Good morning and welcome to the artist's morning.
My name's Darius and I'm so grateful that you and I get this time together.
Let's begin our practice today.
I'd like to invite you to gently close your eyes now and begin to connect with your breath.
Sitting comfortably but with a tall spine,
Gently imagining your chest and heart space opening up.
And if it's available to you,
Let's begin taking deeper breaths,
Holding at the top of our breath for just a moment and then letting it all go.
With each exhale,
Dropping our shoulders and allowing a gentle ease into our necks,
Our backs,
All the way down our legs,
Our feet.
The simple act of closing our eyes and beginning to go inwards and just feeling what's alive inside us and beginning to take deeper breaths can slow down your mind and bring a little bit of ease to your nervous system.
And starting to notice as we breathe in and out,
There's this gentle rhythm our body begins to expand when we take a new breath.
And then when we let it all go,
It drops down again,
The rising and falling of our chest,
Giving yourself a moment to catch up,
Imagining your left hand reaching out and almost going to hug any part of you in the past,
Thinking about what's already happened.
And sometimes I literally reach my hand out and I pull in any part of me from the past into my heart space.
The past is gone.
And those parts thinking about reflecting,
You're welcome back into this present moment.
And I take my right hand and I extend it out and I lovingly hug and pull any part of me in the future back in to my heart,
Into my center,
Into the present moment.
Any part of me that's thinking about what's going to happen later today,
Later this week,
Later in my life,
Just welcoming those parts back in to this moment.
And if you'd like,
Let's use both our hands to pull any remaining energy back into our center,
Just hugging the space in front of us and bringing our hands to our hearts and giving ourselves a little hug.
There you are,
Darius.
There you are.
You're right here,
Right under my nose,
Exactly where you've always been.
It's taking a moment to recognize yourself,
Your human,
Your heart.
You're here now.
You are here now.
You can leave your hands hugging yourself or you can place them back down.
You are here now.
This might look familiar to you.
Maybe you've been in this space many times before,
But you've never been here now.
This day has never happened for you before,
And it will never happen for you again.
You've never made it this far.
This is the farthest you've ever been.
You've never lived this many days in a row.
This is a new record.
You are here now,
It's your first time,
And it will be your last time on this day.
Just notice however those two objective facts feel for you.
There's no right or wrong way.
Maybe there's celebration energy that you made it this far.
Maybe there's something else.
Maybe there's resistance,
There's resentment,
Maybe there's joy.
There's no right or wrong way.
What comes up for you when you slow down and take a moment to reflect on how far you've come,
Literally the farthest you've ever been?
You've had hopes,
You've had dreams,
You've had ups and downs.
I bet there are things in your life right now that once upon a time were dreams.
There's a good chance you are living the dream of past you in some way,
In some shape,
In some form.
Maybe today is the day you carve out a little bit of time to celebrate.
Not everyone gets to get this far in the game of life,
But you did,
Somehow,
Some way.
You made it to here.
You made it to now.
Celebrating all the people you were.
Celebrating past you and everything you've done to get you here,
Now.
Maybe this is all very silly to you,
Darius,
What are you talking about?
So what?
I'm here.
It's just another day.
It's not.
It's truly not.
Nobody knows how many more days we get.
That's the beauty of life.
It's preciousness.
It's finiteness.
It's limitations are what give it an extra deliciousness.
Nobody knows.
No matter how rich or poor,
How young or old,
No matter where you were born,
Nobody knows.
But one thing's for sure,
You and I are here,
Now.
With this fresh canvas,
With this new day,
What does your heart long for?
This is our last song,
And my heart longs to stop talking and be quiet and let you have a moment to explore,
To feel,
To be.
I'm going to stay quiet and meet you at the end of the song.
Enjoy,
Dear artist.
Let's take one last breath together here to close our meditation,
Breathing in and letting it all go.
Thank you,
Dear artist.
Thank you,
Dear creators,
For going on this journey with me.
For those that are joining live at the artist's morning,
I'm going to put 20 minutes on the clock and give us a journaling prompt to see if there's more to this exploration.
It's private,
Personal journaling just for you,
And of course,
If you're catching us on a replay,
Perhaps on Insight Timer,
You can do the same.
Put some time on your clock and see what's here and ready to be expressed through you.
My name's Darius.
Thank you once again for meditating with me,
And I will see you next time.
