Welcome.
Find your most comfortable position.
I want you to feel truly at ease.
So take as long as you need to get company.
If you have a blanket,
Tuck it in around you.
If you want to light a candle,
Do that now.
Take as long as you want to settle in.
And when you're ready,
Close your eyes.
And take three slow breaths to begin.
Not performed ones,
Just real ones.
Breathing in because your body needs air.
Breathing out because it needs to release.
And with the breaths,
Let yourself arrive here.
The twelfth house in astrology is the house of solitude,
Of retreat,
Of the spiritual,
Of everything that lives beneath the surface of ordinary life.
It is the house of the mystic and the dreamer,
Of the quiet that lives underneath the noise.
We all have a twelfth house.
We're all capable of going to that place.
That's where we're going today.
I want you to imagine that you are stepping out of your ordinary life for a little while.
You're not running away from it,
Just stepping back,
Like stepping through a door into a quiet room.
And in this room,
There are no notifications.
There are no obligations.
No version of yourself performing for anyone.
It's just you.
Take a slow breath,
All the way down to your belly,
And let it go.
And again.
And I invite you to think about the question,
Who am I when nobody is watching?
And not the role or the label,
Not the version of yourself that turns up in the world.
Who's the quiet one underneath all of that?
Keep breathing as you consider,
Slow and steady.
In Tarot,
The Hermit is the card of this inner journey.
He stands in the dark,
On a high and quiet mountain,
Holding up a small lantern.
He's not looking for company.
He has deliberately gone to the high place to be alone,
Because that is where his wisdom lives.
His lantern is not for other people.
It's his own inner light,
Which he has climbed up here to see more clearly.
You have your own lantern.
And again.
In the noise of daily life,
It can be hard to see it.
There's too much other light around,
Too many demands and voices and things that feel urgent.
But up here in the quiet,
You can see it clearly.
Take a breath in.
And as you breathe out,
I want you to let go of any identity you've been holding today.
Not permanently,
But just for now.
Let go of your name.
Let go of your roles.
Let go of your history and your plans.
Just for a few moments,
You are simply this,
A consciousness,
Just breathing right here.
Notice what remains when all of that is set aside.
What is the quality of the awareness that is still there,
Underneath everything?
It is steady.
It has always been steady.
It was with you as a child.
It is with you now.
It will be with you in 10,
20,
40 years.
This is the part of you that does not change,
Even as everything else does.
Breathe into that part of yourself.
Let it be recognized.
Let it feel,
Just for this moment,
Fully seen.
The cosmos has been turning for longer than we could comprehend.
The same stars that hung over ancient people are hanging over you right now.
The same moon that pulled the tides when humans first stood upright is pulling at you right now with her quiet,
Tidal gravity.
You are part of something vast.
And in this moment,
You don't have to do anything with that.
You just have to be in it.
Take three slow,
Nourishing breaths.
When you're ready to return,
Do so slowly.
Gently begin to notice the room around you,
The sounds outside,
The temperature of the air.
Begin to feel the weight of your body again and welcome yourself back into it.
Wiggle your fingers and toes.
Take one more deep breath in and release it.
You're allowed to carry the quiet of this place with you.
It doesn't stay here when you leave.
It goes with you.
It lives in you.
It always has.
So when you're ready,
Open your eyes.
Thank you so much for letting me share this space with you today.
Have a wonderful day and blessed be.
