Calm Abiding

“We need roots in order to bear fruit,” said Father Daniel, as he explained why, in the Cistercian tradition, monks and nuns take a vow of ‘place’. What does it mean for us, in this rootless world, to grow roots? What does it mean to bring forth fruit? Is it about mere productivity? Or can it be about something more, perhaps creativity? A flowering of the soul?

Transcript

You you One of the themes I'm sitting with this week is again from our Monday Meditation our Monday group and some words And experiences stay with us don't they? So the word for this week for me is abide abide and for me it it goes back to a It goes back to a hymn a Christian hymn that my grandmother used to love abide with me But also it's related to the word abode Which is an old-fashioned word for home And I love my home. I love to be at home But when I explored a little deeper the word abide also came from the word for weight to wait And so how is it today if we do some abiding do some waiting But in the sense of waiting with patience and in the sense of patience like not wishing anything to be any different than what it is than how it is So this is the kind of waiting where we're not pushing to the front of the queue Pushing to the front of the queue And the kind of patience where we're not itching for something to be different Better How we want it How we want it So let's take a moment to settle into this space this time just as it is And in the body again this might feel like a dropping in a back and down kind of sensation Dropping the energy towards the earth or even into the earth The kind of rootedness that permits waiting this kind of waiting this kind of abiding What would it be what would it mean how would it feel to grow roots right now Feeling the energy drop into the lower body into the legs feet and beyond into the earth Taking the imagination right down through in our case the sand The earth below the sand as deep as you like Grounding And let the breath go there too so perhaps mainly the out breath a nice long out breath That is allowed to go deep And yes the in breath might extend a little as well in order to facilitate that Maybe we even open the mouth open the lips relax the jaw soften the throat Kind of an intention to stay Maybe we can feel deep in the earth there or in the base of ourselves we might say the base chakra if we think in those terms that there could be a pooling of energy As we wait as we abide with ourselves as we are there might be a sense of a pooling of energy Something storing And the word stable comes to mind stability And I am reminded of a beautiful piece of wisdom that was given to me by a Christian a Cistercian monk Who was explaining to me why they took a vow of place in that tradition why they take a vow of place to stay in the same place And he said you have to grow roots in order to bear fruit We have to grow roots in order to bear fruit And so from that rootedness can there be as well a kind of lifting arising like sap growing from deep in those roots that wants to lift up through the being through the spinal column Lifting towards the sky And this might be a time to engage more with the in breath That the in breath might allow us permit us enable us encourage us to lengthen the spine to make some space between the vertebrae And to stay to abide a little with that in breath then and give it a chance rather than forcing this lengthening to happen waiting that same kind of patient waiting for space to be enabled For space to happen to be facilitated and not to push it further than it is ready to go and yet still encouraging leaving room for something to happen some movement maybe the body moves in response As some space happens the shoulders might want to move in response to the spine changing its position And you may feel a kind of a buzz of energy somewhere else the mind may be drawn somewhere else where there is a shift and simply to notice this And then so some time to play with this breath to abide with this breath in breath and out breath deepening and lengthening And this might be something to play with as we burst into spring as we un-curl from our winter kind of under the groundness And curling from this stored energy of hibernation and using the rootedness to blossom.

Reviews

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Interesting and thought provoking. I became a little restless towards the end.