roses, permission & rest

One of the greatest joys and gifts of being self-employed, teaching yoga and sharing my writing online is the women it has connected me with all over the world.

I am currently writing from the room where I first created and birthed The Daily Rest Studio. Where I pulled out my hair filming the first classes over and over again, watching YouTube tutorials on lighting and sound and feeling completely and utterly out of my depth.

I genuinely could never have imagined what TDR studio would grow into. I never imagined the studio would become my life, would expand into a roots and bones company and move me to Tokyo, Japan. 

The Daily Rest Studio was not built on strategy. It has always been built on passion, excitement and mostly, in collaboration with and response to community. Many of the classes and workshops in the space come from member suggestions, stories and requests. It is because of the people within it, that TDR studio is not an online yoga membership, but a retreat, a sanctuary, a spa for your spirit, that lives, breathes and continues to transform.

This month, long time member and muse, Oorja curated for everyone a suggested weekly schedule of practices. I am so excited to introduce Oorja and her relationship with rest, beauty and sensuality below. I know you’ll love her as much as we do in the studio!

Can you give us a little intro as to who you are

I am a sensualist, a fashion designer, an artist, a writer, a triple water sign and most importantly a lover. ;)

What was your relationship with rest before The Daily Rest Studio?

I had never yet encountered the idea of rest as a conscious practice that one can enter into on purpose. I had recently emerged from a villain origin story level of traumatic burnout, and still saw rest only in a binary of work-indulgence-work, a sort of debauchery. I think all girlboss millenials absorbed this from the culture at large growing up, we thought binge-watching, binge-eating, binge-drinking and other mindless, hedonistic, eyes glazed-over states of consumption are 'relaxation' because we 'deserve' it after our time in the extremely disciplined trenches of working at stuff.

I've always practiced yoga, ever since I was a schoolgirl, but I had never met restorative or yin yoga specifically. The captions on the obscure, alluring little TDR account at the time were so seductive! I was researching recovering from anxiety almost all the time back then, and the idea of resting and relaxing as a practice, as a 'productive' thing to do was very intriguing for me. I feel like that's the only way to get people into rest, isn't it? Like convincing a cat to get back inside the house. We'll only walk in because we're told it's productive, and we're too hopped up on caffeinated hustle culture to do anything unless it's pitched as productive. Noob rest is doing it because it's productive, advanced level samurai rest is laughing at 'productivity' being the reason to do it.  

How had that changed (if it has!) over time?

For perhaps one year into being a TDR member, opening the website and doing a practice was something I would 'make myself do.' And it took a long time before I slowly built the habit of accessing the studio even thrice a week. I knew I had the membership, but as it does for all beginners I believe, there would go by a week or two where I didn't open TDR at all. It takes a little bit of self pushing and strictness at first, but at some point I became a person who is on her mat, doing a tiny rest practice or something else on TDR everyday, and now it's not something I "do," it's just the sweetest way to live... How I be and am. I feel like resting is something I can intuitively incorporate into my life now, and I inhabit a slightly different fabric of reality from the rest of the world just from doing so. I could go on for ages about this, but I think that what happens to one from the inside when we start resting in this way is essentially inexplicable. Only when you've slipped into it, you can feel it, and you can tell how different the energy feels when you meet someone who has not yet been transformed by the rest life. 

Do you have any favourite TDR practices? can you give us a little insight into your curation?

The Magdalene meditation, and everything sacral, hip, sensual and tailbone-dripping have felt the most exciting and transformative for me. I wanted to make this curation very juicy, like re-emerging into creative, generative womanliness after a long time in limbo. 

Have you noticed any unexpected benefits of Rest?

This shouldn't even be unexpected now that I say it - but a deeper capacity for orgasmic pleasure. More openness towards the subtle and the tender, in all ways. The more I do twenty minutes of legs up the wall, the quicker I have started entering a sort of Theta state as soon as I enter the posture, and I think some very interesting things in there, but as soon as I wake, I feel like I've risen from a dream state and can't recount what I was thinking word for word. And still, I can trust that it's there within me. It always blows my mind to witness that quiet tectonic shifting that happens inside the brain when you enter a restorative pose. 

What are your favourite rest pairings?

First of all everything rose! A vase of fresh roses at the edge of my mat, rose oil, rose steeped in hot water to drink, rose incense. I love pairing a hot cup of cacao with a practice too, that was how I started my journey with cacao. I keep something handy to write insights, downloads and untangled clarity in - A dark, forest green brushed velvet journal. I was all for the bare minimum, better-5-minutes-than-nothing style when I initially joined (who isn't?) and perhaps I still am on some days, but I've really been playing with choosing the opposite end of this spectrum now that I've crossed the threshold of just enough. I like to go all the way and more, and being extra about my time in the container of a rest practice. I've included a lot of long practices in my curation fully on purpose, because we really can do it a lot more often than we think we can. Playing with the edge of princess and 'Too Much.' I remind myself that I'd easily spend twenty minutes mindlessly scrolling, and yet a timer of ten minutes is all it takes to light a candle and create a queenly sensorial ambience for rest.

What would you say to the woman who cannot slow down or feels guilty for taking rest?

Well, I suspect she wouldn't listen to me. We never do, until we're ready to receive it or our body screams in illness that pushes us into taking this seriously. I would love to have a conversation with her, a very slow unfurling of the 'Why' behind each of these things. I don't know why exactly it is so but I feel like an openness to slowing down and taking rest only happens within women when they have taken one step into a feminine energy healing journey. Perhaps I'd ask her to make a real list of what being the Good Girl who does all the work and serves all the people has actually given to her in this life so far. I would recommend reading your entire Substack, even Mama Gena's book, Pussy. No woman is immune to the desire for beauty - not merely the way we look but our innate feminine hunger for being surrounded by beauty in our lives, I feel like speaking to the beauty that rest brings out within us and brings into our world is always my favourite way to approach this subject with burnt out women, although I acknowledge I am heavily biased as someone with a Pisces stellium in the house of Venus.

There's so many people in my life that I wish I could drag by the collar and make rest, but the more I rest and learn from TDR myself, the more I realise that I just need to be who I am out loud. I need to speak of slowing down and resting as it is for me - not to preach, educate or convince, but simply as a fact of my life. I simply need to exist as a juicy example of a woman who understands slowing down and resting, who doesn't hide it like a shameful, privileged secret (I used to do this, ew), and people can feel something different emanating from you like a forcefield, and they want to know what it is. It is simply inevitable to trigger/inspire the women who need it too into finding the path. 

Where can everyone connect with your work, and your world?

I am on Instagram as @oorjamoon where I post too many stories a day, most days. On Substack, I write about the feminine on 'the moon's gaze,' and I write sensual, erotic pieces on 'Sandalwood Scented Skin.'