Embodying Octavia Bulter's Earthseed: A Somatic Exploration.

In this 17-minute guided somatic rest, we bring attention to our simple direct experiences, discovering fluidity and tracking co-created changes simply happening at the moment. Bringing in Octavia Bulter's poem "Earthseed," we discover how we might embody the teachings within this poem.

Transcript

So some of you are familiar with Octavia Butler's book,

Parable of the Sower,

And our poem today is from that book.

And you may have been hearing Octavia Butler lately or Parable of the Sower people talking about it.

It's kind of a big deal right now because the first entry is July 21st,

2024,

And she wrote this book in 1993.

So we passed that a few weeks ago.

We passed the first entry date that she wrote to in this book.

And it's a pretty significant book about culture and I would say empowerment and gathering our what we have together,

Which is our attention,

Our resources,

Our hearts,

Our intentions,

Gathering them to bring about change,

To have to live,

To survive,

To thrive.

So our poem today is from this book and I'm going to read the poem and then we're going to go right into a rest meditation on the poem.

So go ahead and get comfortable.

We'll be here for a little bit.

All right.

So here's the poem.

Here we are,

Energy,

Mass,

Life,

Shaping life,

Mind,

Shaping mind,

God,

Shaping God.

Consider we are born not with purpose but with potential.

All that you touch,

You change.

All that you change,

Changes you.

The only lasting truth is change.

What is change?

Letting those words land.

I'm going to read it again and this time,

Let your eyes close.

If they weren't the first time,

Just let them close and maybe we'll take a minute before I read it again just to let attention re-anchor.

Find something in this moment to help your attention,

To collect your attention,

To anchor with.

Maybe it's,

Oh,

It could be that candle in front of you or it could be that you want to maybe open the eyes to see or feel but with the eyes closed,

It might be like the sit bones that you can anchor with or the feet on the floor.

Something a simple sensation,

A sound,

A scent,

It could be breath.

Something very simple,

Let your attention connect with something simple and you bring your attention towards that,

Towards that and just hanging out with that anchoring experience or the figuring out mind might get a little rest.

There's nothing to figure out with sit bones for example or nothing to figure out with air on the face for example so finding that which doesn't need your analyzing managerial mind,

Simple attention and the words come in again.

Here we are,

Energy,

Mass,

Life,

Shaping life,

Mind,

Shaping mind,

God,

Shaping God.

Consider we are born not with purpose but with potential.

All that you touch,

You change.

All that you change,

Changes you.

The only lasting truth is change.

God is change.

Just noticing what of that poem is landing in you,

Is making you curious.

Feeling your anchor while you're curious.

Feeling your anchor while you're feeling what's landed from that poem.

Feeling the simplicity of the anchor while there might be something else that's not so simple from the poem that's kind of hovering around and breath is here too.

Feeling that breath meet you and you meet breath like you're meeting each other for the first time,

Shaking hands.

Nice to know you.

Nice to meet you.

As breath enters your body and breath leaves your body and feeling how breath is shaping you,

The inhalation shapes your body,

Moves your body into shapes that we can't necessarily define but we can feel the shape of our body,

The shape of our ribs move when we breathe in.

When we breathe out,

We can feel the shape of our chest in some way or another.

Maybe shoulders,

Maybe ribs,

Maybe sides or front or back of the body.

You can feel how the breath shapes the chest when it comes in and when it goes out.

Feeling with how you and breath are shaping each other,

Not through your mind because you can't figure it out or experience it from your mind but you can experience it from your body,

From where breath lives.

So as best you can,

Keep your attention where breath literally lives and notice the shaping that happens,

The movements,

The filling and emptying.

Maybe noticing breath in the chest is not where you want attention so you can bring attention to the belly where the breath lives or to the nostrils where breath lives too.

The breath lives from nostrils to pelvic floor so anywhere in that range,

Breath is shaping your experience.

Whether your attention is there or not,

Breath is shaping your attention.

In this practice or this rest,

We're inviting our attention to be consciously and cognitively with the shaping that's always happening but just we're not noticing and we're going to bring our attention to notice.

So if you choose the belly or the chest or the nostrils,

Just notice what you notice.

There's going to be movement wherever you put your attention when it comes to breath.

Notice and change,

I'm sorry,

Movement and change.

So for the nostrils,

For example,

You might notice a change in temperature from the inhalation to the exhalation or a change in the experience of the nostrils.

Some kind of a movement of breath through the nostrils has an experience to it that changes from inhalation to exhalation.

When breath enters our body,

It changes our body.

We can feel that directly.

Let your attention connect as simple as possible.

What's the simplest change or movement or shaping that's in this moment for your attention?

Pick some very simple aspect of breath.

If it's more comfortable for you to have the eyes open,

You can even watch your breath,

Your own breathing body.

You can watch the shaping that's occurring.

And in this rest and in any rest,

If your body wants to move a little bit,

That's fine.

You don't need to be sitting super still.

So if there's some kind of movement your hips want to make or your arms want to make or your shoulders want to make or back,

Anything wants to be re-situated,

Let that happen just naturally.

So we've got this change and this movement,

The shaping happening through breath,

And that's going to continue all day long whether we're noticing it or not noticing it.

When we notice it,

It can be a kind of anchoring for our attention.

We can use the sense mechanism of sound with breath.

We can hear our breath.

If we have our eyes open,

We can see it.

Using our sight mechanism,

We can use our sense mechanisms of just feeling it.

A touch of breath.

So it can be like a holding space for gentle,

Curious attention.

And gentle,

Curious attention can recalibrate the brain as we know.

So it has that practical purpose.

We're going to switch attention now towards gravity.

And usually we start with gravity.

Today we started with breath,

But we're going to move to gravity now.

Although maybe you've already been consciously experiencing gravity because when the breath fills you,

You rise up a little bit out of the seat of gravity towards the ceiling.

When you exhale,

The body falls naturally back down into the hand of gravity.

So just noticing that for a few moments,

The impact on gravity in relationship with breath,

That rising upwards and then that release down into gravity,

Into the chair or the couch or the bed where you're on.

And now I'm going to invite you to spend more and more time on that exhalation.

Where attention or the body falls back into the field of gravity,

Back into that chair,

Back into the bed,

The couch,

Back into solidity under you or behind you.

So when that exhale happens,

Feel that meeting of your bones to solidity.

If you're upright,

It will most likely be sit bones or maybe back.

Feel that return to gravity,

That return to solidity or to what's solid under you.

And then the body lifts up and it falls back down.

If you want,

You can have some exaggerated breaths with sound to really feel and hear this movement.

This changing of inhaling and exhaling.

This moment shaping this moment.

Let yourself have some more exaggerated breaths to really experience that.

And then attention or I'm sorry,

Breath can just go back to its natural rhythm.

I'm putting more and more attention into the sitting body.

Where there's solidity under you and your body is in relationship with it.

Or you can feel the heaviness.

And you can feel how this object under you or behind you is literally holding your body.

You're not,

You've not been dumped onto the floor or floating in space.

You're very tangibly held.

And you'll feel that either through the sit bones or maybe the underneath the thighs or behind the back,

Maybe just depending on your context.

So the legs get to be heavy,

The arms get to be heavy,

Because they don't have much to do right now.

They just get to be here held by the object under you.

Oh,

That exhalation is still happening.

Continuing to invite attention to really be here.

It's naturally going to drift away.

To past or future or to thinking about this moment.

And just notice that.

And just gently bringing that attention right back here to an experience that you're having in the sitting,

Breathing body.

Continuing to include simple,

Simple aspects of your experience in this moment.

And as more and more of your attention is in this moment,

With some simple experience,

Just notice how that shapes your mind,

How it shapes your your life in this moment.

And just notice how that shapes your mind.

And as more and more of your attention is in this moment,

With some simple experience,

Just notice how that shapes your mind,

How it shapes your your life in this moment.

When your attention is anchored in what's simple,

Does your,

Does it shape your life and your life getting more complicated?

Does it increase anxiety?

So forth and so on.

Maybe yes.

Your life or this moment or your mind in other ways.

Maybe you notice your shoulders drop.

Or maybe you notice the worrying that had been here a moment ago shift a little bit,

Soften.

Maybe things become both more simple and maybe also more complex.

So right,

We're not,

I'm not looking for an answer.

We're just curious.

What happens when we collect attention and anchor it with simple so the brain can calibrate and co-regulate?

What happens?

How does that shape our moment,

I.

E.

Our life,

Our experience?

These are just questions we're contemplating,

We're being curious of in this moment.

Sit with the questions and sit with your revealings,

What's being revealed for you.

Invite yourself to not try to figure it out or manage it.

Simple noticings.

Simple noticings.

Simple noticings of what is being touched within you or with you.

Simple noticings of the change that's happening moment by moment.

Simple noticings of the shapings that are occurring or co-occurring each moment.

And I'm going to read the poem one more time before we finish up our rest here.

Here we are,

Energy,

Mass,

Life,

Shaping life,

Mind,

Shaping mind,

God,

Shaping God.

Consider we are born not with purpose but with potential.

We are born not with purpose but with potential.

All that you touch,

You change.

All that you change,

Changes you.

The only lasting truth is change.

God is change.

And if your eyes have been closed,

Just let them gently open,

Letting them have a soft gaze here with what's in front of you or in the distance even,

Just a soft gaze.

Letting your body move,

Stretch a little bit.

And maybe go into a fast right here.

Let your attention maybe be guided by one of these writing prompts.

Maybe there's just something about the rest that you want to write about.

Maybe you might write about what is it like to consider that God is shapeable,

That God is change.

Or maybe this quote,

You might want to write from this quote,

All that you touch,

You change and how might that inspire you.

Or maybe there's a line or again just something else that's kind of inspiring you to write.

Or in the least,

If maybe you're listening to this later and you don't have a lot of time to write,

You might just make some notes of something that's landed for you with this rest that you want to be curious about or you want to remember.

You want to take with you from this rest and make a few notes before you finish up with before you finish up with with this time.