Kestrel and Hedge.
These planet meditations are designed for you to sit with the beautiful elements and life in all its glorious creation on our earth as you quiet yourself to be here right now.
I invite you now to softly close your eyes,
Beginning to feel your breath gently flowing in and out of your lungs.
Taking a few moments here,
Becoming aware of the softness of your breath,
Relaxing your jaw,
Feeling the air entering and leaving your whole body as you simply sit or lie or perhaps stand quietly.
Maybe this is the first time today you find yourself here,
Remembering to pause,
To stop and beginning to notice your breath,
Your physical sensations,
Your own body here,
Resting with whatever you notice and now breathing gently in your own natural rhythm.
Coming back to this breath and the next and noticing where your mind might be travelling and then with the next breath coming back to the flow of your breath in and out of your body.
As our mind wanders,
Our body awaits with compassion for us to return.
So maybe smiling gently now as you allow your mind and body to come together in this moment,
In this breath,
Breathing smoothly and if today you find breathing difficult,
Simply noticing the sounds you can hear right now.
Maybe you can hear your breath or the movements of your body or a sound in the room where you rest or outside.
Whatever your ears notice,
Not following the sound,
Letting it come and then perhaps leave again.
Maybe now you can begin to feel the movements in your body as it fills and nourishes itself with air.
Perhaps noticing any physical sensations in your body as you rest here now.
Bringing your awareness as you slowly scan down through your body,
Breathing with ease as you do so.
Seeing the air on your cheeks,
Maybe it's warm or cool.
Down through your neck to your shoulders,
Your arms,
Your hands.
Noticing the position of your hands as you rest here.
Back up your arms into your chest,
Bringing your attention and awareness to the front of your body,
Round to the back,
Spreading out between your shoulder blades.
And now down to your hips and into your legs,
Past your knees,
Your ankles and down to your feet.
Your feet that lie or rest on the ground beneath.
And bringing your full awareness to the whole of your body now,
Resting here with you as you give yourself this time with gratitude and compassion,
Safely supported by the surface beneath you.
Breathing naturally and feeling the joy perhaps of being here right now with this breath.
And now bringing in the image of a wide open sky,
Your own image of a beautiful,
Vast sky.
So lying here now supported by the surface holding you as you visualise your own open sky.
What colour is your sky?
Is it a bright as your blue or is it a steely dark grey?
Maybe your sky is a soft pale white.
Perhaps you have clouds in your sky.
It could be just a few wisps or many blankets and layers of dense clouds.
Seeing your sky and noticing all you can of it.
Is it raining?
Or maybe it's turbulent with thunder and lightning,
Large hailstones thrashing down to the ground below.
Listening now to what are the sounds you can hear as you rest here with the image of your sky and bringing your awareness down from the sky to the hedges dividing up your landscape,
Seeing the colours in your hedge perhaps.
Focusing in on your hedge and noticing the sounds of the wind entering and leaving its thick clusters of leaves.
Or perhaps your hedge is bare of leaf or covered in bearers providing rich food for the tiny creatures who shelter within.
And now as you rest here with your beautiful pastoral scene,
The open skies,
The dark lines of hedge,
You begin to become aware of a shape in your sky and as you bring your full attention to this silhouette you see it's a bird up above the hedge keeping its body perfectly steady.
Yet as you breathe here now in your own natural rhythms you sense the air that must be swirling around its body.
Against your sky its tiny silhouette barely moves and focusing on it even more fully now,
Noticing its wings rising and falling so fast.
And then it moves.
It changes its position so fast in one moment it hovers again above a different patch of your hedge,
Its life perfectly created for this moment.
And the next,
From a chick learning its skills,
Failing,
Succeeding and always in each moment adapting,
Relying on,
Changing position,
Fast,
Skilled,
Strong,
Adaptable and lying here now feeling your own breath entering and leaving your body.
Sensing like your kestrel you have within you the same life no matter what your own skies hold,
No matter what the landscape of your habitat you have this adaptability,
This ability to recover,
To change or to hold strong and steady,
Focused and within you perhaps you can sense the deep strong wisdom that's always available to you,
Perfectly created for your life.
It's never changing pulse with you at all times,
Like that of your beautiful kestrel.
And now gently bringing your awareness away from your bird,
Your kestrel and the hedgerows,
The fields,
The wide open skies above.
Returning to the sound of your breathing now,
Returning to your own breath and slowly becoming aware of the ground holding you and the movements in your body as you breathe.
Then when you hear the chime,
Very slowly opening your eyes,
Wriggling your fingers and toes and taking a stretch in whatever way feels right for you,
Perhaps a smile.
Blessings and may the strength and resilience of the kestrel be with you this week.
