Earth In My Belly, Earth In My Breath

When our attachment systems get dysregulated through consistent fight/flight/fear responses, we lose connection to our anchors of support and stability, and to our most important and resourcing connection, which is the relationship we have with Earth. This meditation offers a guided visualization and breathing practice to reconnect with Earth's support through embodied pathways. Do this meditation to help build courage, confidence, clarity and compassion, and to counteract the effects of stress, fear and isolation.
*note - this meditation was offered as part of a longer Somatic SPACE practice. Please visit my bio page to learn more about my weekly Embodied Astrology classes*

Transcript

Okay,

So hold this energy of earth in our bellies,

Allowing our hands to rest above the pubic bone,

Below the belly button,

Allowing your hands to spread out and hold your low belly.

If you're standing,

Then please join me with widening your stance,

Softening your feet and allowing the fronts of your shins to soften forward a little bit,

Your knees to be soft.

And let's feel now the pathways that our hands just helped us orient with.

And from your low back,

Relax downwards towards the earth,

Imagining like a waterfall that your energy can release down and into the earth through your heels and through the weight of your legs.

And see if you can sense the arches of your feet.

And from the arches of your feet,

Imagining like an underground aquifer pushing up in a warm hot spring,

Earth energy pulsing up your inner legs,

Traveling up your inner knees,

Your thighs,

Into your genitals,

Into your pelvis,

Filling your low belly,

Breathing in your low belly,

Holding earth energy there.

And you don't need to hold everything and you don't need to hold forever.

So continue to keep it flowing,

Keep it cycling,

Relaxing your back body,

Imagining like a waterfall that the holding of your back can also flow into the ground,

Through the weight of your legs and through your heels,

Offering to the earth,

Everything you don't understand,

Everything that feels too big,

Everything that feels scary,

Full of grief.

How do you even begin?

And you can transfer into the earth like a hot spring pushing up from the belly of the earth,

The waters of the earth that have been cleansed in the earth's fire,

That have been moved through the earth's crust,

Pushing up into the arches of your feet,

Traveling up through your knees,

Through your inner thighs,

Into your genitals and your pelvic basin,

Into your belly,

Holding life force in your belly.

Can you imagine that you're holding a hot springs in your low belly?

This is a perfect feeling hot springs,

The ones that are just the right temperature.

Imagine how your whole body might relax in that warm water,

You're holding it in your belly.

Holding the earth in your belly.

And then with the next exhale,

Releasing back to the earth again.

Releasing where you're tight or gripped.

Releasing where your mind has been maybe hard or focused or crunchy feeling.

Sending it to the earth.

And as you send it to the earth,

You might imagine the turbulence of the earth's creativity.

The way that volcanoes erupt and oceans churn and mountains form and mud bubbles and life gives way to life.

And as you release tension,

As you offer stress or grief or unknown or whatever feelings are here,

Letting them flow to the earth,

They become broken open,

Pulverized,

Turn into atomic particles,

Molecules of omnipotence.

They could go in any direction now.

They are becoming soil,

Water,

Fire,

Earth.

And then one more time,

We're going to try and sense down into the arches of our feet.

And with sensory awareness,

Create a pathway,

Travel up in your sensation along your inner legs.

Try and feel the insides of your knees.

Bring consciousness to your inner thighs.

Bring consciousness to the place where your inner thighs meet your groin.

Bring consciousness to the center of your pelvic floor.

Try and sense the internal surface of your pelvic floor.

Sense the internal surface of your low belly muscles,

The internal surface of your sacrum.

And in the bowl and basin of your pelvis,

Breathe in life.

You are alive right now.

You are a recipient of earth's life force.

Can you hold earth in your belly?

Trust that you are part of earth.

You always have been,

You always will be.

Earth is you.

And then from our low bellies,

Let's continue to draw earth energy up.

Let's bring it into the top of the belly and really gently make some little circles right over the solar plexus.

Breathing into that space,

Remembering that you are earth.

Human life can be so conceptually confusing,

Dramatic,

And devastating.

It can pull us into all kinds of ideas of who and what we are.

Fundamentally,

We are earth.

Can you let earth fill your breath?

The earth is breathing.

Let your hands one more time find your heart space.

You might even allow your hands to float over your heart as you make little circles.

Can you try and now touch the energetic heart?

Breathe into your heart and imagine that your breath can send care all the way across the earth.

Imagining currents of care.

Extending out your love into the directions where you are called.

And then letting the hands rest right over the heart and breathing in and knowing you are loved.

Breathing in and imagining the currents of care that flow into you.

You might imagine family,

Friends,

Comrades,

But please also imagine the unknown.

The ways your energy might be seen and appreciated and loved and cared for even beyond your consciousness.

Let's really come deeply into our breath now.

And start to extend the length of your inhalations and exhalations.

Breathe as deep as you can,

Filling your inhales.

And as you fill them up,

Try and breathe in all directions,

Not just upwards,

But downwards and to all the sides.

When you exhale,

Exhale your full breath out,

Following the breath till the very end.

When you inhale,

Breathe in like the sun.

Expanding in all directions.

When you exhale,

Exhale all the way to the end of the breath.

Start to experiment a little bit with holding a little bit of a pause around the end of the exhale and the top of the inhale.

And this pause should not require any concerted effort,

So we're not bringing stress into the body,

Just lingering.

This is kind of like the moment right before the wave crashes,

Right at the top of its height,

And right before the water rolls back after the wave has come to shore.

Now as you breathe,

I want to invite you to imagine that your breath is full of light.

It can be a bright light,

It can be a light of color,

Of prisms.

So however this light appears to you,

Whatever kind of sparkle tone it has,

Let that light get really big on your inhalation.

Imagine that your breath is getting so big that you're pressing it out into the space around you.

And as you exhale your full breath out,

Let the movement of your exhale guide you very,

Very deep into the center of your body,

Where the light becomes really focused,

Like the tip of a laser.

I was doing that and I was like,

Oh I think I can feel that in the opposite way too.

So as you inhale you might feel the light become focused like a laser,

As you exhale you might feel it go out.

Neither way is better.

Try them both.

But as you breathe,

You're breathing light.

And that light is growing and expanding and moving out all the way around you.

And it's also becoming concentrated,

Focused.

A single point of vibrancy right at your center.

And we'll continue with this practice for the next couple of minutes.

I felt a desire to sit down so I changed my shape.

Please change your shape as you need.

I want to invite us to allow our eyes to open really gently.

And to open in a way that allows our heads to really just stay very balanced on top of the spine.

That allows awareness to keep flowing inwards.

As you continue to breathe,

Continue to imagine that your breath can get bigger around you.

That the halo of your breath can expand and envelop the space around you.

As you feel that on inhale or exhale,

Let the complimenting side of your breath bring you into your center,

Imagining that the light of your breath becomes fortified and distilled.

And concentrated into a single point of light right at the center of your breath body.

Now if your eyes are gently opened,

Notice where your eyes are resting and what it is that you see.

And allow what you're seeing to just blow into your eyes.

And notice any things that the mind might do with sight.

Like going into a story or naming or thinking you need to clean something up.

Whatever it is that you see,

Let it just flow into your consciousness.

This is here right now.

And as you breathe,

Imagine that this envelopment of your breath,

The way that it expands,

Can touch whatever it is that you see.

As you feel the envelopment of your breath,

Hold and breathe around whatever it is that you see.

Continuing to breathe pretty deeply,

Allowing your inhales to move in all directions,

To expand like the sun.

Breathing down as well as up,

Out,

Into your back,

Into all the sides.

Maybe allowing for a really luscious pause at the top of the inhale,

Like the wave just about to crest.

Following the exhale all the way till its end.

Gentle pause,

That moment right before the wave is called back into the body of the ocean.

Imagining that your breath can envelop what you are seeing and now also sitting in or standing in,

Being in.

As your breath moves out to all sides,

Can your breath hold the space that you're in?

Could your breath get as big as the room where you are?

And if you're outside,

Can your breath get as big as the sky?

And everything inside your breath you're holding.

And in this holding is just a greeting.

We're here together.

This is the moment of breathing.

This is what's here right now.

And we're working with our minds if and when they want to do something about it.

If our minds suddenly have a preference about what's here or how it's here,

A reaction,

A response,

Or some kind of planning that kicks in,

Just noticing that.

And then intentionally turning towards breathing with what's here.

And for this particular moment,

Not needing to do anything about it.

Just imagining that you can hold the moment with your breath.

And you don't need to hold it forever,

And you don't need to hold it entirely.

And after you've held it fully with a breath,

Then let it go.

And come back to that point of center where the light gets concentrated.

Laser focus right at the center of your own being.

So wherever your eyes are resting now,

Whatever it is that you're looking at,

Continuing to breathe in the ways that we have.

I want to ask you to contemplate what it is that you are looking at in a big way.

Whatever it is that's in front of your eyes right now is in a moment of its own journey.

The stack of papers that I can see have not been papers forever.

They are made of trees.

Trees are made of earth,

Water,

Animals.

The ink on the paper was made from minerals.

So whatever it is that you see,

Can you contemplate just in a curious kind of way?

You don't need to know the whole story.

Just allowing your mind to play a little bit with where did this come from?

Who was this made from?

Where is it going?

Who will it become?

Whatever it is that your eyes are resting with,

Allowing your mind to also play with its unforming.

Imagining how it will break down and disintegrate.

Imagining how you don't know and you can't know what it will become.

And as you breathe,

Can you continue to really allow your breath to elongate and explore and express all the way into fullness?

All the way into emptiness.

Imagining that your breath can reach out and hold what it is that you are seeing and perceiving.

Whatever you are seeing and perceiving is on a journey of becoming and becoming something else.

I'm going to ask you now to imagine and let your imagination also now hold yourself as you are holding what you see.

And remember that you didn't always exist.

And you didn't arrive from nowhere.

All kinds of meetings and interactions and surprise circumstances and strategic planning and the mystery of what is uncontrollable.

All of that had to happen to bring you to this moment.

We are in bodies that are aging and decaying and dissolving and breaking down.

And these bodies are part of the earth.

And the earth,

Including all the beings that are part of it,

Is incredibly chaotic and uncontrollable.

And so these bodies in their forms are very temporary.

And even if we live very,

Very long lives in the scheme of things,

We are leaving pretty soon.

So as you breathe and as you see what you're seeing,

Remembering that what you're seeing is in a process of becoming and becoming something else.

Remembering that you are in a process of becoming and becoming something else.

And can your breath get really big?

Holding what's here.

And can your breath get really deep?

Concentrated and focused right in the center.

As you breathe with the impermanence and the constant transformation of becoming,

Becoming something else.

Becoming,

Becoming something else.

Coming into form.

Forms changing.

Forms falling apart.

Forms dispersing.

Forms forming.

Becoming.

Coming something else.

And for the last several breaths here in this meditation,

I want to invite us to imagine,

And this may need a stretch of imagination,

But we're going to play with it.

Imagine how whatever it is that you're seeing is also part of earth.

It may have been substances of earth that have been catalyzed and changed through chemical process and human intervention.

But somewhere,

Somehow,

Everything that you're seeing is part of earth.

And everything that's part of earth is part of space.

And space is full of all kinds of stuff.

It's full of gases and elements and metals.

It's full of radiation.

It's full of things that will destroy and consume.

It's full of stuff that gives life.

It's full of power.

Space is full of everything.

With everything.

And so whatever you're seeing has been made from space,

Has been made from the stuff of space,

Has become part of earth.

Now exists.

Your body made from the stuff of space,

The stuff of earth,

Now exists.

A few more breaths.

Let's really allow these breaths to get very big on the inhales.

Breathe all the way out.

Follow your exhale all the way till it's end.

Imagining again your breath is light.

And as you breathe,

Your breath can hold everything that's here.

Your breath can bring you back to your own center.

Everything that's here is made of space,

Part of earth.

And let's see,

Without any attachment to success,

Let's see if it's possible to extend a little bit of appreciation,

A little bit of awe or curiosity,

Maybe even gratitude,

Maybe even love.

Letting our breath be the conduit.

Is it possible that you can appreciate what you're seeing?

You don't have to agree with it 100%,

But can you appreciate what it took for what you're seeing to get here?

Can you appreciate that it's also breaking down and unforming?

Is it possible to find gratitude for the parts of what you're seeing that are also parts of what you are?

If what you're seeing was formed of space and earth.

Can you breathe into the gratitude for space and earth in what it is that you're seeing?

And in your body as it's breathing.

And for two more minutes,

Let's really bring some concentration into this breath.

And in whatever way it can be imagined,

With whatever part of the breath moves out for you,

Send out any amount of appreciation or gratitude or love that is possible right now.

Realizing that everything here is somehow part of space.

Somehow part of earth.

And whatever part of the breath brings you into your own center where that light gets really concentrated and strong.

That light is held.

And in that part of the breath,

Just knowing where you come from.

The power and the space and the infinite creativity.

And the many,

Many beings that you are here with and of.

And if there's any parts of your heart or body mind that are resisting,

You feel like I can't love it,

I can't appreciate it.

For just two,

Three more breaths reminding yourself that whatever it is that you're perceiving is already changing.

It's already giving way into something else.

Its molecules are falling off of its form.

The dark matter inside of its structure is expanding.

Can you find a little bit of appreciation or gratitude or curiosity for what it is still becoming?

And then let's allow our hands to slide up to our faces and let's rest our heads into our hands.

And I'm letting my palms cover my eyes.

I'm finding my knees with my elbows so I can let my head rest into my hands.

And let's take some breaths into our back bodies.

And as we exhale,

Let's give the breath back to the earth.

And you might stay here in this shape or if there's a shape that can get you closer to touching the ground in a forward fold.

Or you might even bow and allow your head to rest on the earth if that's something that makes sense in your position.

Breathing into our back bodies and as we exhale,

Exhaling into the earth with gratitude.

Thanks to this earth,

Thanks to its brilliant creative life force.

Thanks to its cycles and transformations and unending change.

Thanks to all the elements that are present here and the life force that is.

In any way that makes sense to you,

Offering your prayers to the earth.

And in any way that makes sense to you,

Asking the earth for what feels like it could support you now.

And as you're ready,

Drawing that support one more time up from the earth,

Through your legs,

Into your pelvis,

Into your belly,

Into your heart,

Into your head.

And then let's offer it to each other with a bow.

And offer it back to ourselves with some touch.

Thank you everybody for being here for today's practice.