I used to attempt meditation while lying on my back, though you're not supposed to do that. Too easy to fall asleep. Yes, it is. Nice and easy on the back, though. I have never found it easy to sit crosslegged on the floor, even as a child. Lotus? Forget it.

My personal head-canon for Astreiant is that it's more or less seventeenth-century Belgium, if there had, in fact, been a "Belgium" in the seventeenth century. As you say, it doesn't map perfectly, but there are enough parallels that I settle the French? Flemish? Buhwha? mental rustlings pretty well that way for myself.