Welcome to this guided meditation.
Find yourself in a comfortable position either seated and upright,
Supported through the back and the legs.
Or if you are lying down,
Settling in and finding support perhaps for the low back.
Allowing yourself to settle into this moment together.
Our practice today is focused on feeling grounded and rooted in our lives despite what is going on around us externally.
There is so much outside of our control,
That finding stillness turning inward to check in with ourselves to deeply ground and connect in strength,
In fortitude.
Using our foundation and strength in this time of uncertainty,
This ever changing environment around us.
Now that we've settled our body into stillness,
We begin to tune inward.
And we do this by connecting and working with our breath.
This breath that has been moving along on its own pace in the background of our day,
Of our evening.
And we begin to observe it coming in and out of the body.
Looking for the place in your body where you can sense this movement of breath coming in and out.
Perhaps it's the abdomen that you feel the sensation moving.
Can you feel the breath moving in the chest,
Stretching,
Expanding the lungs.
And perhaps you feel it entering in through the nostrils.
Just begin to watch the in and the out and observe it a few cycles.
Not forcing,
Just simply standing by watching as an observer.
This simple act can offer so much relief in the body by tuning away from our thoughts surrounding our anxieties and simply connecting with this flow of breath moving body in and out.
We use visualization to help us move throughout our practice together.
This mind's eye which is like the movie theater in our mind,
We connect with that space.
With our gaze lifted behind closed eyes,
This sense of looking upward and outward behind these lids,
Watching the movie,
Playing in the mind,
Bringing ourselves in our mind's eye.
Imagine we are in a forest filled with tall trees.
Trying to explore your forest and seeing the trees for their colors and their height.
What is the color of their bark?
As you look up,
Seeing the canopy offering protection and shade from the weather,
The sun,
The wind and the rain.
And as you are amongst these trees,
As you breathe in,
You feel this full fresh air coming into the body offering this cleansing.
And as you exhale,
You imagine a release,
A letting go.
As you stand firmly in the ground,
You feel your feet connected to the forest floor.
Imagining the four corners of your feet.
Sensing the connection.
Imagine you begin to root down like a tree.
Roots extending from your feet begin to journey through the top soil.
Bringing their way down,
Connected and building and spreading around as they go deeper.
And this is the space where we draw nutrients.
This is the space where we find stability.
Where we take in all the things that we need to grow,
To heal.
You begin to feel the strength of this stability in the core center of your being as you feel strong like the rings of the tree are within you.
These layers of years of challenges,
Of seasons,
Of change,
Of death,
Of life.
These rings offering layers of protection from all those external weatherings and batterings that come along.
You are as tall as the rest of the trees in your forest and you feel this lightness that your canopy and your branches and your leaves just below with this wind.
With the sun feeding each cell within you.
There is that sense of strength and rooting.
Stability in the core.
And this ethereal connection with all the universe around.
Taking in sun and taking in carbon dioxide and creating oxygen in life.
That you take from the earth and you give back.
Imagine drawing these powerful nutrients and energy up through the roots.
Imagine recharging yourself by pulling from the roots through your trunk,
The legs.
Drawing it through the core.
Feeling and recharging.
Drawing this to your heart center.
As you fill this heart center space with the energy from the earth,
Drawing it through the trunk.
You begin to see your leaves grow and the flowers bloom.
Feeling this energy flow through your branches,
Your arms.
Feeling the energy all the way through the top of the tree,
Through the crown of your head.
Feeling this strength as you imagine being completely rooted and protected.
That anything external of you cannot shake you.
And you have everything within you.
As winds come through and gusts come by,
They can barely touch you.
Finding clouds no longer unwanted but nourishing.
Giving you an opportunity to turn inward and to grow stronger.
Sunshine and blue clouds fueling you from the universe's energy as you draw it inward.
Connecting with breath,
Imagine it moving through you.
Like the wind blowing through the leaves,
A symphony of sound and movement,
A swaying.
Taking time to strengthen our inner world so that we can sustain when the external world batters us,
Unrelenting,
Unforgiving,
We turn inward to root and find strength and stability within ourselves.
Then we draw this into our heart and we give it back to the universe.
Breathing in,
Drawing in once more all the energy from the earth through the body.
Taking a deep breath in and then exhaling and releasing.
Connecting with your heart center,
Remembering that foundation and stability lives within you.
Until the next time,
Namaste.
Namaste.
