Body Of The Earth: Somatic Mindfulness Through The Elements

This leisurely guided stillness practice invites you to explore the elements of earth, water, fire, air, and space within your body and in the natural world. Gently guided somatic reflections connect you to your body as part of nature, rooted in nourishment, breath, warmth, and awareness. Through inquiry and imagination, you’ll deepen your sense of interconnection, presence, and belonging.

This is a calming, reflective practice that grounds you in your sensory experience and honors your body’s wisdom. Perfect for those seeking to slow down, feel supported, and cultivate reverence for the elements that sustain all life.

Transcript

This is a practice of connecting with the elements of earth,

Water,

Fire,

And air,

And also with our bodies,

Which are made of all of those elements.

And as we go through the practice,

It's helpful to follow along and then see where your mind goes.

These somatic inquiries are really an opportunity to know ourselves in a different way.

A lot of the way we know ourselves is from the thoughts in our mind,

From the interactions that we have with people,

What we think about those interactions,

What we feel about those interactions.

So with this,

We're pulling in our attention to our body.

In yoga meditation,

We work with the five koshas,

The layers of being,

And we go from the physical body.

The anamaya kosha is the body made of food.

But in every culture and in every system,

There are some commonalities around how we work with ourselves.

I want to focus today on our relationship as a body with Mother Earth.

As we're going through these,

We're going to weave in our commonalities,

Our connections.

The tree is also a body made of food.

It also has water flowing in the sap.

It takes in the fire element,

The sun.

It gives off oxygen that we breathe.

We give off CO2 that it breathes.

We're going to explore some of those connections.

Notice how you're arriving.

Notice what you're looking at if you're looking around.

We want to be comfortable in our body as well.

If you have some natural stillness in your body as you're doing this,

That's really helpful.

But also not to hold yourself still.

It is a process of connecting in with our body though,

And of letting ourselves move from mostly attention to our head,

Our thoughts,

Into sensations,

Energies.

Let's let everything else move to the background now and come into your body made of food.

We have bones.

We have tissue,

Like lung tissue and brain tissue.

We have muscle,

Like our heart muscle.

Muscles in our arms and legs.

We have a nervous system.

A lot of these elements of our body are in common with other animals,

Particularly with other mammals.

Mammals give birth to live young,

Not in eggs.

If we're a land animal,

We breathe.

We all have some way of bringing nourishment into our bodies.

Thinking about the nourishment we give our bodies,

What comes to mind for you?

I have a friend who was really into this fresh strawberry patch that she was in the other day,

Reflecting on how that's part of her body now.

When we think about nourishing our body with food,

We also nourish our body in a lot of other ways,

Like through calming ourselves,

Through breath.

But if you were to just focus for now on the physical body,

And how do you nourish your body with food?

Sometimes when we tune into that,

We're a little bit appalled.

Well,

A lot of the food I eat isn't very nourishing.

I'm not paying attention as I'm eating.

As I'm nourishing my body,

My mind is somewhere else,

Or I'm watching something on a screen at the same time.

This practice and the intention of this practice is to come into connection,

Or to deepen our connection with our own body and with others,

Other beings,

Some of which are human and some of which are other types of beings.

When you tune into your body,

You might notice that the body is heavy enough with gravity that it doesn't float away.

Most human beings aren't able to levitate or fly on their own.

We could notice that we have some support.

I'm supported by the chair.

I can feel my feet on the floor.

Notice the support that you have,

And then let your awareness flow down so that you're noticing Mother Earth.

You might be in a high rise.

You might be right on the earth like I am.

If you were to bring your awareness down into the earth,

There's a lot there that's solid,

Or seemingly so.

Quantum physics has something different to say about that.

If you were to think about your muscles in your body,

Maybe your thigh muscles,

Which are one of the strongest muscles in the body,

It feels pretty solid when we think about the muscles.

Especially if we tighten it up,

We can feel the strength.

When we actually know a little bit about biology though,

We understand that there's a lot of fluid.

The body's about 75% water,

And if we were to look at something like our bones,

Which seem very solid,

We also have a lot of air and blood and different things that are in our bones as well.

We have this impression of solid.

As we bring our awareness down into the earth,

Does the earth feel solid to you?

My tiny house is on bedrock.

It feels very solid.

Whatever you're sitting on,

You might have to go down through layers of your apartment into the basement or something,

And then into the earth.

We all have experiences of standing on the earth.

If you were to bring your mind to that,

When you're walking on a pathway,

It feels like the earth is solid below your feet.

What do we know about what's actually under our feet?

There's air.

Most soil has quite a bit of air in it.

We have water in the element of earth.

If you're in Hawaii with Pele,

There's fire in that part of the earth that's coming up from the middle of the earth into the surface.

We have things that are alive in the earth.

We have earthworms and things that are on the surface of the earth.

I've run into five or six little harmless snakes out here this summer.

We have bugs and beetles and ants,

And we have things that fly that eat them like birds.

So there's a whole system.

If you were to bring your mind to what you are actually connecting with when we step on the earth,

It's not just a surface for us to step on.

Bring to mind what's actually underneath our feet as we step on the earth.

Let yourself breathe.

In the yoga system of the five koshas,

The second one is the pranamaya kosha,

The layer of energy and breath.

In the four elements plus ether or sacred space,

We also have the element of air that we breathe.

Let's turn our attention to the body again for a moment.

Notice if there's anything you could do to be more comfortable,

But also notice the solidness that's kind of an illusion.

It's not actually as solid as it appears,

But our mind has an experience and we name it as solid,

The body's solid.

And then as we come into the breath,

We actually realize then,

If we pay attention to the air that's flowing into our nostrils,

We can feel the air is a different temperature,

Cooler as we breathe in and warmer as we breathe out.

We might remember from school or seeing images of the lungs or something that it comes in through the nose,

Goes down through the throat and into the branches of the lungs,

And they start off quite large and then they go into the very small areas of the lungs.

In the lungs,

There's a lot of blood.

There is certainly air in the lungs and the whole of our lungs and the breathing apparatus moves from the diaphragm muscle and the diaphragm muscle is attached to the lower rib cage.

As you're breathing,

Notice if you're breathing diaphragmatically,

What that would feel like is the belly moves back towards the spine as you breathe out.

And as you breathe in,

There's an expansion.

Air is not actually going into our belly,

Even though we experience the movement there.

When you think about the air coming in through the nose and into the throat,

Into the large tubes or channels,

And then into the smaller ones,

The air is picked up into the lungs.

And from there,

The oxygen is distributed into the heart and the blood.

We have our whole circulatory system that takes care of that for us.

Noticing your breath,

Noticing the element of air in your lungs.

And where else do you feel or do you have air in your body?

Certainly in the digestive system,

There's air in our sinus cavities,

Unless we're really plugged up.

When we make a humming sound,

There's a vibration there.

There's air in the ear.

It's affected by the vibrations of sound that comes through the air into the ear.

So we have all of this experience of air in the body that we never really think about usually.

Bring ourselves into awareness of the circulatory system of Mother Earth,

So the wind,

Flow of air.

So if we were to breathe smoky air into our lungs,

Our lungs would have to work at purifying that.

Smoke isn't actually something that we want to have in our lungs.

And in the circulatory system of Mother Earth,

We know that it's not beneficial to have pollution,

For instance.

Sometimes we might have a fire,

A forest fire or something that creates smoke,

But there's also a lot of pollutants that are caused by human beings through industrialization and different ways of powering our world.

When we think about the circulatory system of our body and the circulatory system of Mother Earth,

In particular the air element,

Notice what comes to mind.

There might be thoughts,

Images.

You might have some feeling or sensations in your body about that.

We feel a lot of distress around the environment when we tune into that.

Let ourselves have whatever experience we're having about that.

It's true that it's a complicated issue around the environment.

A lot of people have a lot of strong feelings about that.

We're not really getting into the politics of it so much as just to notice what is my experience right now as I'm tuning into wind,

Air.

We all have a nervous system that wants to keep us alive.

Mammals,

Animals of other kinds as well.

And part of that is that we feel threatened by the weather.

Sometimes really strong winds that turn into tornadoes or hurricanes are not safe for our bodies.

So we have sometimes a fear.

We definitely have preferences.

We don't control the wind,

But we appreciate it or we're sometimes nervous of it or scared.

We've all had those.

Just let all of that be true.

Let all of that be in our awareness.

Take a few breaths.

Notice the air,

The very specific air right in front of our nostrils that comes into our lungs.

And if we extend our awareness to the trees and the plants in our world,

We know that trees release oxygen into the air and they breathe in the CO2 that we release into the air with our breath.

So you might even bring to mind a tree,

A favorite tree that's somewhere that you go now or maybe from the past.

And imagine that you're standing right there at the tree.

You might be leaning back on it,

Letting the tree have your back,

Or you might be hugging the tree or you have your nose right on the bark.

What happens then?

You're right there in the source of all of that oxygen.

Pause here for a moment and just imagine that interplay,

The trees generously breathing out the oxygen and we generously breathe out the CO2.

It's a beautiful symbiosis.

And many of us are very committed to doing good for the earth.

And one of the ways that we do that is we connect with it.

So we connect with trees and flora,

Plants,

Flowering.

There's a lot of beauty and lushness.

If you were to just exchange CO2 for oxygen for a moment in your mind,

In your heart,

In your body,

Let yourself just experience that.

These trees are our friends.

We have a connection with them that's beneficial.

We are nourished by the air that has oxygen in it.

And we're nourished more if it has a lot of oxygen and if it's clean than if we have to struggle with filtering out some of the pollution.

And the trees do too.

If we have trees,

For instance,

That have a lot of dust on them or something,

It's harder for them to breathe.

And then a rain comes along and washes it off.

Everything perks up again.

So let's move into awareness of the water element.

If we're hanging out with that tree,

One of the things we notice is that there's water in the tree,

Just like there's water in our body.

And some of the water in the tree moves,

Sap moves up and down.

There's water in plants.

There's water in the soil.

There's air in the soil as well.

And in our body,

We have a lot of water.

75% of our body is water.

And one thing that we know is that as we get older,

Our bodies dry out a little,

Which is partly why our skin is drier.

Our eyes are drier.

There's not as much juiciness in the eyes.

My skin is very different from the skin of a young person.

Bring to mind some blessing that you might offer the water in your body.

No matter what you think about it,

Well,

I wish I had more.

I wish I was younger and juicier.

Bring to mind the water that you have in your body.

It's in your blood.

It's in the air that we breathe in.

And you might have other things coming to mind.

They say that one of the things that the brain really needs is to be well hydrated.

So there must be water in the brain tissues.

And our circulatory system moves the blood around,

Comes into the heart,

And then out into the body,

And then back to the heart.

So if you were to bless the element of water in your body,

Just notice what might come up around that.

You might have a sense of some kind of an appreciation.

It might be in words.

It might be an energy.

We can feel it in our saliva.

We can feel it going down into our stomach.

We know that there's water in our stomach and in our intestines.

And we always want to have just the right amount of water.

Too much water kind of makes our food soggy,

And we can't get all the nutrients out of it.

Too little,

It's too dry.

Humans have a pretty narrow window of optimal water in the body.

So if you were to talk to the water in your body and send it some appreciation,

Let's do that for a moment.

Thank you for the water in the air.

It comes into my lungs.

Thank you for the water in my eyes so that I can see.

Thank you for the water in my blood.

It carries the oxygen to my cells.

We might use a metaphorical,

Too.

Thank you for the juiciness of life,

The energy of excitement,

Connection.

And then if we bring our blessing of water out into the natural world,

Notice what your experience is there.

You might have some water in your neighborhood.

I'm very lucky to live by an ocean.

But I also have water that streams down,

And there's a lot of water in the air here.

It's quite humid in the summer especially.

So what are some of your favorite water elements where you live now or where you have lived?

What does it feel like to bring favorite bodies of water into your awareness and offer them a blessing of appreciation?

And most of us,

Many of us anyway,

Like the sound of rain.

You're hearing it from a place where you're dry,

And maybe you like to be out in the rain as well.

When we're out in the rain,

We can feel the moisture,

The cleansing.

Let's sit with that for a moment.

What's your experience with that?

Yes,

There could be a connection of our watery experience,

Our liquid experience when we're in the womb.

Water is really essential to life.

Maybe you've done practices of connecting with water in the earth or on the earth.

Or maybe you could just do it in your mind.

Bring to mind a favorite place of water.

And imagine perhaps that it's a hot day and you've got your feet in the water.

It's cooling.

What's your experience of appreciating the water?

And could you just do a little practice of that right now?

I offer you my blessing,

My appreciation.

One of the things that we know,

Sometimes we think about,

But often we don't,

We're not paying attention to it a lot of the time,

Is that the water in our world,

In our environment,

Our atmosphere,

Has taken many forms.

One of the forms is taken as ocean or the stream.

It takes the form as clouds,

As humidity in the air that we're breathing into our lungs,

And then we breathe out humid air as well.

It takes the form of rain.

And when it combines with the air elements,

Sometimes that rain is gentle and soothing.

Sometimes it's a wild wind and rainstorm.

Notice what that feels like in your body.

What does it feel like in your body to appreciate the water element outside of your body,

As well as interior?

Some people listen to the sound of water at night when they're trying to get to sleep.

The sound of the waves or the sound of a babbling brook is very soothing.

There's something reassuring to our mammal body when we have enough water to keep our body safe and thriving and nourished.

Just for another minute or so,

I really appreciate,

I'm grateful for,

The water in my body and the water in that tree that I love so much,

The water in the air.

And every bit of water and every bit of air that comes through our body,

Through our lungs,

And out through our nose again,

Has been around the world a lot of times.

We're all breathing in and breathing out the same air and water.

And mostly that's wonderful or it's at least neutral.

Sometimes we're breathing in the same air and that's a bit of a danger if there's viruses in the air.

So it's kind of a reflection on how complex our relationships are,

How vulnerable we are,

And also how well supported we are.

The whole world and our bodies have this beautiful arrangement of support and nourishment,

Plants that create food for us,

That nourish our bodies,

Air,

The water,

And the water that we use for food and for hydration,

But also the water that we appreciate as beauty,

That we appreciate as cooling if we're hot or warming,

If you think about a hot shower or a hot tub.

We have a lot of sensory experiences with water and with air.

So earth,

Water,

Air.

And then we also have an element of fire,

Physical,

Like our digestive fire,

And emotional.

Sometimes we're kind of fiery and hot-headed.

Sometimes we release tears of anger.

We get so angry we cry.

Often we release tears of grief or joy.

Sometimes water is frozen and we need some heat,

Some fire element to warm us up,

To bring us out of freeze.

A little bit of ice and a drink on a hot day can be welcome,

But we also don't want to have too much ice.

Again,

We're operating in this narrow range of what's optimum for us.

So if you were to bring your attention to your personal level of fire in your body right now,

Does it feel like you have enough fire?

Can you digest your food?

If we bring our awareness to the navel center in yoga,

It's the manapura chakra,

The fire element,

The solar,

The seat of the fire in our body.

And it's also right around the stomach area and the intestines.

When people are cold,

You might imagine a brightly burning fire at the navel center,

And your body starts to warm up.

And if you feel like you have enough fire,

Maybe you feel like you have too much fire.

People can get kind of an acidic experience with their digestive system if there's too much fire.

But if you were to offer the element of fire in your body some appreciation,

Let's do that for a moment.

I appreciate that I'm alive.

I'm not totally frozen,

Especially with the nervous system.

If you have a lot of fight,

Fight,

Or freeze,

If you have a lot of the freeze survival mechanism,

We need to fire it up a little,

Melt that freeze so that we can engage again.

Now we might have too much fire and we're hard to get along with.

And we might notice that we're having trouble with relationships because we're flaring up.

We have this emotional fire as well as our digestive fire.

But emotional fire can be enthusiasm,

Can be passion,

Passionate for things we care about,

People we care about.

I offer the element of fire in my body and in my life some appreciation.

And then we could extend that out to the rest of Mother Nature.

Most of us have had experiences of appreciating the warmth of a fire,

Maybe a campfire if you're lucky enough to live in an area where you're able to do that.

There's also the ceremonial aspect of fire.

Many traditions have some type of fire in ceremony.

So in Indigenous ceremony,

There's often a sacred fire that's kept from the beginning of the ceremony until the end.

It's very important that the fire doesn't go out.

In the yoga meditation retreats that I've been to,

There's a fire,

A candle,

That's kept burning throughout the ceremony.

And if that's not practical for some reason,

It will be put out mindfully at night and then lit mindfully again at the beginning of the next day.

I light a beeswax candle when I start a ceremony or a meditation.

What's your experience with fire on that level of ceremony,

Of sacred?

Or what might you imagine that you might bring in?

With fire,

We need air.

Fire and air are very closely linked.

Too much air blows the fire out.

Too much water puts the fire out.

But we need air to combust for the fire to burn.

As we're spending time,

Quite a gift in a way,

To give ourselves an hour to just connect with the elements in our body and in the earth.

Mother Nature has all of the elements,

Certainly,

As do we.

We're part of Mother Nature.

So in what ways are you connected with fire?

Not just in your own body,

But as the element of fire in nature.

There's the sun.

Do you enjoy being in the sun?

We can all appreciate that we need the right amount of solar energy,

Of sun energy.

If we have too much,

We can't survive physically.

If we have too little,

We can't.

And some people have experience of living and being brought up in warm climates,

And then they come to someplace like Canada,

And it takes them a while to become comfortable with the cold weather,

Where there's not much sun,

There's not much heat.

We all have different experiences.

What's your personal experience with fire?

As a heat source,

As a ceremony,

As something that we need in our life to keep warm enough,

Not too hot.

And also fire can be very dangerous.

It certainly threatens our life.

Many people die in fires.

So it's not one of those things where it's always benevolent,

Or always safe for us.

So sometimes we have fear when we think about fire,

Certainly when we think about forest fires,

Or other forms of fire that could be harmful.

So that's also here.

It's here with all of the elements,

Really.

When we think about our lives,

We tend to set it up as much as we can so that we're protected from the elements,

And that we enjoy them in very careful,

Controlled ways.

So if that resonates for you,

Let's take a moment now to imagine that you're not actually in competition,

Or you don't have to protect yourself from the elements.

Not in an unrealistic way.

Of course,

We need to live in this certain temperature range,

All of those things,

That's true.

In our hearts and in our energy body,

What if I could see nature more as a friend,

Like with the tree?

Here I am offering it my CO2,

It's offering me its oxygen.

I'm aware that we have a commonality.

We both have a body made of food,

Different kinds of food,

But same.

We have the element of water that's roaming around in our body,

Nourishing us.

We have the element of fire,

Digestion.

In a plant,

It's photosynthesis.

In our body,

We're digesting food from plants,

Or from plants through animals.

We're connected.

What does that feel like right now,

Just to notice that we're connected?

And you could be really specific,

Like that favorite tree.

I have a tree that I always kind of hang out all day with when I go for my walks.

To walk on the earth and acknowledge what's under the earth,

That we have the great blessing of solid earth to walk on,

And enough breeze to keep our environment cool,

Perhaps.

Sometimes it's too strong,

And we need to protect ourselves with clothing or a building or something.

What is your felt sense right now of,

Is mother earth,

Are they elements of earth?

Are they out to hurt you?

The winds,

When they blow too strong?

And again,

We're practical.

We need to protect ourselves sometimes from too strong of a wind,

And we'll blow away or something will blow onto us.

We're not arguing with that part of it,

But just in your heart,

Do you feel like you have to protect yourself?

Or could you let down your guard at least some of the time,

And make a connection with the elements of mother earth?

So breathing in,

Appreciating the air and the water in the air,

Noticing gravity keeps our body steady here on earth.

We don't float off somewhere.

We have enough digestive fire so that we can digest our food.

It might not be optimal,

Especially as we go older and we try out.

Or if we have something going on in our digestive system,

Sometimes we have too much fire,

We have an ulcer.

So we're not looking at it has to be perfect in order for us to relax and appreciate a connection.

So let's go into the fifth element of space.

It could be sacred space,

It could be the space of awareness,

The space in which all of this experience is arising and being noticed.

If you think about right now,

I'm in this specific space.

The space itself doesn't have air moving around in it because my body is there.

Now if I move forward,

The air behind me now has room to move around.

Everything that happens is happening in space.

So it's something that's not air or water or fire or earth.

We live here.

We have these elements.

Let's go into an open space awareness and blessing and gratitude for whatever it is that we've been working with and observing.

And also really specifically for the air that I breathe and the moisture in the air for the hummingbird that I can hear just outside the window for the trees and the sky and the beautiful stars at night this earth and that I am part of this whole ecosystem.

Notice what that experience is.

I am part of this system.

I'm not separate.

I'm part of the consciousness.

I'm part of this awareness,

This space.

And I have all the elements.

Could we extend our gratitude to the element of earth in our body and earth we walk on,

The earth that supports life?

Take a few breaths.

Release your body into a bit of softness as you breathe out.

And we bless the element of water in the air that we breathe,

In the blood that moves in our body,

In the sap that moves up and down trees,

In the creeks and the rivers,

The frozen water,

The melted water,

The steam,

The oceans,

The lakes,

The water that cleanses our bodies and that we enjoy when we have a hot drink or when we swim.

I bless the element of water.

And I bless the element of air,

The breeze,

The air that has oxygen that nourishes my lungs,

My tissues,

My body,

The feeling of the air on my skin,

The air in my stomach that helps digest the food.

And the element of fire,

The juiciness,

The passion of life,

And the awesomeness of fire,

The power of fire,

And the blessing of having a candle that we can light and bring our awareness to the element of fire,

Fire and air,

And then our whole body and all the elements in our body,

The space that our bodies are in,

Our bodies are occupying a space right now.

The broader context of the space of awareness,

Of ether,

And the space of mother earth,

The ground,

Earth,

The water,

The air,

The fire,

And the blessing of being part of this.

Our lives are lived on mother earth.

We take in the elements to nourish our bodies.

We move about in relationship.

Be still for a moment,

Noticing what has your experience been like?

What have you learned?

What are you taking away?

What are you appreciating?

How do you feel connected?

One of the things that happens is that we feel connected with each other.

So here's this body that has all of these elements in this location,

Here doing a practice,

And we're all made up of all of the elements,

And we're all moving through the air of the earth,

The water,

The space,

The fire,

And it's miraculous when we bring our awareness to all of that,

And that we can breathe and our body relaxes.

It's beautiful.

Notice your experience as a blessing.

When we bring our awareness to food,

And we bring our awareness to the elements,

Also to the hands that brought us the food,

To the animals and the plants,

The experience of nourishment is different.

Part of what I'm really working with and appreciating is to be able to slow down enough to really notice it.

All of this wonder is here.