Meditation To Reset And Reconnect With Nature

Based on the 5 Elements of Chinese Medicine, Cairistiona has written and performed this meditation for you to thoroughly reconnect and re-experience Nature. You'll be guided to become 5 things in nature and take on their properties and qualities, aided by nature ambiance and music, leaving the meditation altered and different than when you first came in. The time will fly by. Humans do feature in this meditation, please imagine as little or as many as you like.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this meditation. I am Karishtina O'Loughlin. This meditation is based on the principles of Chinese medicine. These principles are called the five elements or five elements theory. The ancient Chinese observed the patterns and cycles in nature, Observed how they related to our organs, Our personalities and the types of emotions we have and over many thousands of years worth of observations refined and connected these things into five categories, Five elements that interrelate and connect with one another in a cycle. Each element corresponds to something in nature, So this meditation will be guiding you to become each part of the natural world and experience it as well as the qualities and human emotions that Chinese medicine associates with each one. You will explore becoming a river, A noketree, A fire, A mountain and the sky. If any part of you feels any discomfort in the meditation notice the sensations in your body and breathe into this discomfort and breathe out of it. Keep observing and returning to your breath and feel free as well to move your body at any time. So find a comfortable position, You can sit up, Lie down, Anything you like. Close your eyes and begin to breathe. Slowly and deeply. Each breath carries you deeper and deeper into yourself. While you breathe in, Let the breath flood your chest. And as you breathe out, Let any worries or cares vanish into the ether. Breathe in and out. Breathe out and out. Breathe in and out. Breathe out and out. Breathe in and breathe out. Breathe in and breathe out. Breathe in and breathe out. Breathe out. Anytime your attention wanders, Come back to the sensations and sounds of your breath. As you breathe, You feel warm waves of relaxation coming down over your entire body. Relaxing you even deeper and deeper. Feel the wave relax any muscles in your head. Softening and releasing any tension in your neck and shoulders. Softening and releasing any tension in your chest. Your arms. Your hands. Your fingertips. Your belly. Your hands. Your belly. Your legs. And finally your feet. And out through your toes. And out through your toes. Begin to feel again another wave of relaxation. Warming and coming down your entire body. Relaxing you even deeper and deeper than previously. Softening and releasing any further tension in your body. Let it wash through you. And then as soon as it's washed through you, Feel a third wave of relaxation. Warming and relaxing. Softening and releasing any remaining tension in your body. Softening and releasing any tension in your neck, Shoulders, Chest, Arms, Hands, Fingertips, Belly, Legs. And finally out for the last time through your feet and out through your toes. Now there is a river, Bold, Deep and wild that has come from the depths of the mountains and is making their way to the sea. It's shape is serpentine, It's waters are anything between black and dark blue and it is cool and refreshing in temperature. Slowly submerge yourself in this river and become this river, Become it's movement, It's shape. There is no sense of identity of who you are and where you've been, Just the river. Allow the parts of you that know how, Feel yourself stretching far, Far, Far back into the mountains and wandering forwards into the sea. You feel so supported by the water behind you, Giving you everything you need, You are carried and floating. Feel how deep you are, Feel how healing it is to flow like this. If any discomfort arises as you are becoming the river, Notice the sensations in your body and breathe into them and breathe them out. Breathe into them. And breathe them out. Breathe into them. And breathe them out. Breathe into these final sensations and breathe them out. Releasing any remaining discomfort or tension and allowing yourself to settle. It's impossible to be as deep as you are and as long as you are, Reaching to the sea without experiencing a fear of the unknown and uncertainty. As you feel and observe this fear of the unknown, Notice the innate trust you have as the river that no matter how long it takes, You will always inevitably reach the sea. Notice you are being completely supported and carried towards the sea. Allow these feelings of trust to become a buoyant sense of faith, Expelling any fears you have. Notice what it's like to have this level of deep faith. Deep faith in life, Your own nature and the deep trust you have that you will always reach the sea, Your goal. Even if you don't know where it is and how you'll get there, You will get there. Experience and breathe in this faith to this fear, Allowing it to dissolve any fear of the unknown. Surrender and flow with it. Now you know what this faith feels like. Notice that freedom is born out of this faith because the trust like this is to be free. Notice how faith and freedom are interconnected and interdependent. The greater your sense of faith, The more freedom you will experience. And you trust so well and so deeply that you are entirely and utterly free. Allow yourself to experience your bends and curves, Your non-linear nature. Choose a section of yourself that you like the most and experience how slowly or swiftly you flow through the earth. Feel how healing it is to meander. No pressure at all, Just instinct. While you experience this, Notice that there is no logic because you have trust. You acted on instinct to carve this path and it worked out. Allow yourself to go back now to the time when you first made this journey, When you were about to trickle a stream. Recall the patience this younger version of yourself had and also your tenacity and courage in order to make the route you did. Feel how brave you were and how you continue to be brave, Forever continuing to patiently carve through the earth to find even more tributaries to the sea. And now you notice the sense of bravery arising from freedom, Arising from trust. You are brave, Deep, Bold and wild river. You have no fear because you trust. And you may begin to notice that out of this healing comes a deeper access to your creative mind, Your intuition, The knowing before you know. You have all the resources to hand inside of you to create a greater sense of healing and greater freedom. You have no fear because you trust. Slowly begin to notice how healing it is to trust. Take a few more moments to experience and breathe in such freedom, Such trust, Patience and courage. Breathe it all in deeply. Take all that you need with you. Now you come to notice the riverbanks that contain you and all the plants and trees that drink from you. There is this one oak that drinks from you. It's old and gnarled and absolutely massive, Loud in its size. Notice yourself being drunk by it and move through its roots all the way up to its trunk and branches and crown blowing in the wind. Ready as fire. You have become the tree feeling the connection to the river and all the qualities you have experienced. Its waters having transformed now into the form and structure of roots, Trunk, Branches and green leaves. If there is any discomfort in becoming the oak tree, Notice the sensations in your body and breathe into them and breathe them out. Breathe into these final sensations and breathe them out, Releasing any remaining discomfort or tension and allowing yourself to gradually stretch and grow upwards. You are tall and your branches are broad. You are feeling the confidence you have that is required to take up this amount of space and you notice that taking up this space always gives back, Giving shade and shelter to animals and people, More room, Another branch for a bird to nest on. Your confidence inspires joy and gives back. And you notice that to be so confident that it is necessary that you have a lot of optimism and drive that has been transformed from the river's trust into optimism. You notice that trust is the originator of confidence. The deeper you drink from the rivers, The stronger the confidence you have. And now you notice and experience how upright and ordered you feel. Notice how structured and loud in size you are and how this gives joy and a home to the birds that nest in you. Notice how individual you are in the forest yet still connected. Feel your roots going deep into the earth and how high you grow into the skies. Notice that you are connected to the other trees in the forest through your roots and notice again that with this unity you are still a singular tree. While this is happening, Notice at your crown the distance at which you can see and your clarity of vision that is arising from your natural confidence, Optimism and drive. Feel your height and how far you expand and how you keep expanding. Feel and breathe into this expansion. Allow yourself to grow and keep growing. And as you grow, Notice how your natural talent of vision is again once aided by the river's sense of freedom, Faith and trust. Feel yourself making plans on where to grow and how to grow next, Reaching towards the warmth of the sunlight and you begin to notice that your plans are practical, Strategic and immediate. You have a problem in your near future and you can see it coming and immediately you have a strategy that works and several more is back up. Notice what it's like to have the vigour and reasoning abilities to make these strategies and what it feels like in your body. As you notice and feel into your strategic ability, I'd like to draw your attention back to your size and age. It's impossible to have grown so large without making mistakes, Without surviving, Without one of your strategies and plans not working for you. I'd like you to notice now that whatever was in your past, You survived. You survived your mistakes. I'd like you to notice that what was essential to this survival and growth was your natural talent to forgive yourself. Self-forgiveness has been essential to your growth. Breathe in deeply this self-forgiveness to where you've needed it most in your life as an oak tree and breathe out and release any lingering pain and judgement from what you have done and what has happened. Deeply breathe in self-forgiveness and breathe out any pain and judgement. Breathe in and breathe out and now notice with all this released you can see yourself and your past even clearer now and you can grow now even higher, Even broader. Your strategies and plans become so much better. Because you have seen your nature and experiences even clearer now, You now have the ability to see other things clearly. Cast your eyes now to the river. You clearly see its experiences and nature. Now look to a passing fox seeing clearly its nature and experiences. What is this like I wonder? What are you noticing? Keep looking at your surroundings experiencing sight without judgement. Take a few more moments to experience and breathe in such confidence, Optimism, Drive, Clear vision and structure. Breathe in and notice how this has been naturally transformed by you from the river. Breathe this all in deeply. Take all that you need with you. Now you notice a fire burning not that far away from you, Sustained by oak logs with more than a few people gathering around it. It's the heart of the occasion. It crackles and pops. Its orange red flames dancing. Come out of the tree and stand around the fire with the other people. The fire is warm, Merry and loving. It sparkles and gives light. Do you notice its warmth, Its merriness is rubbing off on the people making them warm and merry. The fire's warmth and love is giving them connection to themselves and other people. They're having a great time telling jokes, Stories. Their eyes are filled with warmth and sparkling, Dancing like the flames of the fire. Their hearts too are filled with warmth. Now you slowly find yourself becoming the fire, Experiencing its warmth, Its merriness, Its love, Its lightheartedness. If there's any discomfort in becoming the fire, Notice the sensations in your body and breathe into them and breathe them out. Breathe into them and breathe them out. Breathe into these final sensations and breathe them out, Releasing any remaining discomfort or tension and allowing yourself to gradually warm and experience the dancing of your flames. Feel how much you love fun. Feel how your heart laughs and how this creates some shares of laughter in the people around you. Feel how warm and loving that is. Feel how much pleasure and joy you take from life and how it feels to be this quick and alive and this excited. You find so many things to effortlessly be excited about in the interactions that people are having around you and in the people themselves. What are these things I wonder that make you effortlessly excited? As you notice these things that make you excited, I'd like you to notice how you are the embodiment of love. Feel into this, Breathe it in. Notice how you give love. Notice how it is to know exactly what others need to be loved and how it is to give it to them exactly what they want and need. Because you are love, Your heart is open and free, Brave and bold, Fearless. Notice that around you some people have slunk away from your fireside. You could take this rejection and your heart could shrink, But it doesn't. You simply make a joke, Laugh at yourself, Laugh at them and divert your attention back to having fun. Taking in once more the small warm pleasures of life. Notice what it feels like to recover so quickly from rejection and to not take yourself so seriously. Your heart is fearless, How could you not do this? And now I'd like you to notice how necessary your open and free, Brave and bold, Fearless heart is to having this much pleasure and joy in life and how it is necessary to be this quick and to feel this alive. And now I'd like you to notice how the natural qualities of your heart make it safe to be this open. How your open and free, Brave and bold, Fearless heart inspires the people around your fireside to also be open hearted as well with their feelings and experiences. Notice the quality of conversation they are having because their hearts are fearlessly open. Notice that you inspired this. And as this happens, Notice how this openness of heart is directly supported from the trust of the river and the confidence of the oat logs beneath you. Trust helps your fearlessness. Since you have so much confidence, Optimism and forgiveness supporting you from the oat logs, You may notice how these oat qualities generate warmth, Love, Fun and pleasure in yourself and life. You may begin to notice that empathy is one aspect of love, To see and feel from another's perspective and deeply understand them without words. You empathise wordlessly with the people around you and it is so healing to them and to you. You have an open heart that is not overburdened by feeling the emotions of others. Notice how your open heart feeds into your curiosity of others and life. Notice how curiosity makes you feel alive. Notice how to be this lover of life. You are always in relationship and connection and grounded with others. Grounded by the earth underneath you. Grounded by the people around you. Notice how you love is the quality of attention you give, Which is naturally quite high since you are the embodiment of love. Notice you have an endless supply of love and empathy, But the clear sight of the oak tree feeds into you and supports your experience. The oat logs have given you the sight of who to love and who to empathise with. The trust of the river coming through the oak logs has given you the ability to know who to trust and who to empathise with. So your heart is always wide open and beating, Cautious and clear without being cynical. And notice how warm and safe that feels and any other sensations that come up. Take a few more moments to experience and breathe in such love, Empathy, Experience your open and free, Bold and wild heart, Your fearlessness of heart and your curiosity and the atmosphere that you have created around you. Breathe it all in deeply, Take all that you need with you. Now feel yourself burning the last of the oak logs underneath you and slowly subsiding into ash, Allowing yourself to be held and becoming the earth underneath you. Notice how solid and gentle this feels. Then maybe at some point you feel the bigger type of earth, A mossy mound not that far away. Become that mound and then not that far away from where you are now. There is a rocky hill then with the parts of you that know how grow to become that rocky hill and then not that far away from this rocky hill that you are now. There is a bigger hill hot from the sun, Become that hill hot from the sun, Noticing how warm it is to be that hill. Then you find an even bigger hill with wildflowers not that far away from where you are now and become that hill. Repeat this process finding larger and larger hills all the way adjusting and accommodating with these new sensations and new experiences. And now you are a larger host and accommodate this larger hill. And then you will slowly find you are becoming various foothills at the bottom of a mountain and then you are the mountain. Take a moment now to review this growth process and become accustomed to being mountain sized. If there is any discomfort in becoming the mountain, Notice the sensations in your body and breathe into them and breathe them out. Breathe into them and breathe them out. Breathe into these final sensations and breathe them out. Releasing any remaining discomfort or tension and allowing yourself to gradually experience and settle into your solidity, Size and strength. Allow yourself to feel the difference in being the ash and earth and the mountain. Feel the snow you have on yourself. Feel how deeply you go into the earth and how high you go into the sky. Feel the differences in temperatures from your peaks to your foothills. Feel how the sunlight rests on you. And then feel which places are warmed by the sunlight and which places are cooler where there is no sunlight. Feel how invincible you are, How unmovable, How nothing can cut you down. Feel your natural mountain strength. Feel how the aliveness, Love, Joy and pleasure of the fire has become the stability, Strength and sturdiness of the mountain. Strength and sturdiness that has come from being here for aeons, Millenia, Even longer than the river that comes deep inside you. Seeing and experiencing this amount of time has allowed you to possess an enormous amount of stability for you have seen so many cycles of the seasons, How each one was different from the last. Allow yourself to experience the enormous amount of comfort this has given you. And notice how this experience has made you patient. Notice how stable you are because of how patient you are. Notice now the quality of presence you have, How large it feels to be you. Notice how settled and strong you feel. Allow yourself to experience the different lives and life forms that depend on you as the mountain. Maybe there are several farmers in your foothills that depend on you to shelter their sheep, Goats, Cattle and grow their crops. Maybe there are deer, Maybe there is a forest growing on you and birds and other wildlife that lives in that forest that you live in. Experience how generously you give to them, Sustain them, Expecting nothing in return. Breathe in that ability for that healing generosity. Allow yourself to feel how it is to be this helpful and maternal as the earth. Allow yourself to feel into the responsibility that comes with this and how naturally talented you are at being this responsible. What is the quality of this responsibility? Is it light? Is it heavy? Is it nurturing? Is it warm? Is it cozy? Again, Notice the wildlife and life you support on your mountainside and how this forms a community around you. So many homes, So many homes that live on you. Focus now on a family that is sitting down to a dinner table inside that home, Somewhere on the mountain. All the food on their table was grown on your earth, Your mountainside. Notice the community and connection that happens because of you, Because of the food you generously provided for them. Notice how this community and connection makes you feel. Notice how it gives back to you and sustains you. Now notice another family somewhere else on you sitting down for dinner. Also with food grown from the food from your mountainside. Notice again the community and connection you are a part of. Become aware now of all the other houses and the food on their tables. Allow yourself with each household to experience these healthy and warm sensations of community and connection. Notice how you have given these people a home. And then notice how you have given the animals a home, The deer, The cattle, The goats, The sheep. Notice how you have given them a home on your mountainside. Allow yourself to notice now the unconditional support you have for these families and the great understanding you have of them and of life in general is based in compassion. Notice the stability your compassion provides for these families. Notice how beautiful that is. Notice how stable compassion is. Feel how the love of the fire has given you this compassion which has provided this safety for everyone. While they eat their dinners I would like you to return now to this compassion you have as the mountain and how abundantly you have it for yourself and how safe it makes you feel. Notice when you are the mountain how compassion makes you feel connected to yourself and to the families on you. Notice how with compassion you can simply be yourself and how that feels. Notice how with compassion you can simply be yourself and how that feels like home and creates homes. Feel the safety and shelter you give to these people which is only possible because of how safe it feels to be yourself because of your sides and compassion and joy and breathe it in. And begin to notice now the satisfaction rising out of that. How satisfying it must feel to have this much connection, This much compassion, Resilience, Stability and this much generosity. Notice how compassion gives satisfaction. Notice how filling compassion is. Take a few more moments to experience and breathe in all the qualities you have experienced at the mountain. Breathe it all in deeply. Take all that you need with you. Now I'd like you to evaporate from the mountain and come out into the air, The sky. Maybe there are clouds, Maybe there's sunshine or rain or wind, Maybe the sky is painted orange, Red, Purple or blue. And begin to notice the view you have underneath you. Maybe you see the mountain and the various hills you were, The fire, The oak tree in the forest, The river. Maybe you see below you a fox, Foxes, A herd of deer, A squirrel, Badgers, Some birds. Notice what you can see and how far you can see and what level of detail you can see. You might want to play around here with zooming in and zooming out on the various scenes down below. And slowly begin to notice that you are the sky and how and what this clarity and perspective feels like. If there's any discomfort in becoming the sky, Notice the sensations in your body and breathe into them and breathe them out. Breathe into them and breathe them out. Breathe into these final sensations and breathe them out. Releasing any remaining discomfort or tension and allowing yourself to gradually become pleasantly cooler and airier. Let the parts of you that know how guide you to what is a priority for you to see on the earth, Which will be something relevant to your life. Notice what it's like to prioritize like this. Notice the quality of ease and then let the parts of you that know how guide you what is unimportant for you to see on the earth, Which is relevant to your life. Since you have this perspective from your height, You have the foresight to solve any problem down below and you can see what needs to be done. Let the parts of you that know how guide you to that space and you'll find the instructions that need to be done come from within you from what you see, From the problem that you see. What is this problem? What is happening between these people, Peoples, The animal or animals? From your perspective, What can you see that needs to be done? Because you can see so far and so wide and from so high, You may begin to have a sense of destiny, A sense of greater purpose, All rising from this importance we spoke about earlier, This ability to sort out what is a priority in your life and what isn't. Feel into this sense of destiny. What is it like? Where are the sensations in your body? And so rising out of this perspective, You may feel the sensitivity you have, How aware you are of nuances and subtleties on the earth, But also in yourself as the sky. Feel into this self awareness. You also may notice how regal and ethereal you are as the sky or how regal and ethereal you feel as the sky. And begin to notice how out of this feeling of regality comes a sense of power that is emanating from yourself when purely being authentic. And begin to notice how out of this feeling of regality comes a sense of authenticity and out of this authenticity comes a sense of power. Notice the level of authenticity you have as the sky and how it feels. While this is happening, Notice the feelings of sanctity that come with being so authentic. It is sacred to be authentic and how much easier it is to breathe when you are authentic, When you are yourself. Notice if there is a sense of leadership and authority. Notice the sensations of authority and leadership this authenticity gives you. And maybe throughout all of this you are experiencing a healthy sense of grief. You've been so many colours in your lifetime as the sky, Had different clouds, Some small and wispy, Some huge and mountainous, But all in all every time you've changed to the sky you've let go, Transformed and become something else. This healthy grief has been essential to make the transition smoother. Notice how after every loss of colour, Transformation followed and you gained a deeper trust, Deeper faith in the unknown. This transformation of grief refined you even further and gave you greater clarity still. Cast your eyes now to the mountain you are. Notice that mountains are always touching and communing with the sky. See its qualities of compassion, Generosity, Connection, Stability. Unnotice how these feelings feed into and touch your qualities of authority, Leadership, Authenticity, Clarity and perspective. Observe how compassion creates authenticity and perspective. How connection becomes clarity. How responsibility becomes authority and leadership. Take a few more moments to experience and breathe in all the qualities you've experienced on the sky. Breathe it all in deeply. Take all that you need with you. I'd like you to look backward now and take note of your journey so far and how your experience has been, How and what it was like to embody the trust and freedom of the river to become the structure and sight of the tree into the pleasure and joy of the fire and from that into the strength and stability of the mountain and finally how the kindness of the mountain fed into the clarity and perspective of you now as the sky. So now I'd like you to feel rain clouds that are coming into your skies that are soaked grey and dripping with rain. Become the cloud and become the rain falling to the earth and you find yourself becoming the river once more taking all the experiences you had as the sky, The earth, As fire, As oak and as the river the first time around. How different does it feel now to be the river with its qualities of trust and freedom, Faith and bravery. Now allow yourself to be carried by the river back into your body every drop of the river filling you from your toes, Your ankles, Your calves, Your knees, Every drop giving you more presence, Becoming aware of the room or environment of which you are in, The river filling you up, Carrying you back to the present moment and whatever position your body is in. I have one more thing to say before this ends, How and what the most difficult element or thing of nature to occupy and what felt like home will tell you where the easiest and most difficult parts of your life are and also about your own nature. The easiest thing to occupy could be an element which is dominant in your character or not depending on how you may feel about yourself. I'd love to hear what was easiest and most difficult for you and how it was easy or difficult. Thank you so much for doing this meditation with me. Please enjoy the rest of your day or night and I'll see you soon.