Welcome,
Friends.
Just taking these first few moments to let yourself arrive fully in the body.
Just landing as if you are entering a shaded garden at the edge of evening.
During twilight.
The time between day and night.
Beginning to notice the surface beneath you.
Exhaling more deeply to feel the weight of your body.
Coming in contact with the places.
Being supported.
I'm beginning to notice the breath.
Saw.
Natural.
Moving.
And entering the body through the breath.
Just beginning to notice how the breath feels like touch.
Feeling the interiority.
Of your precious body.
I'm beginning to bring into your awareness.
The feeling of a gentle summer breeze moving toward you.
The softness of the air brushing lightly against your skin.
Allowing yourself to notice where this breeze is felt at the arms,
The face,
Perhaps the back of the neck or hands.
Just noticing how the small hairs that protect the skin stand out.
To receive this gentle breeze.
Feeling into the body's remembrance that it belongs to the living world.
And in your awareness as the breeze moves around you.
Just beginning to imagine the air carrying sun.
Perhaps very faint.
Almost difficult to notice your conscious awareness.
A sweetness arriving at the very edges of your perception.
Honeysuckle,
Soft and golden,
That's beautiful green leaves.
Just calling into your awareness its wildness along fence lines or wood lines.
How it's warming in the late afternoon sun.
Holds in the air at twilight.
Just allowing this feeling of sweetness and notice what happens in your body as this scent arrives.
Scent moves differently than thought.
You might notice a memory or perhaps softening.
Maybe the breath is deepening slightly on its own.
Through warmth,
It enters quietly.
How honeysuckle touches places,
Language or words.
May not always be able to reach.
And as the gentle breeze continues moving,
Another fragrance begins to emerge.
Creamier Roar!
More moonlight.
Gardenia.
Just notice how the body responds to this interweaving of honeysuckle and gardenia.
You might imagine Gardenia's white petals opening into the twilight evening air,
The sweetness deepening now.
Feeling more velvety more restorative.
I'm beginning to imagine this fragrant air.
Moving gently around your body.
Cooling the places overheated by Everting.
By worry.
Or by tension,
Or perhaps by carrying too much.
Inviting your mind and body to recognize.
We don't hold everything alone.
Just imagining this scented breeze moving through you.
And perhaps you notice the body beginning to soften and remember that pleasure can be simple and gentle.
The simple quiet goodness of being alive inside a sensing body.
How air touches skin.
Scent enters breath.
Exhale,
Softens the body.
Now intentionally increasing the inhalation of air while imagining the fragrances of honeysuckle and gardenia moving and spiraling gently inward.
Just allowing the cooling sensual energy.
To land in those places feeling overheated.
And on the exhale.
It is as if you are releasing heat from within your precious body.
Again,
Breathing in sweetness,
Breathing out effort.
Imagine yourself now walking barefoot slowly through a summer garden.
Feeling the warm earth beneath the soles of your feet.
Hearing the night birds beginning to sing.
And then natural cooling air landing on your skin.
You Noticing.
How vines climb nearby.
And have flowers open more fully as daylight and sunshine soften.
Just wonder.
You are here to receive.
Just letting beauty.
Into the body.
Just recognizing this form of wisdom,
This allowing of beauty and sensual cooling nature offers us without asking us to earn it.
Allowing softness without apology.
You might notice where your body softens most easily.
Maybe the shoulders with the breath.
Perhaps the jaw or the head.
And if a motion begins to rise,
Just letting it move gently.
Like the air through the branches of the vines.
No longer needing to hold it so tightly.
How the breeze keeps moving.
How the flowers keep breathing fragrance into the twilight evening.
And how your body remembers how to soften by degrees.
And resting here quietly now.
Taking your own time for several breaths.
Just simply breathing.
Simply receiving.
And if it feels right,
You might inwardly ask.
What does softness wish to teach me?
And the answer may arrive through sensation alone.
Noticing shifting and sweetness and coolness.
How the breath naturally shifts in softening.
Knowing this place is available for you to return to whenever cooling of the interiority is sought.
Honeysuckle and Gardenia will be here waiting.
And now slowly begin returning awareness to the room in which you are present.
The surface beneath you and noticing the rhythm of your breath.
Allowing the mind to take notice of the body now.
Perhaps slightly softer.
More spacious or present.
And as we come to a close,
Just take one final slow inhale.
Imagining the fragrant summer air moving gently through you.
And exhale completely,
Releasing,
Softening.
Returning.
May you remember that gentleness is not weakness.
And that sometimes healing arrives through allowing yourself to be touched and moved by the beauty of the world.
