Let's begin with a bell.
We'll spend some time grounding.
Just coming in.
Settling down and literally getting heavy.
Letting gravity take over.
Collapsing in.
Quitting on the efforts of the day.
Putting all that aside.
You're taking a break.
You're giving yourself and your mind and your spirit some time.
Getting heavy and sinking in.
As if you could extend roots into the earth.
Or your rhizome,
Yourself expanding like a fungus into the ground.
Just stretching out and joining in gravity.
Slowing down.
Watching the world go by.
You quiet at the center.
Just breathing in deeply and exhaling slowly.
Noticing yourself where you are,
What you need.
As you get heavy,
You become quiet.
You become more still.
You listen.
Birds and mechanical noises.
Cars.
Your heartbeat.
A wind.
The world going on even as you sit.
Or lie down.
And you're taking a break.
Becoming steady in yourself.
Checking in.
How's your body?
Achy,
Tight?
Happy,
Relaxed,
Warm?
Muscles strong?
Or tired?
Joints stiff or flexible?
It's not a value judgment.
It's just a way of noticing yourself.
Giving yourself your own attention and kindness and care.
Breathing in deeply to all the tight spots,
All the difficult spots in your body.
All the emotional weariness.
Breathe into that heart.
Your good heartedness.
Let it expand.
Breathe into the best part of you.
Your whole self.
Unencumbered.
Heavy and paradoxically weightless.
We all have things we regret.
Mistakes made.
Some we know about.
Some we're at best dimly aware of.
Sometimes not aware of at all.
In this meditation we're going to make some room,
Some space for the very human experience of making mistakes.
It is natural and expected to make mistakes.
There can be portals to discovery.
Some big,
Some small.
Some easily repaired and some that take longer.
Just open yourself up to something you regret.
Something small.
Something simple.
Bumped into someone,
Said the wrong thing.
Woke up resentful or grouchy.
Passed on that irritability.
Forgot to do something.
Bought the wrong groceries.
But you know you did it.
It's there and you hold it with some regret.
Just marveling at it.
It's fascinating when we make mistakes.
Some we know about and can correct.
Some we don't yet have the time or capacity to fix.
Some are inevitable.
And sometimes we plan something and it turns out poorly.
And we do it wrong fully knowing that it's not going to work.
And we learn.
We try again.
We fail again.
We fail better.
Breathe into that.
Just ground with it that it's okay to make boo-boos.
To stumble and fall.
And get back up.
The process of noticing our mistakes might be disruptive.
So let's take a few moments to breathe again.
To ground again.
To slow back down and listen.
Breathing in deeply.
Exhaling slowly.
And listening to the symphony of the world around you.
If you're quiet,
The world can become quite loud and extremely beautiful.
You can start to hear the symphony inside yourself.
Heart and breath and digestion.
We make mistakes we know about.
And we have to make some space that there are errors we have made that were unforced.
And about which we don't know.
We don't even realize.
We don't have to be afraid of that.
Just know that it's possible and very human to make mistakes even beyond our ken.
Unseen or unacknowledged.
But out there nonetheless.
Make space for that.
That out there,
There was an oops.
Probably a lot of them.
Just acknowledging that that's part of who we are.
Who you are.
Make mistakes.
Some we know about.
Some we can't even see.
Our actions can have unintended consequences.
Not what we want as good people.
But happening nonetheless.
Breathing and letting go.
Breathing in deeply.
Exhaling slowly.
And as you breathe,
Recognize that just as in baseball,
In life,
Errors are a part of the game.
And a part of its rigorous truth.
Errors forced and unforced will always occur.
Without them,
We would have nothing to learn.
Breathing and grounding.
Just coming back and coming back and coming back through all the distraction.
Keep coming home.
Blessings.
