Nature Connection

A short ecological guided meditation/relaxation for your children, exploring our relationship to nature including the Plum Village song 'Great Big Smile'. In these 10 minutes, we will imagine ourselves in a jungle breathing with the trees and watching the birds.

Transcript

Hi there, My name is Joe, Joe Holtaway and this is a relaxation called Nature Connection and it's about how you're made up of all the things in nature. And you might say, Yeah I know, I eat broccoli, I eat bread, Which is flour. But I'm going to show you how you also, In you is the sunshine, The water, The stream, The seeds and even birds. And my, What I'd like to happen by the end of this relaxation is that you're opening your eyes and you say wow. Let's see shall we? So if you'd like to take this little adventure with me, I'm going to ask you to lie down or sit down, Close your eyes. And first we're going to take some nice deep breaths in and out together okay. Then I'm going to ask you to imagine that you're in a jungle. Okay I'll give you a little 30 seconds to find somewhere to lie down or sit down. Okay so when we're breathing we're going to put our hands on our bellies and we're going to breathe so that our bellies move up and down. It's called belly breathing. I'm going to see if you can do that with me. So breathing in and then breathing out. Breathing in and breathing out. I'm going to try one more time, Breathing in to the belly and breathing out. When we breathe into our bellies like that we get more oxygen into our lungs and that helps to calm our body down. At the same time it gives us energy too. Okay so what am I talking about? Being part of everything. So I want you to close your eyes. Feel the weight and the shape of your body and imagine that you're in a jungle and you're safe. You're in a clearing which means a space between the trees and above you there's tall trees. You hear birds up there. I wonder what colour your birds are. Maybe they're parrots. You hear them squawking and flapping and the sunshine is above them shining down and it's making lines that come through the trees. There's a stream near you and that's gently, Gently running beside you. So like we said the sunshine shines down from outside of our planet and it helps the plants grow, The trees are growing. And the birds that live in the trees, They eat the fruit from the trees and then they fly around and as they fly you know what they do don't you? When they go for a poo, The seeds in their poo go down and new trees grow and those trees give oxygen out through their leaves and that oxygen we take into our bodies and when we breathe out we breathe out something called carbon dioxide and that's what helps the trees to grow. So you see it's all a big cycle and the water by the stream there's also water in our bodies so we drink that water and that helps our bodies to grow and of course as you know that helps the trees to grow too. And the stream carries seeds as well. So as you can see we're all kind of a part of each other and this song is about that. So what I'm gonna ask you to do is just to close your eyes and breathe in and out feeling your body relaxing, Imagining you're in that jungle and here's a song for you. I am a bird, A beautiful bird. I am the sun, A golden sun. I am the wind, A carrion, The beautiful bird in the sun. We are one in a wonderful world. I am a seed, A tiny seed. I am the rain, A gentle rain. I am the stream carrying the rain, Seed in the rain as we change in a wonderful world. Now I want you to smile. You can imagine that you're lying down in that jungle and there's lots of other children around you lying down as well. I am a note, A beautiful note. I am a song, A wonderful song. I am a child, A great big smile. I am a note in a song, Sing along in a wonderful world. I am a bird, A beautiful bird. I am the sun, A golden sun. I am the wind carrying the beautiful bird in the sun. We are one in a wonderful world. Now you can wiggle your toes and say goodbye to the jungle in your imagination and then you can open your eyes.