Welcome to this meditation,
This relaxation with guitar and voice.
My name is Joe Halterway and I wanted to do a relaxation for climate anxiety.
Being someone who was recently in Glasgow for the COP26,
I've returned with a sense of inspiration from many of the people who were there and also a sense of concern about the actions of those who are in positions of vast amounts of power.
And whatever our concerns,
Whatever our beliefs in the process and how this might unfold,
It seems likely,
It seems certain I would say that life is going to become more and more fragile in this area.
And with it,
As I understand,
The rise of something which is being named as climate anxiety,
Thoughts,
Sleepless nights,
Worries about future generations,
About ourselves and a growing awareness that there are already people who are suffering due to the imbalances in our ecosystem and that are caused by other imbalances in the world in terms of finances and in terms of equality on a larger scale.
There is much to absorb at the moment and it's something that I'm certainly with as well but I know for myself that meditation brings a sense of being in a place where I can allow wisdom to enter and I believe that as a living part of this planet,
As we all are,
I believe we are made of the nature to understand the wisdom around us.
In order to access that wisdom,
I believe we have our natural healthy birthright as a state of being and meditation is able to give us that balance where we might be in a noisy,
Cerebral,
Thoughtful world.
We might access the nature we are caring so deeply about on a familiar level.
So I wanted just to do a relaxation through the body,
From toes to the top of the head and then sing you a song which is inspired by my relationship to trees which is something that the song is of me as an adult but when I was younger my relationship to the trees gave me a lot of solace for a quiet young person.
It's called Oak Tree and the chorus for that is the patience of the old oak tree standing in the shimmering light,
Standing over me.
The patience of the old oak tree,
May it come to me.
So for now I'll give you 30 seconds or so just to find a place to sit or to lie down where you'll be understirred for 10 minutes and then we'll do the relaxation.
Let's trust that too and let's dance.
OK,
So the soles of the feet.
The tough skin there,
Both tender and also able to walk for miles.
The toes allowing balance.
The shape of the foot,
The bridge,
Strength and flexibility,
The heel again,
Pivotal balance.
And the ankle,
Able to adjoin the foot and the leg.
The sense of balance continues into the leg itself in terms of a balance between strength and flexibility,
The tibia and fibula bones and the calf muscle,
The gastrocnemius.
Allowing that movement,
Allowing us to dance and rejoice and run,
Jump.
And smaller movements to sit down,
To hold a position.
The knees,
The flexibility,
And we move on to the strongest bones in the body,
The femur bones.
Hamstrings behind and the quadriceps in the front.
They wind up to the pelvic arch,
Allowing the waist to manoeuvre as it does.
Cushioned,
Protected by the buttocks and that area containing and protecting organs.
The waist,
Where we've got the intestines,
The stomach,
Pancreas.
We've got the kidneys,
The wonder of the filtering kidneys.
The spine rising vertebra by vertebra,
Up behind the back side body,
Aware of the lungs,
Under the rib cage.
The flexible and strong rib cage.
The liver again filtering blood,
The heart pumping blood on the left and right hand side,
On the right and left hand side respectively.
And the shoulders down over the right shoulder,
The humerus bone in the top down to the elbow and then the radius and ulnus bones.
The wrist and the palm of the hand into the fingers,
Fingertips,
Allowing that hand just to rest somewhere between straight and a fist,
But just the middle way in the middle.
The curvature there,
Where it rests on your belly or on the floor and then you've got the left hand and then reverse that down through the fingers to the palm and the thumb and the wrist.
Forearm,
Elbow,
The upper arm and the shoulder.
And then the collar bone,
We come to the middle of the neck and feeling where the air comes down into the lungs,
Into the channels,
Compartments of the lungs,
Like roots of a tree receiving nourishment to the soil.
The air is spreading into those and into the blood stream,
To the heart and around the body with the in-breath and exchanging with the out-breath carbon dioxide from the body's functioning.
Rest to that majestic relationship as I see it.
Got the neck,
Follow that air passage away,
We've got the chin,
The cheeks,
The jaw,
Tongue and teeth.
The nose,
Ears and eyes,
The forehead and the back of the head.
What a glorious creation that is the body existing to allow our life to be possible,
To love others and to love life itself,
To continue projects and relationships and also to become self-aware,
Self-aware of our responsibilities in maintaining a balance.
So feeling the whole of the body I'm going to sing you this song.
Rest in the mindfulness you have created.
Down into the silence,
Down beyond the road,
Follow to the forest for to see a friend I know where my heart and head are heavy and hopelessness arose and I know I cannot be alone.
For there is a friend who resides beside me,
For there is a friend,
For there is a friend who resides beside me till I'm calm again.
For the patience of the old,
Old tree standing in the shimmering light,
Standing over me,
For the patience of the old,
Old tree may it come to me.
Down beyond the branches over bracken under break,
Not long before the leaving of the day.
Out into the clearing where the light gets in,
For my head and heart the healing can begin.
For there is a friend who resides beside me,
For there is a friend,
For there is a friend who resides beside me till I'm calm again.
For the patience of the old,
Old tree standing in the shimmering light,
Standing over me,
For the patience of the old,
Old tree may it come to me.
For the patience of the old,
Old tree standing in the shimmering light,
Standing over me,
For the patience of the old,
Old tree may it come to me.
So taking the moment to feel your body,
Again the weight and the shape and the rolling over to one side,
And looking for that wisdom in yourself over the coming days and weeks and months and years.
Developing that relationship.
And best before all that for the rest of your day or your evening if you are going to sleep easy.
