corpse pose

Article link is behind WaPo’s paywall, but I’ve shared it as a gift link, so it should be accessible. And what a gift it is.

... the group of seven yogis in a class held Wednesday inside a cafe in Lincolnshire, England, were finally in shavasana, a position at the end of a yoga class — sometimes called corpse pose — where people sink into a meditative state by lying on their backs.


For 30 minutes, they resembled corpses as the instructor, Millie Laws, 22, banged on a shamanic drum inside a room lit only by the golden glow of candlelight. The scene was meant to be relaxing — but for a couple walking their dog outside the building, it resembled something far more sinister.


“They reported to the police that they’d seen somebody walking around in a room lit up with candles and what looked like dead people lying all over the floor,” Laws told The Washington Post. “The couple thought it was some sort of ritual mass killing.”