Welcome to your meditation practice.
This practice can be done seated or laying down.
Whatever posture feels comfortable where you can really let go.
Take your time to establish your meditation shape.
Supporting yourself with any extra cushions,
Bolsters,
Blankets,
Eye covers.
Moving as much as you need to settle.
And as you feel ready,
Letting your eyes either close down or land into a soft gaze.
Invite your body to become a little heavier and more dense.
Wherever your body meets the earth,
Allow the earth to hold your weight a little more.
Releasing any inner gripping.
Belly softening.
Shoulders and hands softening.
Perhaps your tongue falls away from the roof of your mouth.
You'll let your cheeks become a little softer.
And the space around your eyes and your forehead melts.
Feel that you have arrived.
The effortful part of the practice is over.
You've made it to the beginning.
Now you can simply rest back.
Enjoy this time to be slow.
And to do very little.
Allow your awareness to land into your heart space.
And asking here for your deepest desire for this practice.
Allow your heart to reply rather than your mind or your ego.
And allow this deep desire to guide you towards a personal intention for this meditation.
When you have established that intention,
Letting go of it like it's a seed that has been planted and that will grow in its own time as the practice unfolds.
And meet your breath as it flows in and out of your lungs.
And allow your exhales to grow a little bit longer and fuller.
Letting your exhales be long and slow enough to really feel the softening and the surrender that they offer to your body and to your mind.
In your mind's eye,
Start to visualize yourself standing in front of a vast expanse of bushland.
Right at the beginning of a long path that enters into the bush.
Soft,
Red,
Sandy dirt underfoot.
And with bare feet you can sink into this soft texture and feel connected to the ground upon which you stand.
You start to walk down this path into the bush,
Leaving civilization behind for a little while.
As you walk,
You feel and hear the gentle rhythm of your footsteps on the earth,
Like a heartbeat guiding you into this landscape.
Slowly and unrushed you walk.
On either side of you,
For as far as the eye can see,
Eucalyptus trees side by side,
Growing tall from their roots to their heights.
Rough bark on the surface of their trunks,
And up above their gum leaves,
Creating this tapestry of forest green.
As you gaze up at the leaves,
There's the dappled sunlight passing through.
And you close your eyes for a moment,
Feeling this warm sunlight warming the coolness on the surface of your skin.
You breathe in the fresh,
Cleansing scent of eucalyptus.
And as you breathe out,
It's as if you experience a sigh of relief to finally be here,
To be held by this green cocoon,
And to have nothing to do but enjoy.
And so you start to slow down a little,
The heartbeat of your footsteps becoming a more spaced-out rhythm.
You feel that you can slow down to the rhythm of this natural landscape,
The rhythm of the wombats buried somewhere in their burrows,
And the rhythm of the koalas somewhere in the branches above,
Nestled in deep sleep.
As you stroll,
You notice a sacred silence in this space,
Interrupted only by the sounds of birds chirping above.
You could listen to this silence and bird song all day long.
As you continue to stroll slowly along this path,
You notice a big gum tree in the center of the path up ahead,
The biggest tree in the whole expanse of bush,
Wider and taller than any other you've seen so far.
And so you continue to walk towards this tree.
You approach the base of the eucalyptus tree.
You bring your hands to its trunk,
Feeling its sturdiness,
Its wisdom,
Its deep stillness.
And you decide to take rest here for a little while.
You sit at the base of the tree,
Your spine resting perfectly against the trunk,
And your legs extended ahead of you on the soft,
Sandy earth.
You rest your head back,
Sunlight glowing over your eyes and your cheeks.
You close your eyes once more,
And you allow yourself to be here.
Behind your spine,
You're aware of the wisdom and deep stillness of the tree you rest upon.
And beneath your legs,
Beneath the surface of the earth,
You're aware of the expanse of roots connecting all of these trees together,
The wondrous intelligence of the natural world.
And you feel that you could merge with this wisdom,
This stillness and connectedness,
Acknowledging that you yourself have come from this earth.
You yourself are nature.
So for a few minutes,
You allow yourself to rest in your own true nature,
Slow and content and present.
If the visualization remains,
Allow it to slowly dissolve,
As you feel yourself instead resting on the earth in the space you occupy,
Sensing what might have shifted,
Recognizing how it might feel in your body and in your mind to be slow,
To have that inner permission to move at nature's pace,
Remembering your intention from the beginning of your practice and either keeping that intention for the rest of your day or tuning in for any fresh insight and understanding that might guide you in the coming hours,
Listening to that part of self that merges with the wisdom and stillness of a big eucalyptus tree,
Settling into this new intention.
You might start to deepen your breath again,
Moving as and when you naturally feel ready and closing your practice as you choose to do so.
Namaste.
