Let's begin with the bell.
With a deep inhale and a slow exhale,
Just coming in.
Finding your place.
Isn't it nice to be right here?
You could be running around,
But you're not.
Could be working,
But you're not,
You're giving yourself this time,
You're not.
Giving it away.
And you've taken this choice to be here.
Be present and mindful,
Aware and hopeful.
And even bored,
Which is very good for your mind.
So when you get distracted,
As we all get distracted,
Just Come back to this experience that you gave yourself.
You wanted to be here.
Breathing in deeply,
Out slowly,
Maybe a stretch.
Or yawn.
Or exhale on the word cellar.
It's taking your time.
No rush.
Nothing to get to.
You can let go of regrets.
Set aside fantasies and anxieties about the future.
Just sitting.
And being is enough,
You're not doing.
Not thinking,
But feeling.
In acting to your senses,
Start by listening.
Birds and air conditioning units.
Cars and breezes.
Maybe your own pulse.
Swallowing,
All those little noises.
Using those as a cue to keep arriving in your body and in this time.
Because your mind will always move away.
It will always drift like a ship at sea.
And you can just return to the boat.
There you are.
In the middle.
And beauty all around you and within you.
Sense it,
Listen,
Feel,
Smell,
Notice.
All that you are and all that you have.
Breathe in deeply,
Guiding the breath to sore or stiff or tight parts.
Exhaling slowly as a way to slow down your racing mind.
Doing things slowly with your body and help your mind to slow down.
Just feeling your body top to bottom.
What's good?
What's tight?
What feels tense,
What's relaxed.
Not judging,
But inviting tight spots to relax.
There's nothing wrong with you.
The world is just a challenging place.
So we take a few minutes to be quiet and still.
Not silent,
Not completely unmoving.
We want to know things and understand and grasp things that seem so far away.
Other lands,
Other books.
Other cultures that We'll never grasp,
We'll never reach.
Notice that,
How you're seeking.
What you're seeking.
Where far and farther away.
Reaching for solutions.
We can exhaust ourselves.
Just notice the part of you that is seeking.
Driving full of wanderlust.
The part of you that does not want to sit still.
Because life is short.
Wants to travel the seas.
Acknowledge this driver.
Welcome her or him or them in.
Breathing in deeply,
Out slowly.
Just enjoying the moment and then the next moment.
There's a part of us that seeks heights,
That seeks spiritual epiphanies,
Ecstasies.
That seeks adventure upward.
Vigor against gravity.
Striving that way.
Or self-aggrandizement.
Just notice.
Notice the climber.
The voice in you that wants to go up,
Like the voice in you that wanted to go away.
In pursuit.
Just feeling that climbing.
And efforts.
Through the cold and rain.
Through fatigue you chase.
Unrelenting.
Welcome in the climber.
In its search for knowledge.
Breathing deeply and slowly.
Staying with self,
When you get distracted,
Just come back.
And back again.
But more importantly,
The knowledge is inside you.
Not mysterious,
Not distant,
Not high,
But.
.
.
Small and still within you.
Draw in.
To your core and center.
Breathe into that font of wisdom.
That's where the teaching begins.
That spiritual guide.
What do you hear?
What do you learn from your deeper self?
Your deepest self.
Spend a little time listening as you breathe.
What do you need to hear?
At your core.
Just breathing.
Listing.
Inward.
