First with just a few moments of gratitude that we have this immense privilege of taking the time to tend to our inner life and also gratitude to yourself for creating it,
To choosing this,
To putting your attention and your abundance and your care into this moment of your life.
How powerful that is.
To turn off the thousand texts and emails and the constant sense of not enough and not there yet and to just come into this breath,
Into this moment and feel that whole,
Well,
Luminous presence that's already here inside of you and giving it your full attention.
And there's an immense amount of momentum in our bodies and minds of being busy,
Of being distracted,
Of being overwhelmed,
Of being seeking,
Doing.
We're not going to stop that,
But we can just bring our awareness to it and we can stop feeding it right now by coming into your grounded connection with the earth and to your breath.
I invite you to gently start to expand your breath into every cell of your body.
Seeing what's here,
Seeing how you feel can be really helpful to just drop the question into your body,
How am I?
And to allow whatever you're shown to be here without any judgment or evaluation,
Just loving presence,
Loving witness.
And often it's very much a both and.
There's a lot of wellness that's here and there's a lot of dissonance.
Both can be true at the same time.
Feeling your grounded center dropping down into the earth.
Breathing.
Seeing if you can notice places of tension or holding or perhaps where you're just not breathing,
Like in your low belly or in your collarbones.
And just gently bringing more awareness and breath into those spaces.
And starting to bring in that felt sense of holding,
Being held through your central channel,
Through the holding of Mother Earth and even the holding of your breath moving in your body.
And we're going to drop our awareness down into our pelvic floor,
Through our points of contact with the earth,
Through our pelvis,
Sit bones,
Tailbone,
Pubic bone.
And from there,
Dropping your awareness down your grounding cord,
Down into the earth.
And you can drop very quickly or you can drop with each exhale,
Just dropping down into the energy and warm presence of the earth.
And you start to breathe up from that place into your body.
And you're letting your awareness drop all the way down into the core of the earth,
Into what one of my teachers calls the heart-womb space of the earth.
See if you can feel that heart-womb space of Mother Earth.
So steady and bright.
And alive and life-giving.
Breathing up from that place.
In our solar system,
If you line up the planets,
The earth is the heart chakra of their solar system.
And it's said in many more mystical esoteric teachings that we come to this planet to open our hearts.
That's what this place is.
That's the medicine.
For this planet.
Feeling the heart of the earth.
We're going to start to breathe that warmth and vitality and love up into our own bodies.
Setting it effortlessly rise up.
With your awareness up in and through your spine,
Your soma.
Until you feel your heart warm and breathing in connection with the heart of the earth as best you can.
And then we're going to continue by bringing our awareness up to the crown of our head.
And from there,
We're going to extend up into your soul star chakra,
Which is about 14,
16,
17,
18,
19,
20,
16 inches above your head.
It's usually depicted as a magenta,
Lavender color.
This is a space where your higher self,
Your divine nature,
Connects down into your body.
It's where your soul,
Beyond the time and space of this incarnation,
Connects into your physical body.
So just see if you can sense that,
Feel that,
Allow that to be true.
And once you feel that space,
You can gently let it start to descend back down into your crown.
Bringing your mystical heart down into your human body.
So we've connected the heart of the earth up into your heart,
And now we're descending down and in the mystical heart of your higher self,
Your Buddha nature,
Your Christ consciousness,
Of your luminous self,
Whatever you want to call it.
Letting it come down into your crown and then come down gently down into the heart space of your human body.
Just trust what your body shows you,
What your awareness shows you,
And how you feel.
And let this unite in your heart.
It's said in Asian medicine that the human being is the union of heaven and earth.
That's what the Tao says.
See if you can feel that in your heart space.
And letting your heart come alive with this alchemical kinetic energy.
And it can be helpful to visualize your heart center as a lotus bud.
You can also make it a dahlia or a rose or whatever you want.
I'll describe it as a lotus for simplicity.
And the roots go down into the earth and the light,
The sun and the moon energy of the mystical heart shines down on your heart from above.
And the nourishment from both directions causes the bud of your heart to fill up with light and to start to open petal by petal.
Just let it be very gentle,
Very organic.
Inhale,
Fill up with the light or the nourishment.
Warmth.
On the exhale,
One petal opens.
And some of that nourishment and light spills out into your body from the opening petals of your heart.
And it's like medicine for the parts of you that ache or that are anxious or grieving or anticipating or just feel really good to feel your heart coming alive.
Inhale,
Receiving from the earth,
From the heavens,
Letting them open,
Soften,
And nourish your human heart as it unfurls petal by petal.
And if there's an area of your heart that feels stuck,
Dark,
Heavy,
Tired,
Whatever,
Instead of forcing it in any way,
I invite you to just bring kind curiosity to it and warmth and compassion.
There's no agenda here,
But curiosity is so healing and helpful.
Creating such a container of safety and kindness for your heart that it can trust its own timing.
And allowing just a pervasive sense of relaxation to start to fill up your body.
And noticing the truth that your heart wants to open and it wants to love.
And if that's not happening,
It's usually for a good reason that we can be curious and kind about and listen deeply to and breathe into and allow to let go when it's ready.
And if you find places in your heart that feel cracked,
See if you can allow the light and presence to flow through those spaces like medicine.
We work so hard on ourself,
On our spiritual path sometimes,
Which is a beautiful thing,
And it can be so important and powerful and beneficial to just let go and just love what's here.
Cracks and all,
Shut down and all.
Because you are both.
You are the aching,
Cracked,
Often overwhelmed human being,
And you are also this pervasive,
Radiant love that's filling in all those spaces.
Both are true.
The story of our life comes and goes,
And it's a part of us that moves through,
And then this love is just who we are.
But it all gets to be here.
It's all included.
So let that both-and awareness permeate your heart and just let it keep opening petal by petal,
Softening and letting go of any resistance to what is.
Sometimes as we open our hearts,
It just asks for us to feel.
Just feel.
Be willing to feel this human life,
How bittersweet it can be,
How joyful and miraculous and beautiful,
And how much it can be.
Impermanence and loss is woven through all of it,
And we just allow that all to be here and to feel it.
In Chinese medicine,
Each organ has an energy or an emotion that it is governing.
The energy of the heart is joy,
And the shadow or the difficult energy is rage.
And we often forget just how much joy of life can exist in the heart,
And that it's also okay for there to be rage and sorrow.
Those two tubes that life flows through that we've talked about,
And if you kink one off or try to shut it off,
You inherently shut off all of it.
So as we open the heart,
We're just making more room for feeling,
For experiencing,
Allowing life to be as it is in this resourced way.
As your heart unfurls petal by petal,
See what it feels like to know the truth that all over this planet,
There are people doing a practice very similar to this one right now.
They might call it by different names or different prayers or different visualization,
But there are thousands of beings doing exactly what we're doing,
One way or another.
And check in and see if you're resourcing your heart,
If you still feel that grounded connection to the earth,
The nourishment arising,
The opening to your higher self descending and enlivening,
And the ever-present support of your central channel.
So reconnecting with each of those and seeing the impact on your heart space as you do that.
Andrea Gibson,
Who you know I love very much,
Who passed away in July,
They wrote this piece that said,
You were given only one assignment to love your life as much as possible through whatever challenges,
Pains,
Terrors,
Or losses you experience.
Let your heart break so your spirit doesn't.
Bitterness is the easiest way to leave this world having had only a near-life experience.
Breathing into your heart and on each exhale,
Just seeing what it feels like to love your life as much as possible,
Which includes you.
So just take a few more minutes and really apply yourself,
Really bringing light into the heart,
Really inviting it to open and soften with each exhale.
And when that feels complete,
Just let yourself relax and let go.
Notice how your body feels with this breath.
Experience of your heart being so alive.
In Chinese medicine,
We say that the supreme ruler,
The empress or the emperor of the body lives in the heart.
And as you go about your day,
As you re-engage with the visual space around you as you come out of this meditation,
See if you can still see the world from this heart space and see yourself from this heart space.
When you're ready,
You can open your eyes.
