Today,
We'll be exploring the grounding force of our senses while also entering a little more deeply into the continual stream of change in which we live.
So first,
We'll start as we always do,
Taking a moment to settle in.
Roll your shoulders up,
Back and down.
Lift the crown of your head toward the ceiling as though a string is pulling it upward.
Feel the stretch in your neck and shoulders.
If you need to,
Move your body.
And when you're ready,
Come to stillness.
Sit comfortably,
Straight but not rigid.
The meditative mindset is a simple shift in attention.
It asks us to come to our senses,
To be an observer,
A witness to what is.
To bring our mind home to the body,
To the same place and time.
As we witness each moment,
We let it go to flow into the next,
With no need to stop or change it.
Tune in now to the sounds in your environment,
Letting them rise and gently fall away.
Notice now what you can feel,
Perhaps your feet upon the ground,
The solidity of the floor,
The earth beneath them.
Feel the air upon your skin.
The texture of your clothes,
Or that which you rest upon.
Tune in to the very places,
The lines between where your body meets the world.
Feel yourself rooted and held up.
With your inhale,
You expand.
And on the exhale,
You soften.
And let go.
Let your attention now gather into your hands.
Feel it like a warm ball of light shimmering,
Flowing through your fingers,
Resting gently in your palms.
Notice any sensations that move through your body,
And just follow them as they rise and fall,
Come and go.
Notice now where your body rises and falls as you breathe in and out,
And let the whole of your attention fall into the rise and the fall,
Like a wave ebbing and flowing,
Cresting and falling.
Focus now on your heart center,
This space expanding and softening with each breath.
And imagine there a light beginning to glow.
And notice in that glow,
An opening.
Into that opening,
You walk through to the other side.
Here you find yourself in a space of peace and tranquility.
Barefoot on grass,
In a meadow or park.
A beautiful blue sky stretches above,
And a breeze alights on your skin.
Before you,
A creek flows,
Water gently moving over rock.
Find here a place to sit,
On the grass or on a bench.
Take a moment and just rest and be.
And imagine now looking up into the blue sky,
Filling your vision with the vastness of it.
Your mind opening to its own edges and beyond them.
Making room for all that is,
What's to come,
And the pureness of possibility.
Making room for all that you know,
And the boundlessness of what is unknown.
And as you watch the sky,
A cloud passes over your field of vision,
Changing the contour for a moment,
The shape of what you see.
Watch the cloud move on,
And let it go.
Feel a breeze moving across your face,
Over your arms.
Notice how it touches your skin,
And then moves on.
Hear now the song of a bird,
Follow the melody until it fades,
And let it go.
You shift your gaze to the stream of water flowing before you.
Watch the play of light as it dances over the ripples.
The water moves over and around rocks,
Finding its way,
Changing what it leaves behind,
And flowing onward.
For just a moment,
Let yourself flow as the water,
Caught in the stream of time and change.
Embracing what comes for a moment,
And moving onward.
To embrace the next.
Where might the stream take you,
If you released yourself into it,
Trusting its wisdom?
Just allow your attention now to find whatever it does,
Be it your breath and its rise and its fall,
Your feet in the grass or your hands resting on your lap.
Any sounds or sensations of sky or water,
Wherever it lands,
Simply let your attention move deeply inside it.
And very gently notice what happens when you pay attention to something.
Does it stand still,
Or flow onward down the current of awareness,
Shifting,
Rising,
Falling,
Moving away like the cloud or the breeze?
Open the screen of your awareness and see what flows through,
Allowing it,
Without holding on to it.
In every moment,
Behind the movement of every sensation,
Every sound,
Every brush of breeze,
There is a stillness,
A silence,
The blank white canvas upon which the next moment,
Breath,
Sensation,
Is written.
The masterpiece of the moment continually changes,
While the canvas of awareness remains.
With every exhale,
Let yourself rest more deeply,
Releasing resistance,
Trusting in the flow,
Letting all that is,
Even you,
Be and become again and again.
See yourself now rising from the grass or the bench and moving back through the glow of life,
That is your heart center,
Coming back into your space,
To the here and now.
Allow your breath to return to its natural rhythm,
Noticing how that feels.
Bring your attention to your feet,
Feel their grounding,
The solidity of the present moment.
Notice the position of your hands and the posture of your shoulders.
Gratefully recognize the rise and fall of your breath once more.
Tune in to the sounds in your environment.
And when you are ready,
Wiggle your fingers and toes and open your eyes.
