Ancestors' Relaxation

This is a 15-minute body relaxation, using a slow-loving mindfulness scan I learned from my time living in the Plum Village monastery. The theme here is ancestors, feeling the body as from a line of ancestors and resting in that. The song at the end is an own song called 'The Letting Go' about grief.

Transcript

Welcome to this relaxation for June 2024. This is on the theme of ancestors. So I'm going to ask you to just take a few moments to lie down. You can pause the recording and come back or play the guitar for 10 seconds while you do that. Somewhere you can be comfortable, Loose clothing, Close the door if you're somewhere and you like that privacy. Let people know you'll be doing a relaxation for 15 minutes. And as you lie down, You're feeling the contact of your body on the ground, Contacting the head and the shoulders. If you're not lying down, Then feeling the contact points of your body on the ground. Maybe your glute muscles, Sitting bones, Maybe on the chair with your feet on the floor. Whatever's comfortable for you, Whatever's preferred and possible. So let's take three breaths in and out with the guitar. So we're going to breathe in and breathe out. Okay, Breathing in and breathing out. And breathing in and breathing out. And then just allowing your breath to be natural, The flow of air in and out. The magic of the breathing, We'll get more to ancestors a little later, But just as an introduction to the relaxation, Feeling the presence of the body, The aliveness in the body. We're going to go through the body in mindfulness from the feet up to the crown of the head. We're just in this first instance, Being aware of the aliveness of the whole field of the body. A body that is born of a thousand ancestors, A journey that has been a thousand years. Just picking that number, I don't know exactly, But we can be sure that we can follow that family line back. So we could say that the whole family is here. All those that knew how to rest, Those who didn't know, Didn't have the opportunity. You've taken a long journey, It's time to rest now. We can think that as we go through the relaxation. So starting with the toes, Just put our attention in the tips of our toes, Talking of journeys, Wherever our feet have been today. Maybe you've been exercising or moving around, Traveling, So for these moments, Just allowing your feet to rest. The bones in the foot, 33 bones, The heels, And then we become aware of the tibia and the fibular bones in the lower leg. Is there any tension in this part of the body, In the feet or the legs? Doing what we can just to relax that part of the body, Giving that signal. Then aware of the knees, Front of the knee and the back of the knee, The knee joint, As we move up towards the thighs. We've got the quadriceps at the front and the hamstrings at the back. And then we move up to the hips, The pelvic arch, Pelvic bone. We've got the organs of that area, The glutes at the back. Can we just rest that area, Try and release any tension we can just by relaxing and softening the pelvis as we move beyond the pelvis towards the intestines and the belly, Large intestine, Small intestine, Belly, Pancreas, Kidneys as the spine comes up, The chest bringing in the air into the lungs, Ribcage rises and falls. We've got the heart on the left side, Liver on the right, Oxygen flowing in down into the lungs and then around the organs, Nourishing the organs. Aware of that flow of life through the body and then we're aware of the arms over the shoulders and go to the left arm first, Got the bicep, Tricep muscle to the elbow and then we've got the lower arm, Forearm, Got the radius and ulnus bones there. And then we've got the palm of the hand, Thumb and the fingers. Not tight, Not loose, Just resting and finding the fingertips and then feeling with our mindfulness the fingertips with the right hand and then we continue that journey, Right hand, Right palm, Wrist and move with that sensation up through the arm, Up to the elbow and to the shoulder of the right side and then finding the collarbone, The clavicle, Right over from shoulder to shoulder, Aware of the neck, Feel the breath coming in there through the nose or the mouth, The tongue, The teeth, Relaxing the cheeks, Eyes and ears, Eyes under eyelids, Closed, Got the nose, Bridge of the nose, Forehead and the top of the head and the back of the head. The wisdom of the ancestors are with you, It might be less in your culture where you are to think so much about ancestors, It's not so much in mine but I like to bring it into my culture through my practice of just resting in the body and feeling that while I don't know more than a few generations back, I know them because they're here, In my blood and in my bones, So honouring them in this moment, Honouring them by resting. I'm going to sing a song of my own called The Letting Go and this was written about the passing of friends of mine, Also my father last year, How it feels the day after we know something as big has changed and how setting suns rise again. I'll just sing this to you if you allow it, Just to be there as you rest and breathe for another few minutes. Morning comes and so into colour, Lean to lie, It opens another one, Feeling this reforming, Oh I know. Oh undone and the day becomes, Between light, The shade and the warmth, Upon the moving of these movements, Oh so slow. Oh into my morning, The set moments of this is it, Hands are holding, Hands are holding pain. I feel it rise, Feel it fall again, As yesterday's tears become the rain, And the stream of life I am here still remains. Oh it remains, Oh it remains, And so on into the day, Find my footsteps, Find my way, Clothed and clean, This body on my own. Then something moves and something shifts, Something changes, Something lifts, And words return to me there that I know, Oh that I know, Oh that I know, That I know. Oh and they go on, The quiet eyes of those who believe it, These setting suns will rise, For those to receive the light into our lives, And oh how we need it, Oh how we need it. And so down into the street, Find my rhythm, Find my feet, Somewhere between stop and go, Go, Go. There is a middle way, There is hope today, That life still flows, Oh and it flows, Oh and it flows, And so on into the crowd, Lift my head up, Look around, There are stories, There are so, So, So many lives within the shadows of suffering, And there are those that know, Oh that know, That know, That know. Oh and they go on, The quiet eyes of those who believe it, These setting suns will rise, Again for those to receive the light into our lives, And oh how we need it, Oh and they go on, The quiet eyes of those who believe it, These setting suns will rise, Again for those to receive the light into our lives, And oh how we need it, You're feeling it, Oh that nothing is lost, We only grow in the letting go. Thank you for being here and giving yourself this time and this space to relax your body and I'll play the guitar for another 10-20 seconds, Best for what you're going on to next.