Let's begin by just sitting calmly,
Getting settled.
You can also be lying down as long as you're in a safe and comfortable place where your bones and muscles can relax and settle in.
Just experience the weight of your body.
Is your internal energy and self agitated,
Highly energetic,
Slow and mellow?
Where do you find yourself right now as you enter this meditative state?
Check in.
Good to know what you're seeing now.
During this meditation,
We're going to think about our lives in thirds.
So depending on your age,
You might want to do some rough calculation now before we begin of what the length of a third of your life might be.
Try not to be upset when you do the calculation.
Continue to breathe deeply and gently.
Next we're going to call to mind an image from any time in your life.
What is the highest place you've ever been to?
Mountain,
Hill?
Picture yourself at that summit at whatever point in your life that may have been.
Draw back to that memory.
Were you above the tree line?
In the clouds or even above them?
What could you see at that height?
What was the view?
Was the air cool or not?
Was the air dry?
Settle your body and your breath and your pulse where you are today and let your mind drift to that high place where you once were.
In your mind's eye,
You are at the peak,
Whatever that was in your life.
Breathing,
Relaxing,
Settling.
Inhale,
Exhale.
From this place of vision,
We're going to look outward and inward at the first third of your life.
Maybe that whole youthful period.
Maybe just a singular moment.
Draw an image to mind.
Locate that image through your senses,
Sight,
Hearing,
Touch,
Smell.
Elaborate on that moment or period.
What was the message of that time?
Can you put it in a feeling or a word or even a sentence or just an impression?
See if you can narrow your focus to that message and repeat it to yourself.
Continue to internalize that message as you breathe in and breathe out and settle.
Now think of someone who needs that message.
And gently give that message to her or him or them.
Breathing.
Sending it out.
Notice the same time as you draw it in.
Back at the heights on your mountaintop,
Consider the second third of your life.
Whatever that calculus adds up to approximately.
Look on that middle period of the life you've lived so far.
Pick a spot,
A moment,
Or just a broad swath of time.
Whatever makes sense for you that was special during that second period.
What's the message of that point in your life?
A thought,
A feeling.
What did it teach you?
Try for a moment to digest that message as you breathe and settle in.
In and out.
Get it into your muscles and bones.
As you internalize the message of the middle third of your life,
Is there someone or people who needs that message,
Whom you could share it with in a teaching?
Share it to them peacefully.
Back at the summit,
Reflect on the most recent third of your life.
Picture a special moment or series of moments during that period.
Sketch that moment in your mind with all of your senses attuned.
Breathing,
Sensing,
Settling.
What is the message of this most recent time?
How does it occur to you?
There's a sensibility,
A word,
A phrase.
And begin to internalize that message.
Breathing in,
Settling down.
Settle it into your bones and sinews.
Breathing in,
Settling down.
Breathing in.
Is there someone else who needs that message?
Could you share it with them generously?
Do so.
Come back to the heights,
Come back to the peak,
The summit,
The place of vision.
Take a few more moments to look out over the depths and valleys restfully.
As you come back to this moment,
Before you move on to the rest of your day,
You may want to write down those messages.
Make them somewhere safe.
And even repeat this visualization to find new messages.
Blessings.
