Welcome.
Just for a moment,
Imagine yourself at peace.
If that seems a long way from you in this moment,
Don't worry.
It's just imagination.
Free yourself of anticipation and imagine yourself at peace.
Maybe a brief moment of imagination has started you on a path towards peace.
Maybe you need some more help.
Perhaps you'd like to begin by looking inside,
By setting the world aside for a bit.
If you would like to close your eyes to help that shift along,
You might choose to make that closure special.
You might allow your gaze to rest somewhere,
Your eyes to blink naturally.
Let your gaze be soft.
Allow your focus to soften,
Your acuity to fade.
See unclearly.
Notice if your eyes seem to wish to close.
Your upper eyelids might slowly descend to meet the lowers.
A gentle touch.
Eyelid upon eyelid.
Closing out light.
Removing color and shape,
But opening a new world of darkness.
A comforted darkness.
Warm and open.
Let your eyes relax even more without the need to scan and to focus.
Might you with intent relax the six muscles around each eye.
Perhaps feeling your eyeballs rolling a bit away from each other.
If your eyes were open,
Your gaze would be wide,
Panoramic,
Taking in a spacious view.
With eyes closed,
Might your internal gaze be just as expansive.
Seen widely,
Deeply into your periphery.
Perhaps you see black or gray.
Perhaps color or shape.
Perhaps an image emerges.
Some internal apparition.
Let whatever comes guide you on your path to peace.
Let your eyes relax even more without the need to focus.
You might feel coolness around your nostrils as you inhale.
A gentle warming as you exhale.
Allow yourself to indulge in the subtlety of your breathing.
The smell of the air,
Its taste.
The atmosphere of the earth giving freely to you.
Giving the fuel you burned.
Your body just as freely giving back to the atmosphere.
The fuel something else will burn.
A symbiosis of air.
An exchange of life.
Open to this exchange,
This bacchanal of the senses.
Feeling your connection to the planet,
To its life,
Your life,
All life.
You might fully notice through the evidence of your senses this exchange of air.
Might allow that notice,
That apprehension to subsume you.
Let whatever comes guide you on your path to peace.
Let your eyes relax even more without the need to focus.
Let your eyes relax even more without the need to focus.
Your breath comes and goes not by itself but through the movements of your body.
Your belly moves outward pulling your lungs open,
Creating a vacuum inside you.
Your diaphragm drops to invite the air in.
An invitation to life.
A request for filling.
An appeal for you to be swollen with air.
Then with equal subtlety your belly squeezes,
Pushing against your lungs,
Exhausting the air you have used,
The air you have borrowed,
Sending it back to its source.
Another cycle of breath fulfilled.
You might allow your attention to rest with your belly for a time.
With this engine of perpetual movement,
Both sustaining and giving life,
Let whatever comes guide you on your path to peace.
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