I invite you to let your eyes close gently and exhale out of the mouth,
Making an audible sigh.
Take three more conscious exhales,
Just like this.
Not focusing so much on the inhale,
Letting each exhale be a sigh of grace.
Tuning in to the fall and rise of your breath.
Each time you breathe like this,
Your body naturally washes away whatever it no longer needs.
So breathe now,
Becoming the watcher.
So often when we have a problem,
We tense up and refuse help,
Becoming stilted and small.
And I wrote this to remember the exhale,
The asking for grace,
The letting go,
The simple relief of acknowledging that whatever I'm facing is too big for my hands to catch.
And so I want you to imagine a circle made out of whatever materials you wish.
Perhaps this circle is made out of stone.
Old stone crumbled and weathered by centuries of fellow pilgrims.
Or maybe the circle is made up of your favorite flowers,
Roses or citrus blossoms or night-blooming jasmine.
Or maybe your circle is a grove of redwood trees that naturally grow to form a circle of protection.
Whatever you imagine here,
Approach with reverence,
Kneeling at the mouth of the circle.
We don't need to shoulder the weight of every burden.
So as you enter the circle humbly,
Set your burden down into the sacred place.
Resting here now.
Resting here.
Maybe all you need to know is that your value is not conditional on solving a problem flawlessly or presenting a perfect face to the world.
Or maybe you want to ask for help.
Maybe you imagine yourself lying down inside the circle,
Comforted and held by rich earth.
Protected by unseen forces,
Bathed in love and help.
Often we are called to grow larger than our problems and to become bigger than our fear.
Find your way home to this taste of your formless being.
The one at the center of this magnificent circle.
Ask and whatever you need help with,
You will receive.
The very act of asking sends reverberations through the universe.
Know that your ask is heard.
That you are setting down some of what makes this so difficult and thorny.
And the burden will be held and transmuted.
See now if any other burdens want to rest here in your circle of support.
You are not alone.
I belong here and the support belongs to me.
Shape and send a heartfelt wish.
One from your heart and not from your mind.
Evoking whatever it is that you need.
Whether that's safety,
Love,
Support.
Know that at this very moment something is dipping you in gold.
Infusing light in your being.
So ask and you will receive.
You don't need to stand rigid at the mouth of a tidal wave.
You can soften and let the waters guide you home.
There is a part of you that can never be harmed.
Can you sense into the part of you that is impervious to harm?
Knowing that goodness and kindness are birthed into you from the start.
Not something you need to learn but something you can just allow.
Sometimes we take the long and windy way home.
So rest here.
Drawing strength from your circle.
Your inner well.
Allowing your humble wishes and desperate longings to drop back into the earth.
Your breath,
Your body,
And your heart wholly hold with reverence.
Before we start to close I want to offer a blessing.
John O'Donohue writes,
A blessing is a circle of light drawn around a person to protect,
Heal,
And strengthen.
Life is a constant flow of emergence.
The beauty of blessing is its belief that it can affect what unfolds.
Regardless of how we configure the internal,
The human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness.
A place where everything comes together.
Where loss will be made good.
Where blindness will transform into vision.
Where damage will be made whole.
To invoke a blessing is to call some of that wholeness upon a person now.
Calling upon some of that wholeness now.
Knowing you can return to your circle of protection or safety or support and start to bring your attention back to the world around you.
Taking stock of any change in your body.
Inhale and exhale.
Exhale a sigh of grace.
Allow any peace or comfort to permeate into the space around you.
Creating a blessing of your own.
Thank you for your practice today.
May you feel the enormity of the support around you.
Seen and unseen.
Familiar and mysterious.
Human and of the more-than-human world.
May you know the spaciousness that comes from acknowledging that you're only human in need of a blessing.
