Salute To The Senses - Nourishing Sensory Awareness

So welcome,

I'm Nicola Foster and I'm inviting you in this meditation into a salute to our senses,

An invitation to connect to all of the senses in our body.

It's an opportunity to see what we find,

What's there,

Celebrate what we find,

Honour ourselves and enjoy our connection to our body and to the world.

Every time we see,

Smell,

Touch,

Move,

We are in a dance with the universe.

We have this chance to feel,

To feel alive,

To experience ourselves and our vitality.

And so there's no place you have to be for this.

You don't have to sit with a straight back.

You may wish to move,

You may wish to stretch yourself,

You may wish to lie very comfortably in your bed or on a chair.

There's nothing that you have to do and you can change.

And before we enter into the meditation space,

I want to ask you a couple of questions to help you transition from whatever you were doing before into this meditation space.

My first question to you is,

Do you have a memory of an experience that made you feel very connected,

Very alive,

Very energised?

Maybe it's a sexual experience,

A memory.

Maybe it's a concert you went to or a communion with nature,

Swimming in a lake or walking in the hills.

Maybe it's your first kiss or a particularly wonderful restaurant meal.

And maybe if nothing I'm saying is resonating,

Maybe there's something you wish to experience,

An imagining,

Walking under a full moon on a starry night.

And when you indulge in some particular memory or imagining,

Which senses are particularly alive for you?

Is it what you see or hear or is it something you feel?

And so finding your way to get really comfortable,

That might be the comfort of being in movement,

The expression of yourself in dance.

And if you choose to begin standing,

That's wonderful.

And if you choose to remain still,

That's also wonderful.

And as I say,

You can transition any time.

So just allowing your body to move in any way that feels good for you.

Maybe just loosening the jaw or the lower back.

Maybe there's a stretch or a yawn.

And then connecting to the breath,

Taking a deep breath and letting out a sigh.

Maybe another deep inhalation and then a sigh or a yawn.

Just trusting your body's innate sense of your balance,

Your need for movement or rest,

Your autonomy.

And we're going to begin by sensing into our body's own flow,

Feeling our feet,

Legs,

Pelvis,

Hips,

Feeling how it feels to move those parts of our body,

A rock or a sway.

Feeling the sense of our own balance,

Moving from side to side or front to back.

A relationship with the spaciousness all around.

And then connecting in with our own spine.

You might like to imagine golden or white light flowing through your spine.

Connecting to all the cells that allow movement to happen.

And allowing your shoulders and head to be included and being curious,

Is there pleasure?

Is there pleasure here in each soft undulation as you're called to move your head or shoulders or spine?

Finding ways to flow within your own body that feel good for you.

And if you haven't closed your eyes,

You may want to do that,

To go deeper within your own experience.

Allowing yourself to go as slowly as you want.

And just bringing awareness to your head and how it sits centrally on the top of your spine.

And tuning into the very small movements that allow you to find the sense of balance,

Of centre.

And how your breath supports you in your centre.

And being curious about every subtle undulation.

And just taking time to savour any pleasurable sensation you find.

Any exquisite little pop or ouch or ooh.

Saying hello as you wake up this close attention to your own inner workings.

And from this embodied place,

Let us bring our awareness to our vision,

Sight.

With eyes closed,

What can we see?

Colours or shapes inside the darkness of our own eyes.

And then maybe a peek,

The light comes in a colour perhaps,

A shape.

We might choose to open the eyes and feel that almost wow quality of what our gaze falls upon.

I'm blessed to see right outside my window,

Red leaves of autumn.

Maybe you see a picture in your space.

Give your eyes freedom to roam,

Where would they like to explore?

Allow yourself to look up and down,

Left and right.

These eyes that can experience pleasure and also ground us.

And you might like to bring a curiosity about the whole panorama,

The wide open field.

Not focusing but just resting in appreciation of space and light.

And you may already be naturally attending to sounds.

What you hear.

There may be close sounds.

Maybe sounds in the far distance.

Maybe sounds that you welcome and like.

Or sounds that feel interrupting or challenging.

Maybe there's silence and pleasure in that.

And welcoming the breath as a way to feel.

And moving now into our sense of touch.

Noticing the quality of the touch of your clothes and your skin or the clovers.

Feeling the quality of touch with where you're sitting or lying or reaching out and touching a wall.

And then very subtly bringing one hand to touch the other and appreciating that moment when skin meets skin.

And choosing to stroke or hold.

Whatever feels good to you.

Maybe it's a little self-massage.

Maybe it's a tiny,

Tiny feather stroke.

And opening to the possibility of the pleasure of that.

You may choose to place your hands somewhere on your body.

Feeling the warmth,

The contact.

You may even choose to place your hand over your sex or your breasts.

Place some pressure there.

Noticing any response of how your body responds under your own hand.

And then tuning back to the breath.

The senses that can be experienced through this simple act of breathing.

As we inhale the sense of the temperature.

The motion,

The movement.

As the air passes the lips,

The tongue,

The mouth,

The throat,

The lungs.

And on the exhale,

The temperature,

The motion.

And any response that occurs throughout the body as this inhale and exhale.

Move,

Literally move.

You may breathe in a full appreciation of this air,

This oxygen,

This gift from the universe.

That supports our life.

And you may choose,

If you'd like to play,

To exhale.

And leave that exhale as long as you wish.

Before you breathe in again.

Noticing the hunger for breath growing.

And when your body desires to take a wonderfully deep breath and savour that feeling.

Feeling the touch of air through the nose or the mouth.

Noticing the smell.

Noticing the temperature of the air as it flows in.

Feeling the lungs as they expand and contract with each inhale and exhale.

And then tuning to your breath as if it were music.

Listening to the sound of your breath as it comes in and flows out.

And give yourself a minute to breathe without any intention.

Just to notice the simple pleasure of breathing.

And then as we begin to transition away from meditation and back into our day.

Maybe you feel to move your body,

Your weight.

Stretch or yawn or anything else that feels good.

Maybe you want to move between eyes closed and eyes open.

Attune to the quality of the vision in both.

Reconnecting to the world,

Where you are,

What time it is,

What you're up to now.

And if you choose you could bring this quality of sensory awareness into the actions of your day.

And whenever you're ready,

Bringing your awareness into your feet,

Your legs.

Being ready to move into the day.

Taking any nourishment from this practice with you.

As you step into your flow of life.

Thank you for joining me.

Have a great day.

Bye.