Good morning,
And welcome to The Artist's Morning.
My name's Darius,
And our practice today will be on the theme of grounding our energy,
Clearing our energy,
So that we can bring our deepest presence into our day,
Into our life.
Let's begin our practice.
If your eyes are open,
I'd like to invite you to gently close them now as we begin to go inwards together.
Let's go slow here.
Give yourself a moment to truly arrive.
Often,
I like to start my meditations with deeper breaths,
With noise on my exhale.
Just allowing myself to ground in my body and let go of old energy.
Let's try that together now.
Let's take a nice deep breath in.
Hold the breath at the top.
And on our exhale,
We're gonna make some noise and drop our shoulders and let it all go.
And continue taking longer,
Deeper breaths here,
Gently inviting our minds,
Our bodies,
Our nervous systems,
Just to slow down.
I know for many of us,
We are going fast,
Doing a lot,
Thinking a lot.
I get it.
My mind can go very quickly as well,
And that's okay.
Sometimes that's what minds do.
Our practice today is a gentle invitation to just slow things down.
If you notice your energy coming back to your mind and your mind begins to think and race,
All you need to do is take a couple deep breaths and bring your awareness through your mouth,
Your nostrils,
Your throat as you inhale and bring that beautiful awareness of yourself into your heart space,
This spacious,
Nurturing,
Slow-moving place.
Thank you,
Beautiful mind.
Thank you for all the ideas.
Thank you for all the thoughts.
Thank you for everything you do.
With your permission,
Dear mind,
We're just gonna rest a little.
We're just gonna slow down just for a few minutes.
I'd like to guide you through a visualization now.
I want you to imagine in front of you there is this beautiful door,
And this door is adorned.
It's full of plants and flowers and vines and greenery all around it.
Standing in front of this door,
You can feel,
You can smell the freshness.
And there's a number on the door.
Can you see what it is?
No wrong answers.
What's the number on the door?
Lovely.
And there's a shelf next to the door.
Can you see the shelf?
Somehow you know exactly what's gonna go on that shelf.
This shelf is built for all of our technology.
Any phones,
Any computers,
Any watches,
Anything tech is gonna go into this shelf.
Placing all of our tech on this safe shelf so that you and I can walk through this magical door.
And as you finish placing your phone,
Your computer,
Anything connected to technology,
Digital,
Internet stuff on this shelf,
You step closer to this door.
Can you feel that shift?
Every inch you step closer to this beautiful door,
It's like you can feel a cool,
Comforting breeze coming from the nature around this door.
And maybe you'd like to take some deeper breaths because there's something refreshing about the energy around this door.
And maybe you're like me,
And before you walk through this door,
You want to take your shoes and socks off.
And if you don't,
That's okay too.
You see,
On the other side of this door,
Let's go ahead and open this door.
As we do,
In front of us through this door is a beautiful valley.
There's grass,
This gorgeous natural grass all over the ground.
Trees and birds.
And so as we step through this door,
Go real slow,
Just one foot at a time.
What do you feel here?
What's here for you?
Slowly bringing that second foot through the door.
Can you feel the grass on your feet?
What's that sensation like as your feet hit the grass?
For me,
Immediately,
I feel grounded.
There's just this release from my body,
This soothing sensation of comfort,
Of wholeness.
And as I continue stepping forward,
Please join me.
Let's continue walking through this doorway into this magical valley,
This garden.
Each step is an opportunity to clear,
To ground,
To let go.
The earth will take it.
Whatever it is,
Your stress,
Your worries,
The ground,
Mother earth will take it and transmute it into something else.
And your body somehow knows,
And it starts on its own to release tension.
From the top of your head all the way down,
Any tension,
Any elements in your body that you don't need,
Your body knows to let it go here.
It's falling off of you into the ground.
And as we take a few deep breaths here in this magical land,
The air,
It's recharging us,
It's rejuvenating us,
It's refreshing every molecule and cell.
As we continue walking,
There's a patch of grass.
It's just perfectly set out.
We're going to take a seat here.
Whatever blanket,
Pillow situation you need to achieve maximum comfort is available to you here.
So get nice and comfortable.
Let's take another deep breath here,
Breathing in and out.
And gently letting it all go.
Can you feel the sun against your skin?
It's the perfect temperature for you.
And on this patch of grass and this beautiful day,
If we take a moment just to close our eyes,
Immediately we notice this whisper from the wind.
It's gentle and soothing.
It hits your face,
It hits your skin.
And somehow you are transported for a moment to your childhood,
This loving place of endless summers of fun and play.
We are transported to a time before internet,
A time before work.
None of that matters.
And if you feel called on this patch of grass and just for a moment you want to lay back,
Lie down,
You can do so.
I'm going to repeat a few affirmations here.
And if you'd like,
Receive them.
And if you don't just let them float away.
I am grounded.
I am clear.
I am present.
I am here.
I am grounded.
I am clear.
I am present.
I am here.
This is our last song this morning,
So I want to say thank you to all of you for being here.
Make sure to leave some space just for you to do whatever you want.
And maybe just laying down in the grass and doing absolutely nothing is exactly what you need.
And before we leave this magical garden space,
Let's make sure to take in a few grounding,
Anchoring breaths.
There's very special,
Rejuvenating,
Refreshing energy here.
We want to bring that into our bodies and into the rest of our day.
Let's breathe it in together now.
Breathing in and gently letting it go.
This is the end of our meditation,
But the good news is this garden exists inside you,
Inside your heart always.
So if your day gets really busy,
Remember you can always close your eyes,
Take a few grounding breaths and return.
Thank you for meditating with me.
For those joining live with the artist morning,
I'm going to put 20 minutes on the clock.
Allow us to do some private personal journaling.
I'll share a journaling prompt of course.
And if you're catching us on a replay,
Maybe 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.
Thank you so much for meditating with me.
My name is Darius and I will see you next time.
