Hello and welcome.
This practice is about deep wonder,
Deep imagination and deep time.
There is a lot of information in our world.
Our extraordinary advances in science and technology have allowed us to understand so much,
How things interact,
What they are made of,
How systems came into being and how they work.
We have so much beautiful knowledge and this is a very good thing.
We also have access to knowledge in a way that has never been possible before.
If I wonder about something,
I can google it and know something new or clarify something that I have half remembered.
And I can do this in seconds.
I love this about our times.
I have a thirst for knowledge and I wonder about a lot of things.
I've noticed though that the knowledge I can acquire,
Although it's useful and fascinating and satisfying to my searching mind,
Doesn't always touch that deep place in me that is full of a deeper wonder.
A place that has been there from childhood,
That leans forward,
Breath hushed,
Mind suddenly quiet in the presence of something that is in itself a wonder.
Something that is truly,
In the real sense,
Wonderful.
I've noticed too that the wondering of my mind is often what leads me to this deep place of wonder.
If I let myself open and drop into its mystery.
It doesn't always follow,
Of course.
My mind is quite scattered.
Thoughts and ideas roam and gallivant like willful sheep,
Dodging the sheepdog of disciplined thought.
I can lose hours,
Probably days,
Following each I wonder.
You know,
I used to think that this was a problem.
And honestly,
When I started out meditating,
I struggled because I could not clear my mind in the way that some methods require.
I could appear as still as a mill pond,
But in my mind,
There would be a riot of wondering sheep.
Do bears mate for life?
Do all eels dream about the Saragossa Sea?
How many square miles of potash mine are under the shipping lanes in the North Sea?
What is the capital of the Cook Islands?
It's Avaruya,
By the way,
To save you googling.
And these wonderings would be interspersed with mundane thoughts too about food and work and train times.
With musings about people,
Relationships,
What other people think.
And over time,
And after many years of self-crisis for my restless mind,
I started to be a bit kinder to myself,
To appreciate the internal energy that my mind has.
And gradually,
I stopped using phrases like I should.
And in that softening,
The deep wonder began to surface again,
As it had when I was a child.
Some things that I wonder about are not in and of themselves wonderful,
But they might lead me there.
And some things that I wonder about are truly,
Heart-thrillingly wonderful.
And because of them,
I fall silent in my being,
And I am entirely present to the mysterious and glorious beauty that permeates all things.
And so,
I offer this practice as a guide to help you find your own way to wonder.
Our four-step peace beam method of notice,
Breathe,
Activate,
And peace beam grew out of this understanding in me that some thoughts,
Ideas,
Some things are so wonderful that they can draw us into what is beautiful,
What is true,
And what is good.
They do not have to be extraordinary.
In fact,
Often,
I have found that it is in the things that seem ordinary,
That a beauty so startling resides that it rearranges me.
It changes my mind,
My heart,
And my relationship to the world.
So with each step,
The invitation is to relax.
Take these brief moments to be still and accept this invitation to deep wonder.
So if you haven't already,
Settle into a comfortable position.
Keep your eyes closed,
And for the next few minutes,
Just follow my voice and let yourself drop.
Step one,
Notice.
Just start to notice how you feel today.
Take a few moments and check in and hold this question,
How am I today?
And see what comes back.
Listen to what your body and your mind have to say to you today.
Maybe just start to notice your physical body.
How does it feel at this moment?
Just allow your consciousness to scan your body,
Starting at the crown of your head,
Gliding down.
Relax your face,
If you're frowning,
Smile,
Let the hinge of your jaw soften.
Drop your shoulders and let your arms,
Chest and tummy soften,
Be heavy,
Be comfortable.
And imagine that as your focus rests on each part of your body,
You are listening and your body is listening to you.
Now let's move to step two.
Breathe.
That gentle listening attention now moves to your breath.
So continue breathing normally and just start to notice the breath moving in and out and just listen to its sound.
Notice how it sounds like a quiet ocean,
In and out.
And now just gently extend your in breath and your out breath,
Just so that you are breathing a little deeper,
Very easy,
No strain.
Everything here is for ease,
Is to relax.
Let your lungs and your diaphragm smile with you as you breathe.
Beautiful.
Now we're going to connect your breath to your heart.
So as you feel some ease start to arrive in your body,
Just imagine that your breath is moving in through your nose or mouth and it's going deep into your heart.
And as you breathe out,
It's a breath out of your heart and the rhythm of your breath and the rhythm of your heart are greeting each other,
Saying hello.
They are old friends.
So just be here for a few moments,
Listening and breathing the rhythm of you.
When we take a few moments to connect our breath to our heart,
We can drop into the unique,
Peaceful rhythm of ourselves,
A place of gentleness and constant giving.
This simple act can become a wellspring of goodness in our day.
And it is the place where we can receive the deep wonder that lives in our hearts.
Now let's move to step three,
Activate.
I want you to bring into your mind now the color blue.
Just allow blue to suffuse your being.
All of its shades,
Its moods and hues.
And notice the images that begin to appear with the word blue.
Notice what blue's universe contains.
And blue has its own universe.
It is part of everything and yet still its own distinct blueness.
Breathe and be with blue for a few moments.
Now,
I want to tell you about the blue bell and the blue whale.
So drop deeper now,
Settle into your beautiful body and let blue bring you into its mysterious beauty.
As blue lives here with us,
It touches so many things.
As it rises a feather,
It arrives and illumines,
Suffuses,
Breathes itself into deep ice.
Down in the depths of a crevasse in the Antarctic,
Star-saling turquoise blue keeps the secrets of deep time.
It wraps the water that fell as rain millennia ago,
Eons and epochs beyond our imagination.
Time so big our minds can't hold it.
But blue does,
There,
Actually,
Physically here,
Right now,
At the same time as you and I.
Deep time is wrapped in blue.
And blue lives in companionship with the sun,
Stealing across the dawn sky,
Kissing gold and pink goodbye as the sun drops and then arrives back later,
Draped in deep indigo ready for the greeting of the night.
And blue lives in the joyful being of a bluebell in its tiny,
Fragile,
Capped flower head,
Delicately deepening as its center,
Gathering the scent and dancing with it.
Blue takes the fragrance of spring,
Then it shouts it to itself in the sky,
In the deep time ice,
And into the hearing of its most magnificent of creatures,
The great blue whale.
This secret being,
Larger than any creature that has ever lived,
Slips through the blue of the ocean in its own blueness,
Its great heart so large that I could swim down its arteries,
Beating its rhythm of life,
Aliveness,
Beingness.
And the bluebell and the deep time in the blue ice know its sound.
And the blue whale knows the bluebell's fragrance.
And all of them give their entire beingness to life with a generosity,
A wholeness,
And a fullness that steals the breath.
And we,
You and I,
Are part of this great aliveness,
Of the staggering,
Unspeakable beauty that is in the bluebell's cap and the deep,
Unknowable depths of a blue whale's heart.
Allow this universe of blue,
This great,
Mysterious kingdom,
To pull you into its secrets.
Feel your hushed center.
Swim forward and be amazed that at this very moment,
In this world,
There even is a bluebell,
A blue whale,
And deep blue ice.
How truly wonderful.
Step four,
Peace beam.
Take a moment now and allow the wonder of the world to settle in your heart,
In your mind,
And in your soul.
And simply shine.
Nothing else is required of you.
To peace beam is to wish unrestricted good for yourself and for others.
And today,
As you beam your own light and energy into the world,
Allow it to carry a glorious sense of the wonderful with it.
Peace be with you.
Praise the god of legends.
You
