Autumn Leaves Meditation - For Turning In

How will you winter? This meditation alchemises your experience of the cooler season with images and techniques drawn from Traditional Chinese Medicine. Tumble into softness with acupressure massage, visualisation, rotation of consciousness, and evocative breath practice. We close with a few gentle prompts for reflection - how will you embody the energy of the season?
Final poem by Nikita Gill.

Transcript

Welcome, My name is Flo. This is a meditation for a time of turning inwards, A time of turning towards the autumn-winter season. And in traditional Chinese medicine, The turn to autumn-winter is associated with the lung and the element metal. And you'll see those two ideas woven through this meditation. So come to whatever position feels comfortable. That could be seated, But far better is to lie down, Spread the limbs wide, And embrace the ground. As you come onto the ground, Maybe you imagine that you're lying into a huge pile of autumn leaves, Heaped one on top of the other, All the different colours you can imagine. And really allow the imagination to rove here. So what colours, What textures of the leaves, Curling edges, Crunching sounds underneath you. Allow there to be this organic squash between the body and the ground, Like the body is that springy, Soft, Earthy material. Grab your attention to the hands and rest them over the lower ribs, Take the elbows wide. Then keeping contact between right hand and the body, Begin to slide the hand upwards across to the centre of the chest, Heel of the hand to the centre of the chest. And then press outwards towards the left shoulder, Stopping when you get to that dip before the shoulder. Do this a few more times, So heel of the hand, Centre of the chest, Pressing outwards, Collecting the connective tissues, The skin, The clothing underneath the heel of the hand and easing it out towards left shoulder. Next time the hand comes towards the shoulder, Wrap the fingers around the ball joint of the shoulder, And then slide the hand in towards the neck. Squeeze at that squashy place between the shoulder and the neck. Notice any crunches. And then turning the head slightly over towards the right shoulder, Slide the fingers behind the neck, Palm to the sides of the neck. Your choice if you simply hold the skin, Or if you begin to press fingertips into the muscle at the back of the neck, Or the connection between the neck and the skull, Maybe up into the hairline. Whenever this feels done, Slide the hand back down over the chest, Rest both hands over low ribs and drop a couple of long, Wide breaths out of the mouth and through the back line of the body. Spreading the attention across the left palm now, There might be a little space between the fingers, Feel the shape of the left ribcage. And then keeping contact between hand and body, Slide the hand up across the centre of the chest and then press outwards towards the shoulder. Do this a few more times. So this massage is pressing into the acupressure point T1, And this is an acupressure point for the lungs, Like I said, Associated with the season of autumn winter. And really the idea here is just to invite space into the breath, Into the body, Beginning this process of clearing. Wrap the fingers around the top of the shoulder next time and slide the hand in towards the neck, Giving yourself a squeeze between shoulder and neck. And then squeezing up, Fingers behind the neck, Turning the head over to the left. Any final movement here, Massage, Touch, Stillness. And then gently glide the hand over the body to rest both hands on low ribs, Elbows wide, Arriving in meditation. Coming back to the image of lying in that pile of leaves, Imagine the colours again now taking in the rusts, The yellows, The burning oranges. And then land your attention on the colour gold. Imagine a gold that suits you, Perhaps a little bit orangey, Rusty in colour, Or bright, Light, Pure gold. And imagine that either as a warm liquid form of gold, Or as golden light. Imagine the gold spreading over the left side of the face now, Over left eyebrow, Corner of the eye, Across the cheek, Corner of the mouth, Over the ear and down the side of the skull. Gold spreading down the left side of the neck, Across the chest, Shoulder, Left arm, The length of the arm to reach left hand and the tips of the fingers. And then down the left side of the chest, Over left side of belly button, Wrapping around the waist, Back of the hip, Low belly, Left seat bone. Sliding down left leg, Over the knee, Down the shin, Wrapping the calf to the foot. And as you come to the left foot, Maybe you gently spread the toes of the left foot, Scrunch them either into the ground or the air. Imagining that you're treading into soft earth. The entire left side of the body covered with gold. Now that gold spreads across the right side, Right eyebrow, Right hairline into the scalp, Behind the ear, Dropping into the mouth, Right side of the tongue, Chin, Down the throat and neck to the shoulder. Wrapping behind the shoulder blade, Down the side of the chest, Running at the same time down the arm, Elbow to the wrist, Across the hand. Right side of the belly, Hip, Pelvis, Inside the right thigh, Wrapping around the thigh to the knee. And then down right leg, Finding the right foot, Gently spread toe away from toe, Like you're scrunching into leaves and treading into the ground. Now the whole body bathed in gold. And now we take our attention to the breath without changing anything at all. You might begin to imagine the breath as a golden loop of ribbon. Imagine the long inhale, One long line and then a curve at the end of the inhale, Taking you all the way around to the exhale, Looping back. Notice how long the length of your ribbon is as you breathe. How wide the curves turning inhale to exhale and back. And then perhaps you begin to lengthen the transitions between exhale and inhale by imagining that you add a kind of loop or coil into the thread of the breath. Notice the brightness of the inhale, The warm gold of the exhale. Add your flourishes, Loops and coils to the breath. And perhaps for a few breaths, It would be really nourishing to draw a longer inhale looping the breath in and as you exhale, Wash the breath warm out of the mouth. As you do this, You might imagine the body like a tree in autumn. What bright leaves are you ready to shed this season? Let the mind wander as we consider the next few ideas connected to the autumn-winter season. With this turn to autumn-winter, The element metal, Sometimes this can be more difficult to kind of feel than other elements that we consider. We understand the water of the body and the feeling of fire in our centre, But metal more associated with fueling, With strength and integrity. So in this season of wintering, What fuel do you need to draw in? In this season, The element metal and the organ lung are all associated with loss, Sometimes even with grief. Our ability to live through that as an inevitable and a natural part of life. How does that resonate with you? And just like trees as they come from summer into autumn, Stop their process of photosynthesis so that green, Bright green colour that lights them up starts to fade away. This is not just death, But it is a revealing of other things, Other elements inside the leaves which have always been there. And this is what gives the leaves these shades of gold, Red, Purple. You might consider yourself like that leaf as there are things which pass away from you. What is revealed? I'd like to close this meditation by reading a poem. The bird building her nest on your windowsill has had every nest destroyed before. The spider that's delicately weaving silken masterpiece has had every single thread broken before. And despite it all, They try again. Stay as long as you would like in rest. Thank you so much for meditating with me and enjoy your winter season.