One of the easiest ways to connect to presence is in nature and out walking.
It's best to go alone or with someone else who knows how to be in presence.
Just close your eyes and begin to sense or imagine.
It's a cloudy autumn day with a grey and flat sky.
The rain has made the path shine and there are lights reflected in scattered puddles.
The air is still warm and it feels good on your skin.
Getting out feels like a relief.
You feel a release of tension as you start to walk and you take some deep breaths of air.
The passing traffic hums and someone hurries past you.
Beneath your soft soled shoes you can feel every step under your feet.
Walking on cushioned textures,
Your attention rests on the ground beneath you and the rhythm of walking.
Arms moving at your sides.
The sway of your body.
Your breath and your body moving together.
Planting your feet on the ground and breathing in and breathing out and relaxing more into the moment.
Breathing in and breathing out and relaxing more.
Welcoming this moment.
Your body loosens up and lets go.
You tune in with all of your senses to this day,
To this time,
Just as it is.
A bird takes your attention and the sound causes you to stop and listen.
It takes you more deeply into the moment and all thoughts stop momentarily.
There is a sound and there is silence under the sound.
You listen so intimately that you feel at one with the sound.
You awaken to this moment and to yourself that knows all as yourself.
Beyond the understanding of the mind.
After standing transfixed you become aware of the day again and you begin to move.
You turn a corner and you walk over a metal bridge.
It has dark green and velvety moss around its edges.
You notice how it feels as you brush your fingers across it.
Each step makes a sound that echoes and vibrates on the metal.
You feel the movement of the bridge as you walk.
Stopping again,
You become aware of the water patterns beneath you.
Ripples,
Plays of light and shadow,
Movement.
Depth and flow,
Reflections,
Trees dipping their leaves and trailing weeds.
Weeds flowing beneath the water.
Again you stand transfixed by the moment.
Sensing the river so intimately that you feel at one with all you experience.
And then your attention moves from the narrow focus of your senses into an expansiveness.
You step off the bridge and into a wide field with a big sky,
Dark and distant hills.
And as you do,
The sky brightens from grey to white and sunlight illuminates it and lights up the land.
You experience the space,
The temperature,
The sounds,
The scents,
The colours,
The shapes all at once.
And within that,
The sense of your own body,
Your own breath,
Your thoughts coming and going.
And your emotions,
Your feelings,
All present,
Pure experience of the moment.
This moment you feel it in your body.
You feel it in your heart and you breathe it in.
Stillness,
Presence.
You are not even the awareness of the moment.
Beyond thinking,
You are.
You are one with the moment.
You stand transfixed by what is.
And that sublime moment could last forever until suddenly a distant sound jolts your attention out of the now.
And then there is a pull to follow the path,
To find out what's around the corner.
So you begin to walk through the field with the damp grasses brushing against your legs.
Again sensing the rhythm of your steps and the heaviness of the uneven ground with every step you are arriving.
Thoughts come in,
Ideas that you can't act upon whilst walking.
So you let them go and you take your attention back to the field.
Returning to peace and a stillness that you can now feel in your body.
You see a tall tree and you rest against it and feel the bark under your fingers.
The leaves create ever-changing patterns overhead.
Sunlight through the leaves.
Simply watching the colours and the patterns,
Pure seeing.
The movement of the leaves swaying softly.
And you rest and feel the sensation as your back leans on the tree.
Strong,
Reliable and grounded.
And you feel your body's response to the sturdy presence of the tree.
And you stay with the tree a while and enjoy it.
You notice that water is running down a bank.
Bubbles and colours and sound.
Greens and browns and yellows mix.
Watching the changing flow at one with looking.
In this moment you feel unburdened by life.
And unburdened by mind.
And reconnected with your true nature.
And this state is growing in your life and this presence is available.
Notice your body.
There is a sense beyond description.
A wholeness.
A wholeness here.
You observe the world as a collage of colour and texture.
Presence is part of us all and is us all.
Standing in presence dissolves the sense of a little separate me.
You begin to walk again and a thought drops in.
It's a thought that causes you pain.
A heaviness.
You feel it in your chest and your stomach.
You focus on that feeling without pushing it away.
It's part of what's here in this moment.
You hold it with your awareness.
In tenderness.
The discomfort in your body holds you in the now.
You carry the feeling with you on your walk.
You allow it to be without going into thought about it.
There is pain but there is the loving awareness of it.
There is pain but there is the loving awareness of it.
And there is tenderness.
And you are deeply present with that pain.
And taking this pain for a walk in the stillness allows you to be with it until it passes and peace returns.
And you put your attention on your footsteps once again and the rhythm soothes you.
You find you have a question on your mind now.
You don't know the answer.
So you allow that question to drop into the silence of the moment without trying to solve it.
And the question drifts about in your awareness as you focus from feet to trees to the river to the quality of the light to the sound of an engine starting up.
Your mind wanders and it is brought back to the now by each new focus,
Each sense.
You feel the warmth of your body and your heart is beating faster.
There is heat and moisture on your neck.
You stop and take a breath and look up and down the river.
You stop and sit on a wooden bench that is worn and the paint flaking.
You sense the silence of the moment.
All is quiet.
And in the stillness the answer to your question drops in as though from nowhere and with it a sense of rightness about this answer.
A felt sense of yes in your body.
Your heart returns to lightness and once again feels the fullness and the wholeness of the moment.
It was not an answer that was chewed by the mind.
Not an answer that considered many variables but an answer that appeared.
You breathe into your heart space into the centre of your chest and a warm and loving feeling almost blissful comes through.
You breathe it in again and again You know that your walk is now nearing an end and you feel tired but you know that this presence and this stillness will return home with you.
It will fill the hours ahead of you.
It will fill your home.
It will affect your experience and the experience of those around you.
Walking in presence gives you space.
In nature you can restore balance.
You can clear your energy field and your physical body Walking is a necessity and it's helpful in so many ways balancing you grounding you relieving intensity holding and processing your pain supporting you and allowing your mind to be calm You don't have to walk somewhere beautiful you can tune in to what's here wherever you are You can walk fast or slow as long as you take in what is in each moment and walking can teach you to embody states and processes that you will use in your everyday life So just listen to the bird song for a few more moments and now you can begin to return to the moment that you are currently in and when you're ready you can open your eyes
