Hola and welcome to a winter blessing.
Please make sure that you are cozy and warm and choose a position either seated or reclined and as much as is possible make it quiet in your space around you and turn off any notifications that might disturb this blessing.
Come into your position of choice.
Let's bow in together.
Take a full breath in and a full body breath out and bring your palms together in front of your heart.
Again inhale and as you exhale just softly bow forward in service of this present moment and acknowledging and honoring the spirit of winter.
Just rise up and get settled in your posture.
Make any little shifts so that you're totally at ease and can enter the space of stillness that is so much the spirit of winter.
This quieter more still time of year where we nourish our depths,
Our roots.
In order to rest our depths and our roots we need to rest.
Just invite your bones to rest into mama earth.
It's like deep rocks underneath the soil.
Just let your organs and your body also settle and quiet.
Let's bring your awareness to the soft smooth edges of your breath.
Noticing where the inhale turns around and becomes the exhale.
Where the exhale naturally pauses and then shape shifts into the inhale.
Just like the seasons,
Seamless unique expressions along the way but not separate.
One breath carries all the parts of the breath.
Winter carries all the seasons.
It nourishes the buds of spring,
The blossoms of summer,
And the fruits that we harvest in the autumn.
Because in the winter we nourish the deep roots and it's through the roots that we take in nourishment and it's that nourishment that becomes the offerings of other seasons.
It's all connected.
Soften your belly.
Just invite the spirit of winter into your belly.
Feeling the rest,
Perhaps the need for rest.
Making space for that right now.
Our culture emphasizes productivity,
Activity,
Getting things done,
And yet the spirit of winter is about something else.
It's about quietude and going within.
Restoring our chi,
Our deep energies,
Our vital energies,
So that we can fill up and be ready to express the buds of spring and the blossoms of summer and to offer our fruits.
In honoring the spirit of winter,
We open ourselves to this season.
A season of our lives,
A season of our bodies,
And the season of the lands where we abide gratefully.
We attune to the deep waters,
The aquifers and watersheds around us.
We attune to the quality of the air,
The humidity and the dryness,
The temperatures.
We attune to the sources of the heat available at this time,
The sun,
When it shines forth,
The warmth of the kettle,
The warmth of our bodies,
The hearth,
The sacred spirit of the fire.
We acknowledge the ether,
The space that all of this takes place in,
This connective tissue of space that is unseen to our eyes.
We acknowledge and we connect with and open up to.
And from this deep sense of our true interconnection with all that is,
We turn our awareness to winter within us,
The wintering of our minds,
The wintering of our bodies,
The wintering of our spirit.
We take refuge in winter's cloak of quietude and stillness.
We cultivate receptivity,
A sensitivity to the quiet whispers of our dreams and our innermost requests.
Great spirit,
Spirit of wholeness,
Spirit of love and life,
We offer you our gracias,
Our grace,
Our gratitude for this moment right here,
Right now.
This breath in and this generous breath out,
We honor the rhythm of our breath,
The rhythm of our day,
The rhythm of the land where we abide,
And we welcome the gifts of each season.
We ask for support and grace as we open up to the spirit of winter,
To the gifts of stillness and quietude and deep rest.
May we hear our most innermost requests and the whispers of our dreams.
And take a deep breath in and a winter breath out and bring your palms together in front of your heart.
And again,
A breath in and you exhale a soft bow and honoring the season of winter and all of its blessings.
And rise up.
Thank you for joining me in blessing this beautiful season.
I wish you a wintering that has pauses,
Rest,
And deep,
Deep relaxation.
