Walking Each Other Home - Sept 22, 2022
Through mindfulness practices, focusing on antiracism, we increase our emotional resilience, recognize our biases, and make real our common humanity. "Walking Each Other Home" is a guided embodied meditation practice.
Transcript
Welcome to walking each other home.
Helps if I unmute myself first.
Getting a couple minutes of a late start this morning.
And just moving slowly with that.
I'm Reverend Kelly is a co founder of Project Sanctus and Thursday mornings,
We do this little mindfulness practice the embodied anti racism mindfulness practice to to support us in shifting how we think,
And to notice our biases and to really,
In large part to embody our bodies to bring ourselves back to our bodies,
You know this anti racism work really is,
You know,
In large part we engage to deconstruct white privilege and social privilege and systems of oppression and that requires us to to come home to our bodies we have over the centuries,
Kind of cut ourselves off here,
You know,
At the neck and everything becomes cognitive.
So our,
Our weekly practice of walking each other home is to,
To,
You know,
Come home to our bodies,
Come home to the groundedness right there's a groundedness and being in our bodies,
There's a groundedness in engaging their first.
There's a groundedness and a settling to kind of come home there.
Before we engage,
You know the mind and cognitive cognitive things on before we engage how we be out in the world and there's been a lot of evidence,
And,
You know,
Years of people practicing these mindfulness practices,
Showing that they by doing these practices we expand our capacity for resilience we expand our capacity for being in difficult situations being in difficult conversations.
So,
That's why we do our mindfulness practices.
And each week it's a little bit different.
We're coming at you through zoom.
So you can.
There is a zoom link if you wanted to ever join through zoom,
But we're also streaming live on Facebook and some people begin there some people find us there some people,
You know,
Listen afterwards so I say good morning because it's morning for me.
Whatever time of the day it is let's just start our practice with that,
What I call a collective act of solidarity which is a breath,
A breath,
Whatever,
Whether it's deep or not.
But just a breath in to feel the air moving through the nose or the mouth,
And into the lungs.
And just continue to to follow the breath and pay attention to the breath.
And maybe with each inhale,
Maybe it goes a little bit deeper.
Maybe you feel it a little bit more in the lungs.
Maybe you feel it a little bit more,
You know,
Moving kind of down in the body.
But don't force anything.
Just do what's comfortable for you.
Don't change anything.
Remembering we breathe the same air.
All of us.
All life that takes in oxygen.
We do that together.
Continue to be with the breath.
Just trust yourself.
Just trust that how you're breathing.
The pace.
Just trust the skin that you're in.
And this morning we're going to trust that as our first relationship.
The skin that I'm in.
Just trust.
Don't overthink it.
If you find the mind going into thoughts,
That's fine.
Just come back to breathing and trust yourself.
The skin that you're in as your first relationship.
And then your next breath.
And your feet may literally be on carpeting or wood floor,
Or maybe you're listening to this lying down and your feet aren't on anything.
So maybe just put them on something for a moment.
And know that whatever they're on,
If it's not earth itself in the dirt or the grass or the rocks.
Just imagine for a moment the roots coming out of your feet that go down into earth.
And trust yourself to the earth that is beneath your feet.
Trust yourself.
And then your next breath.
And just imagine that you're breathing out to the earth.
So that's your second primary relationship.
And just imagine the nourishments,
The stability that earth does provide.
See those roots scrolling from the bottom of your feet into the center of the earth.
And just imagine that you're breathing out to the earth.
And just imagine that you're breathing in to the earth.
And just imagine that you're breathing out to the earth.
And just imagine that you're breathing in to the earth.
And just imagine that you're breathing out to the earth.
And just imagine that you're breathing in to the earth.
And just imagine that you're breathing out to the earth.
And just imagine that you're breathing in to the earth.
And just imagine that you're breathing out to the earth.
And just imagine that your feet are below the ground and you're breathing in to the earth.
And just imagine that you're breathing out to the earth.
And just imagine that you're breathing in to the earth.
Give your attention to the back of your body.
From the back body,
We lean into all of our experiences,
Memories,
Moments,
Triumphs,
Failures,
Missteps.
And as you hear the words,
Leaning into experience,
Memory,
Triumph,
Just notice what images come to mind.
With our focus on the back body,
The focus is everything that has brought you to this moment.
Absolutely everything.
The good,
The bad,
And the ugly.
Everything that has brought you to this now moment,
That is the back body.
And then extend that trust all the way to your beloved ancestral supports.
And an ancestral support can be a parent or it could be an ancestor from 300 years ago.
Could be the trees.
Just trust that ancestral support.
And inhale again.
And on the next exhale,
Entrust yourself to your front body.
Where the front body are the places of the unknown,
The points of possibility.
The front body is the space of invitation for us to meet the unknown,
To meet all those points of possibility with curiosity.
And loosening our need for control,
Loosening our need to know.
And it's the front body because it can be a vulnerable place.
But it is the front body where we feel the hope.
Future generations.
The front body where we trust ourself in making wise choices.
Making wise choices from the place of unknown,
But trusting.
Making wise choices in every point of possibility without knowing an outcome,
But feeling the hope of what is to be.
And then keep breathing,
Come back to the breath.
And on the next exhale,
Breathe into your side body.
Right into the side of the body.
How often do we pay attention to the side body?
For this is the place of the side body that is our ability to expand or contract.
We breathe into the side body,
Trusting that we take up space or not.
We breathe into the side body because it is here that we share space with all our human family and with all of our relations next to.
The side body.
Trusting that relationship.
Trusting the sharing of the space with all of our relations,
The flying ones,
The swimming ones,
Plant life,
Water,
Sky.
Keep breathing into the side body and trusting each side,
The intersection of life.
Feeling the sharing of space.
And come back to the breath.
And on the next exhale,
Feel that connection,
Feel the interrelationship with all these dimensions.
Trusting yourself to this process.
Feel that interdependence,
The relationship between your skin.
We started with the skin that you're in as your first relationship.
And then the ground.
Trusting yourself to the earth that is beneath.
So notice this interdependence between your skin you're in,
The ground,
Your back body,
Your front body,
And your side body.
Another deep breath.
So now if your eyes are closed,
Slowly open them,
Coming back into whatever space you're in.
Coming back into relationship here,
Even if you're,
Whether you're watching this live or on some other day.
So come back into the space that you're in and look around.
And come back into relationship with what's around you.
And our invitation today and every day is to invite you to see that dynamic interdependence between the skin you're in,
The ground,
The earth,
Your back body,
Your front body,
And your side body.
Just pay attention to those throughout your days.
So thank you for joining us and helping walking each other home.
