In this joy work session,
We are going to practice a mountain meditation and then listen to a mountain poem and then journal in response to one question.
The joy work we've been doing asks us to dig deep into our strength and this mountain meditation is another powerful way to do that.
This is adapted from Jon Kabat-Zinn's book,
Wherever You Go There You Are Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life.
First begin by sitting upright.
Bring your awareness to the sensations of your breath and the gentle rhythm it is creating in you.
Letting it be just as it is.
Each inhale and exhale announcing the next.
Now expand your awareness to the sensations of your body.
Sitting upright and with dignity,
Bring your attention to the surface beneath you and the support it provides.
Root your body into its strength and become aware of your connection to it.
Complete,
Whole and in this moment you are grounded by its unwavering resolve.
As you sit here,
Visualize a grand mountain whose peaks pierce smoky clouds and continue upward where the air is clear and the view is endless.
A mountain with slopes that are both jagged and gentle.
Supported by a vast foundation,
Rooted deep in the bedrock of the earth.
This mountain is a monument to all that is solid,
Grand,
Stable and beautiful.
Are there trees?
Does snow blanket its lofty heights?
Perhaps there are waterfalls cascading as mist into open sky.
However it is,
Let it be as it is.
Be this mountain and share in its stillness.
Grounded in your posture,
Your head its skyward peak supported by the rest of your form.
Granting you an awe-inspiring perspective of the landscape before you,
Behind you and around you which flows from your center into the distant horizon.
Be this mountain.
And take on its stability as your own from the top of your crown,
Down your face and head and neck and into the balance of your shoulders like cliffs descending into your arms and forearms.
And coming to rest in the valley of your hands,
Be the mountain.
Your feet,
Legs and hips,
The mountain base solid and rooted beneath you.
Your foundation extending up into your spine and abdomen.
A core of stability.
Be the mountain.
The rhythm of your breath is all that moves you,
A living mountain,
Alive and aware.
Yet unwavering in inner stillness,
Completely what you are,
Beyond words and thought.
A centered,
Grounded,
Unmovable presence.
A mountain which witnesses the sun travel across the sky,
Casting light and shadows and colors across its consistent composure.
Moment by moment in the mountain stillness,
The surface teems with life and activity.
Snows melt.
Streams run down its face.
Trees and flowers bloom and die and bloom again as the wildlife returns and departs and returns with the seasons.
Be the mountain who is called beautiful and inspiring and dark and ominous and knows that it is all of those things and more.
Be the mountain which sits and sees how night follows day and day follows night,
Which knows the sun by the warmth that brings on rising and the stars by the way they shine in a darkened sky.
Through it all,
The mountain sits.
Aware of the changes that each moment brings around it and to it,
Yet it remains itself.
As the seasons flow into one another and the air swirls from hot to cold and the weather turns from tame to turbulent,
Still this does not concern the mountain whose serenity is housed within.
In the same way as you sit in meditation,
You can learn to experience the mountain as a means of embodying the same centered unwavering stillness and groundedness in the face of all that changes in your life over seconds,
Over hours,
Over years.
Like the mountain,
You will experience the changing nature of your mind and body and of the world around you.
You will have periods varying in intensity of darkness and light,
Of activity and inactivity and moments that fill your life with color.
Through it all,
Be the mountain and call on its patient strength and stability within you.
Let it empower you to encounter each moment with mindful composure and compassionate clarity.
Be the mountain.
We will sit quietly for two minutes now and then I'll read my poem Mountain Lesson.
Mountain lesson.
The black bird laughs from the chokecherry tree.
Mountains can't talk,
Says she.
Proud of her birdness,
Her redness of wing,
She thinks of herself as the only one able to sing.
But what songs there are to greet the morning.
Balsam song,
White ash song,
Cloud song,
Dream song,
Song of blue sky hiding.
Do not ask the name of something if you are not patient enough to wait to hear it.
Everything has a name.
Everything sings a song.
The mountain told me her name.
I promise not to reveal it.
In your journal now,
As you listen to the voice that is deep within you,
Protecting you,
Grounding you and giving you strength,
Write down what she is saying.
