The View From Above: A Cosmic Grounding Meditation

This meditation helps get us out of our heads and into our bodies, but first we’ll take a cosmic tour and remind ourselves that we are not small, separate, disconnected beings. We are one with the cosmos.

Transcript

Find a comfortable position, Seated or lying down. If you're outside, Let yourself settle into contact with the ground beneath you. Take a slow breath in through your nose and release it gently through the mouth. Let the breath be easy and unforced. You don't need to do anything with it, Just let it move. Begin by simply noticing where you are. What is directly around you right now? The texture of the ground? The temperature of the air? Or any sounds reaching you from near or far? You don't need to name these things, Just let them register. Now gently close your eyes and in your mind's eye begin to see yourself from slightly above, As though you were a bird circling just overhead. You can see the shape of your body, Settled and still. Slowly begin to rise, Allow your field of vision to expand. You can see the area around you now, Your neighborhood, Or the park, Or the forest. Notice the shapes of trees, Rooftops, Roads. Let the image be loose and easy, Not a map, But an impression. Continue rising. The region opens beneath you, Hills, Rivers, The network of towns and fields. Perhaps you can sense some of the larger natural features of this part of the world. Now higher still, The continent comes into view, The curve of the coastline, The great mountain ranges like wrinkles in the skin of the earth. Notice how the human-made and the wild both belong to the same surface, One continuous skin. And now you rise out through the atmosphere. The air thins, The sky deepens from blue to black, And there below you, The whole planet, A sphere, Blue and white and green and luminous. Rest here for a moment. Look at it. This is the world you live on. This is what holds everything you have ever known. Every forest you have walked through, Every body of water you have touched, The place where every human being who has ever lived, Lived. The moon moves in its orbit nearby. The sun, Distant, Pours its light across the planet's face. In the darkness beyond, The other planets of your solar system trace their slow paths. And further still, The solar system itself, A small family of light in the spiral arm of an ordinary galaxy. And that galaxy, Vast beyond imagining, Is itself one among hundreds of billions. There is no edge to this, No boundary where it ends. The Tao Te Ching says, I do not know its name. I call it Tao. And you, The small breathing creature resting on the surface of the earth, You are not separate from this. You are made of it. Every atom in your body was forged in the interior of stars that burned and died before the earth existed. You are the cosmos, Temporarily concentrated into this particular shape, Breathing in this particular moment. Slowly, Gently, Begin the return. The galaxy resolves into the solar system. The solar system into this single sun and its planets. The earth comes back into view. Descend through the atmosphere. The blue returns, The cloud layers, The continents, Your region, Your place, Your immediate surroundings. And now, Simply here, In your body, On the ground, Breathing. Notice what has shifted. You have not gone anywhere. And yet something has changed in the way the body feels against the earth beneath it. Notice that. There is nothing to do with it. Just let it be known. When you hear this bell sound and you're ready, Take a slow, Deep breath. Let your hands feel the ground around your lap. Gently open your eyes.