Taking a few deep breaths,
Settling the mind and the body to notice the breath as it enters your nostrils,
Also seeing its path as it enters into the spaces of your sinuses and down your throat,
The filling of the lungs,
The rise and fall of your shoulders,
Becoming present to all the ways that the breath enters the body,
Noticing if your mind places any judgment or stories along with the breath,
And just gently letting those go,
Allowing however the breath shows up for you to show up.
Today's practice is a practice of a body scan in a traditional Qigong tradition,
Where we begin by examining our skeletal system,
The bone structure that is holding the rest of our body,
Scaffolding it.
Notice your spine,
Shoulders,
Even your legs and arms,
Feeling the solid structure that's at the center,
The core of the rest of your body,
And allowing the muscles to relax around the natural structure that your skeletal system offers you.
If you're seated in a chair,
Such as I am,
Or on a seat or cushion,
Notice how your pelvic bones open to allow the rest of your form some continuity and structure.
Next,
I invite you to shift your awareness to the muscles,
Ligaments,
And tendons that are surrounding the structural system of the skeletal system,
Noticing any areas that you're holding in contraction,
Breathing into those areas and relaxing those,
While the opposing muscles tighten to offer some structure.
The invitation here is to notice both the subtle and the coarse,
Large muscles and those that are smaller.
If you choose to relax the muscles of the eyes,
Your eyebrows,
Your jaw,
The larger muscles of your back,
Your lower back,
Now bring your attention to your organs,
The area of your belly,
Your heart,
Your chest,
Organs of cleansing,
Elimination,
Reproduction,
Detoxification,
And see if you can become present to not only the organs in your belly,
But the spaces surrounding your organs.
Breathe into those spaces,
Following the breath that enters your nostrils and enters your body,
And breathe into the spaces surrounding the organs,
Imagining the breath as a warm or cool fluid,
Water or light that's bathing your organs and surrounding them,
Offering energy and sustenance to the organs themselves.
Tune your awareness to the cycle of the breath.
Notice that this breath stays with you,
That throughout the day you'll carry this cycle of the breath,
And at any moment you can tap back into the breath and to the feeling of your body being breathed.
Our final minutes together,
I invite you to set an intention for your day.
Your intention is how you want to show up for yourself and for the world.
Notice what words come to mind when I even ask you or invite you to create an intention.
And take a moment,
Offer some gratitude,
Gratitude for yourself for showing up for practice.
For this community,
For anyone else who's on your mind,
Any beings that are human or not.
When you hear the bell,
You can stay seated until you're ready to enter back into your day.
And I thank all of you for joining this morning.
