Good morning,
And welcome to The Artist's Morning.
My name is Darius,
And I am so grateful that you and I get this time together.
Our meditation practice today is a bit different.
There is a conceptual element to it.
There is an experimental element to our practice today.
I can't promise you it will calm you down or boost your confidence.
It's different than many of my other meditations.
What I can tell you is,
If you lean into it,
We will go on a journey together.
That journey will take us inwards.
That journey will show us parts of ourselves.
And whatever shows up,
Be it joy,
Be it love,
Be it resistance,
Be it checking out and stepping back from the experience,
All of it is helpful information.
So if you are ready for such a journey,
I want to invite us to imagine we are curious cosmic scientists,
Observing,
Allowing whatever's here just to be here,
Knowing that all of it will serve us.
And of course,
As always,
You are always allowed to go slow.
You are always allowed to say,
No,
Thank you,
Darius,
Not going to take you up on that invitation.
And of course,
You're always allowed to lean in and see where this journey might take us.
Let's take a nice deep breath here together,
Breathing in and letting it go.
This journey of ours this morning starts at the artist's prayer.
This is a prayer I use probably two or three times every single day.
Every single creation I make starts with this prayer.
It has no religious connection.
I do use the word God.
I know that has different meaning for different people.
And I'm going to repeat this artist's prayer several times in our meditation today.
And my invitation to you is sentence by sentence.
I'm going to pause and allow us to travel in words.
I'll say the sentence and just notice where it takes you.
Notice where and the qualities of how it takes you there.
Is it smooth and flowy?
Is it choppy and resistant?
Are you bracing?
Is there joy?
Is there anger?
All of it is information and it's helpful.
I'm going to start by saying the prayer in its entirety once.
And then we're going to come back to it with big pauses,
Sentence by sentence,
And just notice where it takes you within yourself.
One deep breath before I say the prayer for our first go.
Breathing in and letting it go.
Dear God,
Please use me as a vessel for your divine expression.
Use me as an instrument of your love.
Give me the strength to go into the depths of my heart and find my truth and the courage to speak my truth in my own authentic voice.
Whatever happens from there,
I let go and let God.
Take a moment to feel the impact.
There's no way you need to feel whatever shows up and maybe it's numbness.
Maybe it's nothing.
Maybe it's openness.
Maybe it's you're closing off.
All of it is information.
I'm going to repeat the artist's prayer again now with long pauses,
Giving us a chance to notice where that statement,
That sentence takes us.
Dear God,
Please use me as a vessel for your divine expression.
Use me as an instrument of your love.
Please give me the strength to go into the depths of my heart and find my truth and the courage to speak my truth in my own authentic voice.
Whatever happens from there,
I let go and let God.
Now,
Maybe you have traveled many places inside your heart this morning and maybe you feel stuck,
Maybe something completely different.
All of it is information.
All of it can be helpful to you on your journey.
If you feel stuck,
I'd like to suggest taking deeper breaths,
Gently opening our heart space.
If at any point it feels overwhelming,
You can place one or two hands on your heart and just hold yourself and come back to your body.
With this next song,
I'm going to mostly stay quiet and allow you and this energy we've cultivated to continue journeying safely,
Supportively,
Lovingly into the depths of your heart and into the depths of your truth.
Be gentle,
Be kind,
And if you feel energized,
Be bold.
Bravo,
Dear artist.
You are still here.
Even if you've closed off,
Even if you've checked out,
Even if you've fallen asleep,
You are still here.
We have one last song this morning and the invitation stands.
You are interested in going on this journey within.
This song has different energy and can take you deeper and show you new things.
What do you see?
What do you feel?
What's here for you?
What's ready to come through you?
Beautiful human,
Beautiful artists.
What's alive inside you now?
If you knew,
You really knew that every step you take,
Everywhere you go,
God,
Universe,
Divine guidance is right there with you.
And let's gently bring our meditation to an end.
Placing one or two hands on our hearts and just loving our humans,
Loving our hearts,
Loving ourselves.
Finding something sincere that you are grateful for about yourself now.
You can place your hands down or leave them where they are.
Thank you,
Dear artist.
Thank you,
Beautiful community.
Thank you for meditating with me.
For those that are joining us live at the artist morning,
I'm going to share a journaling prompt and put 20 minutes on the clock and invite us to do some private personal journaling.
Of course,
If you're catching us on a replay,
Perhaps on insight timer,
You can do the same.
Thank you once again for going on this journey with me.
My name is Darius and I will see you next time.
