Good morning,
Or evening,
Wherever and whenever this meditation finds you.
You know,
I recently visited the Redwoods in California.
It's a place I'd never been,
Something I had never experienced.
And it was,
It was amazing.
These giant redwoods live upwards of 2,
000 years.
And the sequoias live upwards of 3,
000 years.
Those are numbers that I have a hard time wrapping my head around.
Until you step into the forest,
Into a grove of redwoods.
Then it all makes sense.
Then you understand.
As I stepped into one of these forests,
Into a grove of redwoods,
What impressed me most was not the height of the trees,
Not their majesty so much as the stillness.
There were not any sounds there.
There were not sounds of animals,
Not birds.
But you didn't hear the wind.
It was pure stillness.
And you felt the wisdom that existed in that grove.
And the word that came to me was the word slow.
For nothing in that grove of trees happened quickly.
These giants,
These ancients,
They know the secret to life,
To longevity.
And I believe that the word slow came to me for a reason.
So this meditation today is about slowing down.
About slowing the swirl.
About becoming the eye of the storm.
With current events and life in general,
Things have sped up so quickly and seem so chaotic that it almost feels like we live in a constant tornado.
Have you ever felt that?
Well,
Then let's take a page from the Book of the Ancients and slow things down.
If you have a place that you could sit down for a moment and meditate with me,
Please do so.
Go ahead and get comfortable.
And close your eyes.
Yeah,
Just like that.
Let's take a gentle breath in through the nose.
And out through the mouth.
Let's do another in through the nose.
And out through the mouth,
Nice and slow.
Just like that.
With your eyes closed,
I want you to imagine yourself opening your eyes.
Visualizing yourself opening your eyes.
And as you do so,
Finding that you are seated in a meadow.
And in the distance,
You can see mountains.
They are so far away.
And all that is before you are grasses and flowers and some trees sprinkled here and there.
I want you to stand on your feet.
And I want you to take a 360 degree turn and see all that is before you.
You see grasses in the distance and some trees.
And you imagine there must be a river somewhere or a stream.
And as you're taking it all in,
Suddenly the stillness is broken.
It's broken by a sound you've heard before.
It's somewhat familiar.
And you notice it as wind.
But this wind,
This wind sounds angry.
And as you look in the distance,
You notice a storm.
You notice a storm is brewing and forming into a tornado.
A swirling of wind is coming towards you.
As you continue to watch,
You see the destruction that is happening in the path of the storm,
Even though it is so far away.
And instead of turning and running from this storm,
The only way out of this situation is through.
And you realize that this world,
This view,
This creation that you were part of was actually generated.
As within,
So without.
As above,
So below.
As you slowly walk toward it,
Your hands trail in the grasses and the flowers and you feel the earth beneath your feet.
As you get closer to the storm,
You stop and decide that this is where you make your stand.
You sit down on the ground,
On Mother Earth,
Right here,
And prepare yourself.
As you do so,
You take a breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.
And you place your hands on Mother Earth and you feel her strength.
You feel her depth.
What you must do.
How to withstand the storm.
So gently,
Through your hands and through your feet,
You send roots into the earth,
Feeling your fingers and your toes becoming roots and digging into her dark brown depths.
You feel the grittiness of the soil and the coolness of the earth as you become one with her.
With each breath,
Sending roots out as far as you can and sending roots as deep as you can with each and every breath.
As you breathe in,
You breathe in light and life and with each breath out,
You send roots deeper and further.
Light.
Send it into the earth.
As you raise your head and you look up ahead of you,
You see that the storm is near.
You don't even need to see it,
You can feel it.
You feel the winds increasing as they gain speed as they get closer to you.
It moves the grasses in front of you and you feel the wind as it rushes against your skin.
The closer it gets,
It becomes painful.
The winds begin tearing at your clothes.
The dirt beats against your skin.
And yet,
You stay bold and you send those roots deeper and deeper and further and further out than you've ever sent them before.
You close your eyes and allow the storm to come to you.
The fiercer it gets,
The deeper you send those roots.
This may shake you,
But it will not take you.
Pretty soon,
You feel the outside wall of the storm hit you with its destructive chaos.
You feel it whip your clothes,
Your hair,
Biting into your skin,
Trying to uproot you,
Trying to move you.
Your root system is tested,
But it is strong.
Continue to close your eyes,
Feeling into Mother Earth as the storm is passing through you like the flip of a switch.
Complete and open.
You are in the eye of the storm and you feel yourself relax.
Your roots hold strong and gently and slowly you open your eyes.
You see the swirling that exists around you and yet complete stillness exists within its eye with your grounding force and a gentle breath.
You breathe this stillness into the storm that surrounds you,
Slowing it down,
Slowing it down.
With each and every breath,
You slow it down.
Slow it down.
Slow it down.
As you slow it down,
You realize that the storm is not just wind and dirt.
Oh,
So many things exist in this storm,
For this is your storm.
And as it slows,
You realize that it's picked up things you love along with things that you don't.
But the slower you're able to make the storm,
The slower the swirl,
You get to decipher what everything is in this storm.
And gently,
You start plucking out the things that you want to keep,
Setting them on your lap one by one,
Realizing that the storm has not just picked up the chaos of the world,
But it's picked up beautiful things too.
When that storm starts,
It has no ability to only pick up certain things.
It ends up picking up so many other things.
And as you've slowed the storm down,
You continue to pick out the things that you want to keep.
With the last items placed in your lap,
You close your eyes once again,
Checking in with your root system,
And you allow the storm,
The winds,
And the things you left to pass over you,
To pass through you.
And pretty soon,
You're on the other side.
You realize that the storm has dissipated without feeding it with fear and your ability to slow it down and see what it really is.
The storm is no more,
And it has no hold upon you.
So as you gather the things you want to keep that you placed in your lap,
You pull your roots back into yourself.
Pull them in from the depths,
Pull from the east and the west,
And slowly,
You stand.
You take a nice,
Gentle,
Cleansing breath,
And let it go.
Releasing any vestiges of the storm,
And gently thanking Mother Earth for her strength in holding you from helping you from helping you hold the storm.
And you realize without the fear,
Without the running,
Without the avoidance,
It's gone.
It moved through and moved on with a gentle sigh of relief,
Of love.
Slowly bring yourself back into your body at this moment,
Feeling into where you are,
Into what you are.
One more deep,
Cleansing breath in through the nose,
Out through the mouth,
Sighing it out,
And when it feels right,
Opening your eyes,
And coming fully back into the space you're in.
Beautiful job.
You can use this meditation anytime you feel that the swirl of life,
The chaos of life,
Has you entranced,
Entangled,
And you need to slow it down.
Now go take your grounded self and be like the ancients,
And bring stillness to yourself and the world around you.
Remember.
Slow.
