for Seneca. She said it felt like generational guilt, oppression, stiflement. We left for lighter air.
A few years later, we were back in Paris, but this time, Sen and I were married and pushing our 3-year-old around the sidewalks and cobblestone streets in the stroller we had bought in Paris.
I have a pic of Seneca from this trip standing in the crisp early spring air, bundled up with a scarf with Notre Dame looming behind her. Little did we know that only weeks later the cathedral would catch fire and nearly be reduced to rubble.
Mille-feuille: The Finest French Pastry
We are in Paris again as a prelude to my French Riviera retreat and so Seneca could attend a conference. We are enjoying perhaps our favorite city in the world, revisiting some of our favorite haunts and also discovering new ones.
We ate strawberries—just as good.
We saw the renovated Notre Dame and oh, what a revelation! Mon dieu, they’ve done such a beautiful job cleaning and restoring it. Truly a feat of human tenacity and ingenuity. Bravo!
Sen didn’t feel any heaviness in Notre Dame. Quite the opposite. We had the pleasure of visiting as they were offering Sunday mass and as we strolled around the holy structure, now the color of crème pâtissière (the stuff inside cream puffs and eclairs), Seneca had tears in her eyes as a feeling of lightness and spirit filled her soul. She’s a very sensitive soul.
I felt it too, though perhaps slightly less because our kid, now almost 10, was less enthused to be visiting a cathedral so I agreed to wrangle him. Nonetheless the feeling of beauty, purity, and spirit permeated everything. Truly magical.
Seneca even went back again for another visit a few days later.
Sadly, our crêpe guy is no longer there with no clue as to where he is.
Paris has layers. Same Paris but it’s different every time we come, different layers.
There’s even a french pastry called mille-feuille which means a thousand layers. Fitting.
I believe that many things in life occur in layers. Not linearly. We’ve been to Paris dozens of times now—I mean, we lived in Nice, France for 3 years and zipping up to Paris on a train was no big deal—but each time we come to Paris, it feels different.
I do suppose it’s a practice to experience something like Paris over and over again but try to see it anew each time. Even though we have our Paris favorites, each time we come we try to search for something new—like a new crêpe stand!
It’s serious but happy work.
I’m up for the task.
But regarding layers, I think that life works like this. So often it feels like we come back over and over to the same damn thing—the same feelings, the same situations, the same kinds of relationships—and yet it’s not the same. We are different. The event, feeling, or person has changed.
Same Damn Apartment
I love to tell the story about one of my guy friends who fell in love with another friend of mine and so he moved out of his apartment to move into her house with her. After 3 years, they broke up. He needed a new place to stay so moved back into his old apartment building—same floor, same apartment layout, just across the hall.
He called me up one day, lamenting, “Dude! I’m in the same damn apartment, just across the hall.”
“But don’t you see (young padawan) … you’re across the hall.”
Yes, it was the same apartment but also completely different. He was different, his situation was different. He was now experiencing the bookend of his previous relationship and where he was at that moment was leagues apart than where he began.
Of course, this takes perspective to see life like this and again, it’s a daily practice to learn to see something like stages of your life or events with a level of newness and even to learn to appreciate the many layers of life.
Live Yoga Nidra Class: Layers
This week, I’ve decided to explore the theme of layers in my online Yoga Nidra class. I’ll be hosting my yoga retreat in the French Riviera so I’ve pre-recorded this session. You can register for this class like normal except at the time of class you will get the recordings. Same thing except you won’t see the other participants. Oh, the layers! Brilliant!
Class will be live the following week, but I’ll be Zooming in from Florence, Italy. Mama mia!
This week’s practice on Layers is a relaxing and illuminating practice that allows us the chance to practice seeing the many layers of life. You don’t need to know anything about yoga or meditation or Yoga Nidra to do this class. I share a few excellent poems that speak to our theme, we do some gentle poses (optional but nice), we breathe together. Then I invite you to get super relaxed and lie down as we settle into a long and relaxing Yoga Nidra practice. In this practice you’ll have the chance to explore having “first sight” and noticing the layers of the events and circumstances of our lives.
Please join me!
I’d love to hear about the layers of your life. How have you noticed life’s many layers?
Respond with a comment and let me know.
In the meantime, here’s a poem about layers that is as delicious as real Parisian strawberries.
The Layers
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
