Welcome,
I send my heart along to each and every one of you.
With this meditation offering,
My hope is that you'll take some time now to cultivate the energy that is so needed during times of crisis and uncertainty.
My teacher Thich Nhat Hanh said,
When the crowded Vietnamese refugee boats met with storms or pirates,
If everyone panicked,
All would be lost.
But if even one person on the boat remained calm and centered,
It was enough.
It showed the way for everyone to survive.
Calm is contagious and I'm going to offer a practice now to help you find your rootedness and resource yourself while also cultivating an open heart.
I invite you to begin by bringing awareness to your breathing and touching that your own mother was breathing for you before you could breathe for yourself,
Just as her mother breathed for her.
When we're in the womb,
We rely on our mother's breathing to receive oxygen to our developing organs.
So taking a few more deep conscious breaths in and out of your heart space and knowing that each breath connects you to your lineage.
Now those who have come before us have gone through challenging times,
Much more challenging times than what we're going through now.
I think of my paternal grandmother who was married off at the age of 13 and lived the majority of her life in pre-independent India.
And I invite you now to draw upon the resilience of your ancestors and they could be your blood ancestors,
Spiritual ancestors,
Land ancestors,
Or anyone who represents resilience for you.
Ask for their presence to be here with you right now.
Feel the presence of this being you brought to mind,
Embracing you,
Holding you up,
And know that their strength is in you.
And this being's presence is embracing you as you cultivate a sense of rootedness and groundedness.
Really feel yourself feeling rooted into the earth while you simultaneously open your heart.
You may want to physically have your hands out by your side as you expand your chest and root your feet into the earth,
This simultaneous sense of being open and rooted.
And trust that you have the capacity for rootedness and open-heartedness and know that you can act from a place and space of groundedness and compassion.
And this is what the world needs now.
You can always draw upon the strength of those who've come before us.
They live on through us and are in us.
Take a few more deep breaths as you simultaneously hold the sense of rootedness and openness of the heart.
