So go ahead,
Find a nice long spine.
You can close your eyes if you choose.
Just taking a breath,
The current within you.
And then taking a breath,
Feeling the current of this space.
With each other.
And then letting yourself just float in the current.
Or greater.
Culture,
Collective,
The current of our planet.
And in honor of this salt and sea.
And this current.
Today's meditation is going to be more of a visualization.
Where first we just begin to notice the rise and fall of our breath.
But as we do so,
As you breathe in,
Imagine that there's a current of water that's washing up.
And over your body as you breathe in.
And a current of water that's washing down.
Through your body on the way out.
So breathing in,
The water washes up and over you.
And breathing out,
The water washes out.
Along your body and out again.
And as you continue to breathe in this way.
Maybe you can notice that as the water washes up and over you,
You're breathing in.
The goodness of that water,
The cleansing,
The clarity.
Of freshness.
And as you breathe out,
You're letting some of the tension in your face and shoulders and belly and hips.
Go out.
With the water.
And maybe after a few more slow,
Long breaths,
Letting that breath slow down.
Letting the water wash over any areas of holding or tension.
Releasing.
You can begin to feel that current.
Underneath you.
Lifting you,
Holding you.
Behind you.
Supporting you.
And then we can begin with going to the current inside.
So inside your body in this moment,
There's all sorts of thoughts.
There's little eddies that your mind goes off into.
Inside your body is also all sorts of sensations.
You can notice the sensations in your body.
But there's also this the current of you,
The energy of you.
And maybe even a current in your own heart.
Of what you want for yourself or what you want for this world.
And without thinking about it,
Maybe you can just land in that space within your body.
Noticing the current of your aliveness.
Your heart space.
What you want for yourself,
What you want for this world.
What you want for our children.
Why we are not doomed.
And just feel that resonance in your heart space.
Here and now.
And then knowing that you sit in a room.
For the people.
Who also have in their own heart space a current,
A life inside of them.
So can you feel the life of the person next to you?
The current of energy.
And that they too have things that they want for themselves.
This world.
The children.
You can feel that resonance of their.
.
.
Current,
The current of their life.
And then here we sit or lie sinking up.
In that.
The current of being alive.
So breathing in.
You are alive.
Breathing out,
You're in the current.
Can feel it in your body and your fingertips inside.
Breathing in you are alive.
Breathing out,
You are current,
In the current.
And once you've generated some of this collective energy or some of this inner energy,
You get to do the beautiful practice of then just letting go,
Release.
And let yourself rest in that current for a while.
So you can rest in the current of your own aliveness.
Or the aliveness of the space,
The aliveness of the art.
The aliveness of the air.
The aliveness of a collective.
And there is an aliveness to sitting quietly,
Sitting silently.
Or lying down.
When everything is moving or busy.
The distractions.
And you just release a little bit more into the current.
You're an expert on breathing,
So you can always come back to your breath.
You're an expert on kindness,
So your colleagues can come back to being kind.
And you're practicing.
Releasing and being in the current.
Even with sounds.
And movements.
You stay in your own body.
Flowing in the current.
When you go off into that undertow of being carried away,
Remember that I'm here,
Diana's here,
So you can just.
.
.
Use me as sort of the horizon or landing space to follow along with.
I'm breathing here with you.
It's so is your neighbor.
So are people all over the world.
This practice of coming back to.
Both your breath,
But also of releasing and letting go into the current of being alive.
So there's so many Eddies that your mind can get caught up in.
And you can notice that.
Come back to breathing in,
I'm alive.
Breathing out and in the current.
And all the little sounds and distractions.
Or just part of the current.
And then bringing your awareness to maybe a person.
In your life or somebody that you care about.
It may be caught up in some form of an eddy or maybe they're off to sea.
And then undertow.
Imagining them when they're off to sea or caught up in an eddy.
Imagine if you could share some of this current with them.
If you could be the steadying horizon for them to swim along.
So you can hold your body in that way,
You can breathe in that way,
And you can offer that to them right now.
And then imagine that our whole planet,
All the people.
.
.
Maybe who have gotten caught in an eddy.
You are very busy.
People that are caught in an undertow that's taken them out to sea and they've lost.
The truth of their own current or our collective current.
Imagine that you could be a studying force for them,
Too,
Right now.
So you are the current.
For our planet.
And the way that you breathe is the breath.
That you offer to others that you wish they could breathe this way too,
Long and slow.
The way that you release tension in your body.
Is the way that you offer this release to others,
Your wish for them,
That they could release the tension.
In their bodies.
And the way that you relax into the current,
The present moment.
The wonderment of now is the way that you offer to them to see what is here.
To feel what is here.
The current.
So why are you not doomed?
And why are we not doomed?
And in a moment I'm going to ring the bell again,
But I just invite you to answer that question for yourself maybe.
Just with a few words internally,
Why am I not doomed?
Or why are we not doomed?
What comes up for you.
And this is from Rosemary Trummer.
Called How the Light Came.
And it was in the darkest time when she was most lost before she even knew how to ask for help.
It was then that the light arrived.
As a firefly so it happens.
A radiance so tiny she might have missed it.
Had it not lit up right in front of her face.
At the very moment her friend spoke of love.
Perhaps she would have resisted it if she had energy for resistance.
Even the smallest brilliance can be terrifying when it asks us to see life as it really is.
As it is,
The love light entered her.
Humble as a beetle,
Significant as a star,
It glowed so brightly others could see it.
It responded to her trust.
It met her in silent rooms and lonely days.
It shined into deep uncertainty.
It offered her no answers.
It suggested a thousand,
Thousand right paths.
We could say the light didn't change a thing.
We could say the light changed everything.
Who was she to receive a miracle?
Let's not call it a miracle then.
Call it wonder.
Call it unlikely luck.
But there is no way to pretend it didn't happen.
The light entered her.
Even now,
She tends that light.
It glows brighter the more she gives it away.
The bell And then I always like to close with three bows.
The first bow is for yourself.
So thanking yourself for.
.
.
Showing up or coming on this hot day in Santa Barbara or online,
Wherever you're coming from,
We take a bow.
Thank you to your True Self.
Your good nature.
And then the next bow is to each other,
To our community,
To our sangha.
Inside and outside this room.
Thank you for being here.
It helps me be here.
And the last bow is.
I messed it up last time for our teachers and the teachings.
Thank you to teacher Rosemary today and all the other teachers in your life.
