So finding a posture that's comfortable and supportive.
This meditation is a little bit like a loving-kindness meditation.
You can sit back and relax.
You could even lay down.
Take a couple of intentional breaths and connect to the earth.
Connect to your family or friends or community.
Connect to yourself.
And then welcome.
Welcome to this moment.
Welcome to whatever thoughts and emotions are arising in this moment.
In yourself.
In all of us.
Welcome to concern.
Welcome to anxiety.
Welcome to fear.
Welcome to curiosity.
To confusion.
To not knowing.
Welcome to thoughts of victory.
Thoughts of catastrophe.
Welcome to all thoughts,
All emotions in this moment.
Welcome to whatever is happening in this moment to evoke those thoughts and emotions.
Because it's the truth of what's happening.
Welcome to the remembered past,
The humans,
The events,
The times.
Your history,
The history in each of us in all of its intricacies and contradictions and convolutions and clarity.
And the ways that remembered past is causing or has created the conditions for the ways we feel and think right now.
Welcome to the deeper past,
To our roots on the earth,
The places we're from long ago,
Our ancestors,
The conditions under which they lived and celebrated and struggled and died.
And to the ways that deeper past is causing or has created the conditions for the ways we feel and think right now.
Welcome to our ethnic and racial backgrounds and languages and dialects and to the ways those define and shape us and don't.
To the ways we're connected with them and aren't.
And to the ways they've caused or created conditions for how we feel and think right now.
Welcome to our gender expressions and the ways that we express our sexuality and our love and to how those inform the ways we feel and think right now.
And welcome to our abilities,
Whether greater or smaller.
And to our physical and mental health and well-being,
Whether robust or frail.
And to the ways those inform how we feel and think right now.
Welcome to our religions,
Our faiths,
Our spiritual beliefs and traditions.
And also any old or ancient practices or traditions we may identify with,
Even if lost.
And to the ways those inform how we feel and think right now.
Welcome to our relationships to money,
Wealth,
Property,
Power,
And other markers of status and to how those relationships inform how we feel and think right now.
Welcome to our relationships to justice,
To conflict,
And to peace.
To the ways those terms and concepts do and don't resonate.
And to the ways they inform how we feel and think right now.
Welcome to our relationships to the visible and invisible structures of society.
Our relationships to capitalism,
To democracy,
To the patriarchy,
To white supremacism,
To racism,
To gender bias,
Nationalism,
And ableism,
And bias against neurodivergence,
And bias towards and against the global north.
And to all kinds of racism and bias.
And welcome to our relationships to all other societal structures,
Both seen and unseen,
And to how they inform how we feel and think right now.
Welcome to the work we do,
Both visible and invisible,
And the meaning that work has for us,
And the ways that work does and doesn't support us and enliven us and define us,
And the ways it informs how we feel and think right now.
Welcome to our relationships to the natural world,
The other beings with whom we share the land and the water and the sky besides the human beings,
And the ways those relationships inform how we think and feel right now.
Welcome to the ways in which the number of trips we've taken around the sun informs how we feel and think right.
Welcome to our relationship to mindfulness,
And to the ways that informs how we feel and think right now.
Welcome to our courage,
Our love,
Our wisdom,
Our curiosity,
Our generosity,
Our hopefulness,
And our anger,
Our rage,
Our sorrow,
Our fear,
Confusion,
And hopelessness,
To the ways we show and choose not to show those feelings,
And to the way they inform how we feel and think right now.
