Good morning and welcome.
Today's morning meditation will help you to harness the power of a very special friend,
The tree.
Starting your practice today is a tiny little seed firmly planted into the soil.
Allow all the parts of you that touch the ground to release into the soil,
So much so that you can feel the soil part.
Your body is slowly sinking deeper into the surface.
From this movement,
Imagine one big root from the base of your spine to grow down,
Strongly piercing through layers of earth.
This root represents your core energy from which a steady rise and fall of the breath originates,
Releasing energy in and lifting the spine and rooting energy out and down back into the soil.
Imagine that your breath starts at the tip of this root far far beneath you.
Take your time to load the energy,
Lift you on the base of the spine all the way up,
Expanding and rising your trunk high and tall into the air.
And every exhale release from the crown of your head,
Let your trunk become sturdy and steady,
Pressing its energy all the way down deep into the soil.
Feel your trunk expand and grow out and up as you inhale and restore and grow down as you exhale.
Now notice every other limb connected to the floor and allow smaller and more flexible roots to ground down and reach wide and out horizontally spreading through the soil,
Creating a wide network of agile roots around you.
Feel the width of your network expand with every inhale.
Feel the expansion as a cloud of small sensations pulsing inward and outward with your breath.
As your roots expand,
Feel the space for growth in your branches.
Allow your branches to grow wide and high as the support system beneath you hold space for you to grow.
Let your leaves spring and your flowers blossom.
Feel the wind rustling through your leaves.
The birds and the bees kiss your flowers and the sun creating an interplay of sensations of color and warmth.
Become aware of the sound and the touch of the wind.
Come back to the soil beneath you.
Become aware of the touch of other roots around you.
Your network of loved ones,
Friends,
Co-workers,
All those people you know would gladly offer their connection.
Allow the roots of other trees to intertwine with yours like holding a thousand loving hands.
Feeling all the shared love,
Support,
Vulnerabilities of those trees that are in your network that are just like you.
Enjoying the birds and the growth and the warmth and the light and weathering the rain and the storm and the cold and the decay.
It is these wide roads and all those hands we hold under the ground that is our foundation.
This network will hold you steady when earthquakes hit and hurricanes rise.
We focus so much attention on what's in the light.
We place much value upon those who see our beautiful branches,
Leaves and flowers.
But in order to truly grow,
It is the network of roots around us.
It is the hands of our brothers and sisters that offer us compassion and support and nurturing deep down in the mud that is the most important foundation of all.
Thank you for sharing your practice with me.
I'm looking forward to hold hands again.
