Welcome.
Take a few moments to come to ground,
To touch down onto the good earth.
Find your breath and be reassured.
Find more reassurance in your body,
In the parts that feel good,
The parts that are a tad creaky.
For a moment,
Find you.
Our lives are lived in a constant state of flow.
We flow through air,
And air flows through us.
We move through the vast flow cycles of water,
And water flows through us.
Our lives flow through time,
Minute by minute,
Hour by hour,
Year by year.
We flow with currents of love,
Loving and being loved.
We flow sometimes bumping against objects,
Sometimes crashing hard,
Sometimes riding so high on the crest of love waves that the rest of the universe seems small and insignificant.
We exist within so many flows.
Maybe you have a favorite flow that you'd like to be in right now.
I'll offer some suggestions you might consider,
But if you're already in the flow,
Keep going.
The flow of breath.
Often we start a meditation practice with the flow of our breath,
Both because it is always available to us,
And because it is a very powerful tool.
We are always breathing,
And our breath is always changing moment to moment to meet the circumstances of our lives.
The flow of breath keeps us alive,
But also is a great teacher.
We can learn so much about how we're doing,
And what we need by observing our breath.
For a while,
Might you sit with your breath,
Seeking to learn,
Seeking reassurance,
Seeking a calmness from which you can observe.
The calmness might already be in place for you,
Or it might seem far away.
If it seems far away,
Let yourself be in spate.
It's okay to struggle.
Follow the guiding star of your breath,
And it will be okay.
You will find what you need.
The flow of air.
Beyond the movement of air into and out of our bodies,
The atmosphere of earth flows all around us.
It warms us and cools us.
It carries the nutrients we need in the bacteria and viruses that lay us low.
You might feel a current of air around your body right now,
Or maybe the air around you is still,
And you only experience the temperature of the air in your room,
Or perhaps a scent it carries.
This atmosphere circling the earth,
Moving and scouring,
Being renewed and refreshed over and over again,
Sometimes invisible and not seen,
But felt,
And other times filled with vapor and showing itself as mist and clouds.
For a moment,
You might make friends with the wind,
Perhaps journey with its movements,
Flow with air over mountains around corners,
Across vast plains.
Let the wind carry you through the mountains.
The flow of water.
Perhaps the life-sustaining flow of water speaks to you.
Water flowing through creeks and rivers into the currents of oceans.
The whole hydrological wheel of apparition,
Condensation,
Mist and clouds,
The flow of air.
Water passing through air,
Into plants,
Into animals,
Locked far beneath the surface of earth for countless stretches of years before re-emerging to nourish again.
Can you imagine the age of the atoms of water that make up the last drink you took?
It's a long time ago.
But it's a long time ago.
Can you imagine the age of the atoms of water that make up the last drink you took?
Can you imagine comets of ice and rock crashing into the primordial earth,
Bringing all the water we have on the planet,
Never to be added to,
Never to be taken away?
Can you imagine the millions of plants and animals that have used the very same water that you drink across all of time?
Maybe you imagine flowing down a river,
Carried by current with no rudder,
No oar,
No helm,
No compass,
Just the flow of water for counsel.
As the current moves you downriver,
Perhaps you slowly spin,
Perhaps speed up,
Get pushed into a side channel with no current at all,
Perhaps get nudged by the flow onto a sandbar where you sit and observe.
Perhaps you pass under trees,
Light faded by shade,
Tinted green by the passing leaves,
Brilliant when it returns,
Light that penetrates the depths beneath you,
Allowing you to see,
If you choose,
That which lies beneath the surface,
Perhaps that which lies underneath your surface.
The flow of time.
Time is the great flow.
All our yesterdays lighting the way to some unknown number of tomorrows.
Its pace seems constant,
Perpetual,
Terrifying in its eternity,
Exquisite in its relentlessness.
We are not equipped to notice the subtle variations of time speeding up and slowing down as we slow down and speed up.
For us,
Things are here and then gone.
For time,
Matter is gathered,
Compressed,
Piled high,
And then worn back down by wind and water to become dust,
Only to be gathered and compressed again.
Another great cycle,
But one whose spans of time we can hardly comprehend,
And whose movement we never see.
This is from Delmore Schwartz's poem,
Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day.
Each minute bursts in the burning room.
The great globe reels in the solar fire,
Spinning the trivial and unique away.
How all things flash.
How all things flare.
What am I now that I was then?
May memory restore again and again the smallest color of the smallest day.
Time is the school in which we learn.
Time is the fire in which we burn.
In which we burn.
I offer you one last flow to consider,
Should you desire.
Jeffrey Anderson says that when we allow the walls around our hearts to become rigid and to stay that way,
We assign ourselves a slow death.
Like the very air and water that flows through our physical body to sustain it,
Love must flow through our heart to keep it supple and to keep us truly alive.
You might recall the love flows that you exist within.
Spouses and family and friends,
Cats and dogs.
The benevolent love of the planet that supports your needs and the love you return when you care for nature.
You might look beyond these flows and see if there are other flows of love you might join.
Your capacity to give and receive love is limitless and there is abundance.
This is from Sutra 98 of the Radiant Sutras.
Devotion is streaming through you from that place in you before time.
Love's energy flows through your body toward a body and into eternity again.
Surrender to this current of devotion and become one with the body of love.
For now,
You might let your flow carry you back towards this world.
Let it gently deposit you back into the room where you sit.
You might still feel the movement of your flow for some time.
All meditations are flows and any flow can become a meditation.
Choose one anytime and let it carry you into vastness,
Carry you to that place where you and the flow become one.
To that place where you become one with the body of love.
Welcome back.
Welcome back.
