Forest and Earth.
These planet meditations are designed for you to sit with the beautiful elements and life in all its glorious creation on our earth as you quiet yourself to be here right now.
They can be used as a metaphor as in the classic lake or mountain meditation in the mindfulness series.
They can be used to return you to your sense of oneness with the whole planet or you could simply enjoy them and relax.
I hope you can use them in a way that resonates for you.
If you have a suggestion for something in the natural world that you would like me to create a meditative moment around please feel free to contact me via email,
Instagram or Facebook.
Blessings,
Mighty.
I invite you to take a couple of full breaths,
Letting the air out slowly.
And bringing your attention to your breath,
Making yourself comfortable and noticing the inflow and outflow of your breath as you gently close your eyes.
And beginning now to notice any sensations you can feel in your body.
Beginning to notice how it feels for you in this moment.
What sensations might you notice in your body right here,
Right now?
Bringing your attention to your body and gently scanning down slowly as you breathe from your head,
Neck,
Shoulders,
Chest,
Back,
Tummy,
Hips,
Buttocks,
Thighs,
Calves and finally feeling into your feet.
Noticing the sensations in your feet and in your toes.
Perhaps your toes are touching or maybe they're apart.
Whatever you notice,
Just becoming aware of these sensations with a sense of gentle curiosity,
Nothing to do about them,
Think about them,
Simply becoming aware of them.
Bringing your focus right into your body and into the sensations you might find.
Perhaps you can sense some tingling or some numbness.
Maybe there's a sense of tightness somewhere in your body.
Maybe you can't feel much at all in this moment and that's fine too.
Just breathing in and out in your own natural rhythm.
And allowing all the sensations to just be.
Sensing where your body makes contact with the surface supporting you.
Perhaps your heels or calves or your shoulder blades are pressing into the floor.
Whatever you sense,
Just noticing and letting be.
Maybe the backs of your legs are pressing against the chair.
You can feel your feet firmly grounded on the floor.
And now bringing your awareness up through your body and into your lungs.
Noticing the feeling of the air entering and leaving your lungs.
Breathing in and out.
Noticing the movement of your body perhaps as it fills with air and the movement as the air leaves again.
Perhaps you can even notice the pause.
The pause on the in-breath before you let the air go.
And the pause on the out-breath before you draw new air in.
Simply bringing awareness to your breath and noticing that your body knows what to do in every moment and with each breath.
Moment by moment,
Minute by minute,
And day by day.
And now bringing your awareness to the sensation of your breath on your face.
Maybe noticing the sensations on your cheeks or just below your nose or over your chin as you breathe in and out.
What's the temperature of the air like on your face?
Is it warm or cool?
Maybe noticing any difference.
However it is for you right now just noticing with kind curiosity.
Nothing to do or change.
Nothing to decide.
Just sitting or lying here and noticing what's happening for you in this moment.
And now bringing your awareness to any thoughts which may be arising.
No need to push them away.
Just let them arrive like a welcome guest and sit with them and watch them leave again as you lie here gently returning your attention to your breath to breathing into your whole body.
And now bringing into your mind the image of a forest.
Perhaps it's a forest you know or have seen or maybe a forest of your imagination.
Just breathing and seeing this image of your forest.
What's it like in your forest?
Are there tall trees?
Are there many trees or just a few?
What's the light like in your forest?
Are you in a calm sunny glade with trees all around you perhaps?
Or are you in thick dark undergrowth?
Just focusing in your forest.
What can you hear?
Perhaps you have a waterfall or perhaps you have a broad river or maybe a trickling stream.
What water is in your forest?
Or maybe there's none at all.
Are there birds in your forest?
Or maybe there are insects and bees buzzing.
Or perhaps your forest is a dense jungle with chattering monkeys.
Just noticing the sounds in your forest now.
Is your forest on an alpine height snow-topped and glacial with cool wind rushing through the trees blowing the snow as it passes from snowy mountaintop to mountaintop?
Just being with your forest now.
And breathing.
As you lie here safely supported by the chair or mat or floor and beginning to notice the changing weather in your forest.
Sensing the turbulence and noise that visits your forest at times of change.
The wind thrashing the trees.
The water pushing out the banks of swollen rivers.
The shrieks and barks as wildlife passes through.
What's happening in your forest now?
And now noticing how the forest changes with the seasons on a summer's day it may be still and calm.
As if it listens to the air,
Gentle breezes.
Dabbled sunlight.
Blue sky above the tall treetops perhaps.
And at other times your forest may be dark and gloomy.
Wet with the smell of moss and fern and the dripping of water sliding over leaves.
However the weather is in your forest.
Beginning to bring your awareness down to the forest floor now.
And down to the depths of earth beneath you.
The deep solid earth.
Soil of root and clay.
Always there.
Always supporting the trees and the ferns.
Stable,
Grounded,
Unchanging depths of earth.
Above the plants grow,
Moving and pushing taller.
And yet all the while their roots are resting in this cool brown earth.
In the still,
Deep,
Steady depth of soil.
So flowers and trees,
Plants may come and go.
The trees age and fall.
The weather changes in your forest.
The sun rises and falls.
But always underneath is this still,
Calm and changing depth of soil and quiet.
Visitors may come and go.
Their feet moving and squashing and disturbing.
The bracken,
Fern,
Moss.
Or animals digging and eating.
Fighting and loving.
Sleeping.
And yet underneath all this life,
Underneath all this change and movement.
Sensing the deep,
Profound depths of your forest.
The unchanging still and calm.
Just watching.
Letting the forest floor.
Wildlife and canopy breathe in its own natural rhythm.
And now if you can see yourself as this forest,
Of yourself being your vast forest.
And as the weather and light changes in you.
As the wind of your emotions howl and the rain of your anger thunders.
Yet underneath you can begin to sense this still,
Calm depth of your own solid ground.
Unmoving.
Calm and still.
Allowing all these changes,
All the unfurling patterns of your life.
Breathing here now as the forest.
Feeling your breath entering you and leaving you.
And yet knowing your firm,
Steady floor is always there.
And now perhaps you can begin to notice the thoughts and feelings that may be visiting you right now that might be here already.
Maybe they're turbulent like the trees thrashing in the wind.
Or maybe they're joyful and calm like the sunny glades.
Just noticing in your forest whatever visits you.
And as you sit breathing here now in your own natural rhythm,
Your own ebb and flow.
Breathing in and out.
Sensing your own profound depth.
Knowing that underneath your thought,
Your feelings,
Your body's sensations is your solid ebb and flow.
Steady,
Stable,
Unmoving.
Supporting and nurturing you.
Minute by minute.
Breath by breath.
Day by day.
So even as your thoughts become to you,
Like the clouds they will pass over.
Feelings and sensations will visit.
Sometimes they may stay a while and then pass through.
Always returning to this sense of the solid,
Wise depth of you underneath your forest floor.
And now leaving your forest and focusing fully onto your breath once more.
Onto your in breath and your out breath.
And bringing your full awareness to this moment right now.
Filling your lungs with a fresh breath,
A new breath in each and every moment.
And when you hear the chime,
Jently open your eyes,
Bringing your fingers and toes,
Taking a stretch in whatever way feels right for you.
And smiling.
May the depth and wisdom of the earth be with you this week.
