Peace,
And health,
And welcome to this invitation.
My name is Jonathan Stahls,
And I consider myself a walking artist.
This invitation is going to center unhurried movement,
Preferably outside,
With trees,
With soil,
With the sky.
This invitation is also inviting and centering moving with a walking stick,
A preferably wooden walking stick.
Walking is also inclusive to moving on a wheelchair or powered scooter.
And so if you're moving on a mobility device,
Having a walking stick or having natural elements in your hand as you move is highly encouraged.
And so before we begin,
I invite you to pause the invitation to gather your walking stick and or to gather fallen natural objects like pine cones,
And branches,
And leaves,
Or whatever feels easy and natural and within close proximity to your space.
Once you have gathered your walking stick or natural objects,
I invite you to slowly move towards a nearby tree,
Or bush,
Or flower,
Or any kind of growing plant.
And as you get close,
I invite you to first take a couple slow,
Deep breaths with the plant,
With the tree,
With the sky.
So breathing deeply in,
Opening your heart,
Opening your lungs,
Inviting nourishment with your in-breath,
Deeply in,
And slowly out.
I invite you to take another deep breath,
Inviting presence,
Inviting the wisdom of the natural world to be with you,
To see you,
To honor you.
Breathing deeply in,
And slowly out.
Let's do one more deep breath,
This time inviting nourishment.
Nourishment from your walking stick,
Nourishment from the natural objects that are going to be moving with you.
Just inviting nourishment as you move,
As you listen,
As you open deeply in,
Slowly out.
So from here,
I invite you to put your hand on the trunk,
On the bark of the tree,
Or maybe to fasten your fingers around the leaves and the branches of the plant,
Just to feel the texture,
To feel the connection.
You might feel the roots underneath your feet,
You might kneel down to touch the roots.
So we'll just give you a moment to ground in the connection with the tree,
With the roots,
With the plant.
After your time of connection,
I invite you to begin slowly moving,
And as you move,
I invite you to pay extra attention to the relationship between you and your walking movement stick,
The way it feels in your hand against your skin,
The sound that it makes as it slowly hits the gravel or the ground,
And I invite you to go extra unhurried,
To go a little bit slower than a default pace.
So we're moving and we're connecting,
We're trying to simply just connect to the way that the stick feels in our hand,
The way that it moves into the earth,
In the dirt,
In the soil,
The way that your feet move with the earth,
The way the earth feels under your feet,
If you're carrying natural objects as you move,
Just inviting you to feel them,
Their textures,
The sharpness,
The roughness,
The smoothness,
The veins of leaves,
The veins of the wooden stick,
The knuckles,
The bruises,
The breaks,
The new areas of growth.
So as we move,
We also invite the big connection to the natural world around us.
The trees in the horizon,
The different plant beings that reach out of the soil,
The breeze in the sun,
The stars,
The birds,
The waterways.
We invite them and we honor them,
We see them,
We coexist with them.
If you feel encouraged to continue this simple connection,
Focusing simply on the textures and the movement in and of itself,
I invite you to pause this invitation and let it spread out for several minutes or longer and then return to this next prompt and invitation.
As you continue moving,
I invite you to feel in your heart,
To feel in your body,
To feel through the walking stick,
Through your hand into your arm and shoulder,
Through the walking stick into your story and lived experience,
The hard things,
The joyful things,
The heavy things,
The confusing things,
Memories,
Both good and troubling,
The dreams,
The aches,
That you're inviting the energy of the earth to move through the walking stick in and through your hands into your arms and shoulders.
Permission from the earth to slow down,
To rest,
To heal,
Permission to break,
To let go like the branches of trees,
Permission to grow in new areas and to dream and to feel when branches reach for more nourishment,
When they reach for the sun,
When the wind bends them,
When the leaves curl and turn colors to rest.
So as we move,
We invite our walking stick as if it is a third connection,
A third portal to the earth,
That our two feet as we move are connections to the earth,
To the core of the planet,
To the soil,
To the roots,
To the trees,
To the air,
But that also now the walking stick is a third connection,
Helping us to ground,
Helping us to feel,
Helping us to let go,
Helping us to dream,
Helping us to feel connected to the more than human,
Non-human,
Also human world.
So I invite you to move with this invitation,
With this third portal,
This third leg if you will.
And if you are on a mobility device and you are holding natural objects,
I invite you to hold these natural objects with sacredness,
With intention that they are also portals to the natural world and that the weight of your body as it moves on the earth is a portal to the earth,
To the roots,
To the soil.
And so as we move,
I invite you,
If you want to take this invitation with you further,
I invite you to pause this meditation and to allow this prompt to move with you for several minutes or longer.
As we continue to move,
The final prompt for this practice alongside our walking stick is an invitation of humility,
That our walking stick can be a resting partner,
That our walking stick can help us feel extra cared for,
That our walking stick can also be a tool of defense and protection,
That a walking stick can help us reach the ripe apple high in the tree,
That the walking stick can be something we can lean on,
That the walking stick can communicate that we are always in need of help and support,
And that to not have a walking stick would potentially communicate that we are not in need of help and support.
And so we move with humility and tenderness and gentleness,
But also strength and courage and connection to the earth,
To each other,
To our deeper selves.
So I invite you to move with this invitation of humility and to even lean a little bit more on the walking stick with your weight,
With your story,
With your hopes,
With your dreams,
With the things that feel heavy,
The things that feel hard and complicated,
The things that may not even have words,
That while we also receive from the earth up into the stick and through our bodies that we can also release and breathe out things that are heavy down through our arms and into the walking stick,
Inviting the earth to help us hold them and see them.
So I invite you to be with this invitation of support and humility each step,
Each breath.
And if you are moving on a powered scooter or wheelchair and you have natural objects,
Or if you have natural objects instead of a walking stick,
I invite you to see these elements as elements of support and help,
That we don't always need to lean on or see ourselves in the realm of support with other humans.
While we very much need that and will hopefully continue to seek that,
That we can also seek support from the pine cones and the leaves and the stones and the rivers and the trees.
And so as we move honoring this invitation,
Honoring our stories,
Honoring movement itself,
I invite you to slowly make your way towards a tree or a plant or a stream.
You might place your hand on the bark,
On the branch,
On the rock,
In the water.
And as we move into a closing,
I invite you to honor this connection with gratitude and openness and several deep breaths.
So let's take a deep breath together,
Breathing in gratitude and openness,
Deeply in and slowly out,
Doing another breath of gratitude and openness for this time,
For our walking stick,
For humility,
For unhurried movement,
For the wisdom of the natural world.
Deeply in,
Slowly out.
And let's do one final deep breath and I invite you to take your in-breath extra,
Extra gently and then to release the out-breath.
I often picture my out-breath like the waves of an ocean spreading out over sand.
So I invite you to take your time with the out-breath as you release and let it spread out into all that's ahead and all that's within.
Breathing compassion deeply in,
Slowly in and slowly out.
Peace and health and ground and humility to each of you,
To each of us as we move,
As we seek support,
As we lean on the natural world and as we invite an unhurried pace into our practice and relationships and time on this planet.
Peace to each of you,
To each of us.
