Yoga Nidra and Small Kindnesses

Today, I am excited to tell you about my next live Yoga Nidra teacher training, Restore Yoga workshop, as well as offer you this incredible poem …

I heard Helena Bonham Carter read this poem and it stopped me in my tracks. Granted, she could read the IRS filing instructions and it would sound inspiring and poetic. 

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Small Kindnesses

By Danusha Lameris

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

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I love the notion of “these fleeting temples we make together” the container of love made by a simple gesture, a kind word, a smile. 

To me, this poem epitomizes that fascinating intersection I like to play at and study, that crossroads between our humanness and our beingness. Here, we can celebrate the messiness of being human, knowing that behind the hot mess that is being human, there is a foundation of goodness, and compassion. 

We are Source and Source is love. 

I love practicing our ability to compassionately respond to life’s ups and downs instead of reacting to them. Practicing this essential skill through Yoga Nidra is like learning to become a ninja of life, except of course that instead of mastering nunchucks and throwing stars, you get to lie down and practice napping your way to enlightenment while drifting on clouds of bliss. When you get done, you get to go back out into the world and show up as your best, most responsive self.

To help us all practice this essential life skill, I invite you to join me for  my Restore Yoga and Yoga Nidra workshop and my live, in-person and online Yoga Nidra training. 

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Live Yoga Nidra Teacher Training:

May 11–12; 18–19, Salt Lake City and via Zoom

Yoga Nidra is far more than guided visualization—it's a profound pathway to personal transformation and even spiritual awakening. In this comprehensive 30-hour training, you'll become an expert in harnessing the life-changing potential of Yoga Nidra. I’ll guide you to gain a mastery of this ancient practice. You’ll emerge with the skills to guide your students into deep states of conscious relaxation, facilitating lasting shifts in their physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Whether you're a yoga teacher, coach, or therapist, adding Yoga Nidra to your repertoire will allow you to profoundly impact the lives of those you serve.

Stand Apart as a Truly Transformative Teacher: Facilitating Transformation with the Yoga of Sleep

In today's crowded wellness landscape, becoming a Yoga Nidra expert is your key to standing out. This training goes far beyond teaching you rote scripts—you'll learn the overarching principles and roadmaps that allow you to teach from the wisdom of your authentic voice. Gain the ability to dynamically craft experiences tailored to your students' unique needs. People are yearning for the powerful transformation only you can provide through the ancient art of Yoga Nidra. Seize this opportunity to become a master guide on the journey of self-discovery and radical growth.

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Restore Yoga and Yoga Nidra Workshop:

Sunday, May 5th 12–2 pm at Be-ing Community

Normally this is held at Mosaic Yoga but there is an event at Mosaic on the 1st Sunday of May. So, on May 5th I’ll be hosting this workshop at a different venue:

Be-ing Community 355 N 300 W. Salt Lake City, Utah 84111

$39.

In this class we will dip into the timeless with resting poses, poetry, and a decadent Yoga Nidra practice. This 2-hour class will incorporate supported and resting postures using yoga props (provided if you don’t have them). I try to use minimal words to allow for a generous and open spaciousness. You can also expect poetry and music to help connect your soul with timeless presence.

Also available via Zoom. Please email me in advance to tell me you’ll be Zooming in.

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May we all bend over to pick up the lemons that spill out of a stranger’s grocery bag.

May we all learn to access our highest good by exploring the depth that exists in the dance between our humanness and our beingness.

And may it begin with a simple gesture of kindness, a word like … YES!

White-Eyes—Seeing The Divine In Everything

Today, I want share one of my favorite winter poems, White-Eyes by Mary Oliver. 

First of all, if you haven’t already, ‘tis the season to sign up for my 31-Day Meditation Challenge. It starts January 1 and lasts all through the month. The challenge is simply to meditate any way you wish for 15 minutes a day, every day for the entire month. I’ll be supporting you every step of the way with daily emails, live group meditations sessions, and plenty of recordings, poetry, links, and stories to make the experience very rich. 

Give the world a gift by practicing drawing inward, getting quiet in heart and mind, so you can present a YOU that is more mindful, less reactive, and rooted in compassion. 

It costs only $31 and you can get your tuition back if you complete the challenge. Make a meditation posse and sign up!

Onto the poem!

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Mary Oliver

What I love so much about Mary Oliver's poetry is that so often in her poetry she is speaking to the eternal, the Everything, God, or the Universe by simply reflecting what she sees in nature.

And like in her poem “Bone” I love how she willingly admits that she doesn't fully know what God is but is "playing at the edges of knowing" and that perhaps it’s not about knowing at all, but rather it’s about “seeing, touching, and loving.”

It’s about being present with senses and heart.

Through her poetry, Mary Oliver helps us all to create a touchpoint to the Divine that is present both in our outer and inner worlds and opens us to seeing, touching, and loving as she steers us away from trying to make it all make sense. 

Her poem White-Eyes is about seeing the Divine in something as simple yet complex as the wind dancing through the tree tops and the snow silently drifting down from the heavens. It’s an exposé about how with the “right eyes” or with attuned sight, we might be able to see the loving Divine present in all things.

I hope you enjoy it. 

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White-Eyes

BY MARY OLIVER


In winter

all the singing is in

         the tops of the trees

          where the wind-bird


with its white eyes

shoves and pushes

         among the branches.

          Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,

but he's restless—

         he has an idea,

          and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings

as long as he stays awake.

         But his big, round music, after all,

          is too breathy to last.

So, it's over.

In the pine-crown

         he makes his nest,

          he's done all he can.

I don't know the name of this bird,

I only imagine his glittering beak

         tucked in a white wing

          while the clouds—

which he has summoned

from the north—

         which he has taught

          to be mild, and silent—

thicken, and begin to fall

into the world below

         like stars, or the feathers

               of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,

that is asleep now, and silent—

         that has turned itself

          into snow.

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I’d love to hear your thoughts on what this poem says to you.

Drop me a line, I read every email I get. 

May we all be our best by remember those essential phrases:

• I love you.

• I’m sorry.

• How can I help?
  
  

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Live Classes, In-person and Online:

• Yoga For Stiffer Bodies on Saturdays at 7:30–8:30 am at Mosaic Yoga

• Live online Yoga Nidra class Sundays at 9 am. Access the live class or its replay from anywhere in the world.  

• Vinyasa Mondays at 12 pm at Mosaic Yoga

• I teach a Restore Yoga and Yoga Nidra workshop on the first Sunday of every month at Mosaic Yoga

• Plus, mark your calendar for January 1 because I’m hosting an in-person yoga class to begin the new year. Together we’ll plant our Sankalpa, the seed of our intentions, through ritual, movement, meditation, and breath. Mosaic Yoga.

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Yoga Retreats 2024

Become a Leader In Your Field: Teach Yoga Nidra

Who Should Teach Yoga Nidra?

Want to stand out as a yoga or meditation teacher? 
Teach Yoga Nidra.

Want to be an extraordinary therapist with a powerful resource that can access ANY client’s deepest needs? 
Teach Yoga Nidra. 

Want to be the kind of school teacher who can meet, welcome, then and neutralize stress and anxiety of your students? 
Teach Yoga Nidra. 

Want to learn how to guide a team to unheard of levels of performance? 
Teach Yoga Nidra.

Want to help yourself and others resource their next-level creativity?
Teach Yoga Nidra. 

Want to learn how to make lasting changes in relationships for yourself and others?
Teach Yoga Nidra.

Yoga Nidra is an efficient and effective catalyst for massive personal and group growth. 

Truly, anybody can do it. 

That said, learning to be a skillful facilitator, one who can speak from the power of their own voice to meet the individual needs of their clients, is rare indeed. 

My passion is not only to teach you about what Yoga Nidra is and why it’s so crucial for today’s world, but more importantly how to uncover the incredible facilitator that is already inside of you, the one who knows how to make a massive and positive impact on your audience in ONLY the way you know how. 

Yoga Nidra Teacher Training

My live, in-person Yoga Nidra training runs August 17–20, 2023 in Salt Lake City. Please, walk, run, fly, or teleport to Salt Lake City and join us. It will be such an honor to work with you.

If you’re not close to SLC (or your teleport machine is in the shop), now’s the time to join my pre-recorded online Yoga Nidra teacher training program. 

I’d love to have you join me in this conversation of understanding ourselves and making a powerful and positive impact on the world by learning to facilitate Yoga Nidra and learning to Wake Up with the Yoga of Sleep. 

Please reach out with any questions. 

Scott Moore (E-RYT 500, YACEP, RYS) is an American-born international yoga and Yoga Nidra teacher, mentor, and author. He’s been a career yoga teacher since 2003 and has logged over 25,000 teaching and training hours. He is the founder of Waking Up with the Yoga of Sleep, a method of Yoga Nidra instruction and teacher training which celebrates students and teachers in 43 countries. He is the author of three books, Practical Yoga Nidra, 5-Minute Manifesting Journal, and 20 Yoga Nidra Scripts Vol. 1. Scott teaches trainings, classes, and retreats in the US, Europe, and Asia and is currently living in Southern France. When he’s not practicing or teaching yoga, he loves to play the sax and clarinet, trail run, and travel with his family.