Aerosha: Seated Center-Body Breath

Welcome,

Welcome,

Welcome to our seated belly breath.

As the title indicates,

I would love for you to be seated somewhere comfortably to begin this experience.

Whatever clothes you have on,

Assure that the waistband is loose,

Soft,

Perhaps unbuttoned or unzipped.

You can always put a pillow or a blanket over our waist.

You can always feel some warmth and comfort around us.

Take time to pause this and go change clothes if it feels cumbersome.

And just allow yourself to simply begin feeling your breath,

Feeling the body in which you breathe,

Feeling the expert expansion and contraction that happens effortlessly with each breath.

If you find there is effort,

Which is common,

Let's begin to consciously slow down the breathing by elongating the exhale,

Seeing if we can take sips in with the nose and expire through the mouth.

No particular pattern,

No particular shapes,

Just allowing the body to naturally calm,

Softening our shoulders,

Our eyebrows,

And truly allowing ourselves to observe in that breath.

Is it dominantly happening in the chest,

In the belly?

Can we begin to consciously bring it lower?

So if it is already in the belly,

Can we almost breathe into the hips and to the lower abdomen?

Can we begin to expand outwards,

Left and right,

Maybe out the back of the belly?

The lumbar,

The low back,

The mid back,

Hands maybe placed on the legs,

On the arms of the chair,

On your belly,

Simply allowing yourself to observe with a soft awareness to entice awe,

To return,

Letting our imagination guide us to where we'd like to go next here.

I'll invite you to imagine an energetic cord running from a dozen inches or so above the tip of your head.

Think of it like a glowing orange,

Like the color of rust,

A sort of warm tone,

A simple string dropped down like a plumb line,

Dropping it down through the center of your body,

This simple orange glowing line.

Running from above your head and along your spine all the way through your tail,

Continuing deep into the earth below you,

Collapsing all the sub floors beneath you,

Deeply rooting into the space on which you're planted in this moment,

Feeling your hips warm like embers,

Settling.

Feel as if the warm ember-like fire,

The weight of our hips,

Of our body and our earth,

Our sacred terrain is inviting this deep transparency within us,

A deep dive down into the honest,

Intimate depths of the subterranean,

A grand host,

Inviting us to shed the whirlwind of the collective and localized confusion,

Grief,

And dismantling that we may feel within our field,

An opening instead alongside and parallel to,

Within a devoted,

Ongoing state of listening,

A prayerful tuning of your ear to the body of the ground,

Hearing the words within yourself,

My vision is necessary,

My voice is sacred and will be received.

These moments of pause and quietude,

Opening in the belly with our breath,

Softening in the weight of the hips and the lower abdomen are meant for withdrawing from the world,

Unraveling and sinking into the soup,

Saturated in the swirl,

This diluted experience of the unknown is just as important and potent as the rebirth,

The renovation that inevitably follows these moments,

Bowing to the invisible,

Leaning into love,

What we may have never seen nor understood before,

With curiosity,

Love,

And open mind,

We will always be nudged to get lost before we are found.

Let's return to the tuning in,

To the ember,

Orange,

Glowing chord,

And if we may draw that throughout the body,

Finding gratitude for it and letting it dissipate,

Dropping now a new line from the crown,

This one,

A new color,

Perhaps one of your choice,

Imagine a wash of iridescence on it,

Let's invite it,

That same plum line,

Same shape,

Same movement from the crown down the spine into the hips,

Deep,

Deep,

Deep,

This time into the belly,

Our one point,

Our central point behind the navel,

This unchanging center of pure consciousness,

Of fertility,

Of calm,

Everything encircling it with our point of attention resting there,

Our one point in all things,

May we feel the connection from this point to the center point of Mother Earth,

Of Gaia,

Connecting all of us from the surface of Gaia to the core of Gaia,

Can we feel into the roundness,

The fullness of our own belly,

Like the understood roundness and fullness of our planet Earth,

Bringing our awareness to the rising and falling of the abdomen with the breath,

The beginning,

The middle,

The end,

And the transition of each of those phases in the breath,

See if we can reduce any force,

All accounts of efforting and increase our sensitivity,

May we turn on a filter of perception,

Gracefully attuned to the most subtle of sensation,

Of visualization,

Of sound,

Or any other sense that feels alive to you in this right now,

Note the constantly changing flow of sensation on each inspiration and each expiration,

The inhales and the exhales soften around all of these sensations,

Allow the breath to almost breathe itself in a softened belly,

Receiving breath,

Receiving sensation,

Experiencing life in the body,

A rising,

A softening,

These muscles that guard and enable us,

The tissues and the blood vessels,

The flesh,

The skin that keeps us intact,

Protected,

Let us soften all that has been hardened,

Layers and layers,

Levels,

Of softening,

If we're scanning and the surface within and around us feels cluttered,

Remember our access to the core,

To the treasure,

To the nucleus,

The black hole mystery of the subterranean,

The unknowns,

When we tune into the belly and allow all of its mystery,

The alchemy,

Each process,

Each illumination,

Feed us and reward us with remembrings,

Gifts,

Illuminations,

Musical aspects,

Intellectual insights,

Ecstatic epiphanies,

May we recognize any hardness by focusing on the supple and the spacious,

Let each breath enjoy its own expression as we bring it into the body,

To the belly,

Varying any details of your breath may feel peculiar,

Even awkward,

But it's inspiring the brain to find new patterns and as we experiment with what feels good in this moment,

Anew,

The mouth breathing,

The nose breathing,

Even sensing the breath,

Moving in and out of the bottoms of your feet,

In through your left hand and then exhale,

Perhaps a flutter or a sound or a hum on the movement out of the right hand.

The next exhale may ooze all tension out through the forehead,

Erasing any wrinkles or smile lines around your eyes and letting the lips fall slack.

Notice which one feels more luscious when we take it in and fill,

When we release it and empty.

Anytime we may access these breaths,

Silence between our words,

Gaps between our syllables,

Breaths between movements,

A time to savor and offer a passage to the heart in its gentle vastness.

Softening in this belly becomes transit towards the heart as a welcome and alive and well practice.

Slowing down amplifies as our experiences and intensifies all of what we are receiving in our beingness.

If at any moment we can feel a bracing or a return of contraction,

Let us soften our grip and commit to hold and release with less and less force,

Practicing the deep trust of the perfection of the whole,

Connecting deeply in the one point,

Our zero point,

The presence of our eternal infinite love.

Here is where burdens have an opportunity to lighten and defenses may be lowered,

Where we can open to this tender underbelly and access helpers who may assist,

Who are awaiting,

Who are luminous,

Who are infinitely kind.

They are within us and our own point of focus,

Known as prayer,

Known as focused attention,

Meditation may reveal themselves to you in time to honor ourselves where we are in space,

An orientation for the unseen to join us.

Notice yourself and your awareness in your chair,

In your home,

Or perhaps the land on which you currently are present in this moment,

The directions around you,

The landscape and the expanse within,

Around,

And beyond you,

Thank you.

Maybe seven forth and reintegrate into nature as we feel complete with this breath,

Knowing the cycle of the inhale and the exhale,

A practice for you,

Always accessible,

Always returning us to nature,

To wholeness,

To oneness,

To an illuminated essence.

Honoring this practice with a simple touch,

The hand to the body,

Perhaps the hands to the eyes to cup them and shield the light while we flutter and blink the eyes open,

Maybe a bow or a nod or an inner beam of honoring your choice to listen,

To be present,

And to simply and exquisitely breathe open the belly,

Thank you.