Evolutionary Relationships

This guided meditation focuses on the evolutionary energy of life. The life process is a constant movement and creation in response to whatever is arising, including the ways that elements interact and influence each other, the ways perspectives and cultures shift, etc. This meditation uses cellular awareness and breath to bring your attention into the constant state of change and evolution that is your body and the environment around you.

Transcript

Hello and welcome.

The following is a guided meditation by Renee Seals,

A somatic movement educator,

Energy worker,

And astrologer.

This meditation is intended to help support your embodied meditation practice.

If in the recording you are prompted to do something that doesn't feel good for your body,

Please adapt and modify to make it work for you.

Please also note that the content of this meditation sometimes explores deep and subtle states and memories,

And sometimes guided visualizations.

You are encouraged to work with discernment as you practice with them.

If any of the guidance Renee offers feels too activating or uncomfortable,

Please listen to your body's knowing and pause the recording until a later time if you wish to return to it.

These guided meditations range anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes and do not require any supplementary equipment to participate.

We hope you enjoy.

Hi everyone,

This is Renee and I'm here today to offer a meditation on evolution.

Evolution is,

When we look at the history of the world,

Of this planet,

We can see that the stuff that we're made of,

The materials that we're made of,

Have gone through billions of incarnations over billions of years.

That the materials of this planet have shaped and shifted into so many different forms.

And what evolution is,

Is a constant moving forwards,

A constant drive forwards.

And when I say forwards it doesn't mean linear,

Or I don't mean linear or necessarily goal-oriented.

I mean whatever is appropriate in the response of materials meeting each other.

The chaos of the way that elements move towards one another and influence each other and how we never know what events are going to happen and what then will occur in response.

This is evolution.

A constant pushing forwards,

A constant creating,

And there's no going back.

There is no unevolving.

There might be explosions,

There might be wipeouts,

There might be endings,

But we can never go back because things just continue to change each other.

And in this changing there for sure are cycles.

There's repetition and remembering.

Patterns repeat themselves,

But nothing that was once will ever be the same again.

So this is a meditation on remembering where we've come from,

Feeling where we're going,

And honoring the potential of where we might go.

In this meditation there is no prescribed movement for your body.

For me I feel like I would like to listen to this meditation while I'm in the bathtub or a float tank.

If you have the luxury of a float and maybe some waterproof MP3 players,

Which are quite a neat invention in our current evolution.

If you haven't tried those I highly recommend,

But you can lie down,

You can sit,

You can take a walk or dance.

This is a moment to feel your body and to feel energy.

So whatever you need to do to make yourself comfortable,

Go ahead and do it.

Feel free to pause this recording to make your arrangements.

We'll start with eyes closed and taking deep breaths in through the nose and exhaling out the mouth.

And as you breathe in,

Greeting the sensation of your breath,

Being attentive to that sensation,

Letting it expand all the way around the circumference of your chest,

Into your belly,

Into your back,

Feeling the passage of breath through your sinuses and throat.

What a delight to inhale.

And there is no such thing as the right way to breathe in.

Just let your breath be,

Receive it,

Greet it.

And as you exhale,

Allow your body to relax and to release any tension,

Residual tension from your day or from your week or from your life.

Letting the places that are habitually tight receive the inhale and soften on the exhale.

Checking in with your joints,

Your jaw joints,

Joints between the vertebra of your spine,

Your shoulders,

Elbows,

Wrists,

Hands,

Your hips,

Your knees,

Your ankles,

Your feet and toes.

Checking in with your organs,

Your heart,

Your lungs,

Your guts.

Feel into the places that are easy to forget,

That are the storehouses for your emotions.

You know where they are.

You can feel them tense and rigid maybe.

Part of our practice here is allowing them just to have space.

So it's not anything that needs to be done,

But just a hello and acknowledgement into the tissues of our bodies and an invitation to relax and to receive the support of breath,

To receive the support of however you're sensing gravity right now,

Whatever your contact is with the body,

And to release any tension.

Feel that that contact is available to you,

That you can yield and let go.

All throughout your body,

In every single tissue,

There are cells.

The shape of cells,

Depending on what tissues they're part of,

Will change.

But in general,

Cells have a membrane and a nucleus and contained within the membrane is fluid.

Cells absorb nutrition from the fluid that surrounds them,

From your bloodstream.

They need oxygen and they need minerals and electrolytes and amino acids and proteins.

And those small molecules are the ones that are in the membrane.

Those small molecules move through the barrier of the membrane.

They're absorbed,

Just like your skin absorbs oil or water.

So permeating and moving from outside to inside.

And once a cell has absorbed what's around it,

Then those molecules of nutrition are now in the cellular fluid where the nucleus,

Which is almost like its own little sun,

If you think of our solar system,

Sun,

Can burn,

Can use,

Can transform that nutrition that it receives into energy.

And depending on what the cell is,

That energy will do whatever the tissue needs.

So it might grow more muscle or bone or create some kind of fluid.

And then of course the byproduct,

The part of the nutrition that wasn't in the cell,

The part of the nutrition that wasn't needed or the byproduct of transforming energy,

Then releases out,

Gets transformed from the nucleus and moves through the cellular fluid back into the membrane and into the interstitial fluid,

The fluid around the cell,

And then back into the bloodstream or the lymph and into the detoxification pathways,

Into the elimination.

So as you feel your body and as you feel your breath,

Can you imagine how many cells are in your body?

They're tiny,

Tiny,

Tiny little microscopic cells creating all of your tissues and every cell is breathing also.

So as you inhale and feel the passage of breath from the outside air around you into your body,

That breath entering your lungs,

The oxygen of that breath moving into your blood,

Through your heart,

Into your venous system,

Oxygen being transformed in all the cells,

Carbon dioxide releasing,

Moving from all of your cells back into the blood and out on your exhale.

Can you feel how every cell in your body is inhaling and exhaling,

Is receiving,

Transforming,

And releasing?

Bone cells,

Skin cells,

Muscle cells,

Liver cells,

Fingernail cells,

As the fingernails are kind of dead cells,

But you know what I mean.

So every cell in your body is breathing,

You're breathing,

And now can you imagine your place in your community?

And from now let's consider your community as the people who are close to you in proximity.

Maybe other people who are around you right now in the space that you're in,

Maybe other people who live beside you,

Your neighbors,

Other people in your town or your village or your city,

And can you feel their bodies also inhaling,

Receiving,

Transforming,

And releasing?

Every cell in their bodies breathing,

Digesting,

Absorbing,

Excreting,

And just like each of our cells in our bodies,

Our communities of cells are brushing up against each other and inhaling the same stuff,

Exhaling maybe slightly different stuff,

And you feel,

And by feeling I mean imagine,

Sense,

And place in your body,

In your felt sense,

The awareness of others around you,

Can you feel their bodies breathing,

Their cells transforming?

Can you feel your proximity with them,

The community with them,

Just like the community in your muscle cells?

That there is a collective breath as a new wave of blood comes in,

New oxygen,

New information,

New weather,

Is a collective experience,

A collective reception,

A collective response,

A collective release.

Now let's extend our imaginations into our ancestors,

And let's begin with the ancestors that are placed right here,

Wherever here is for you,

And imagine who has lived here before you.

Maybe you live in a home that has been in your family for generations.

Maybe you know all of those people.

Maybe you live in a busy bustling city in a tall apartment building with high turnover.

Maybe you live in a cabin out in the middle of the wilderness and you built it yourself,

And before you were there,

There were animals and there may have been indigenous people,

Native people.

In fact,

Can you remember how many people have lived where you lived?

And whether or not you can see them,

Whether or not you know their names or what they looked like,

Imagine can you go back all the way feeling all the people who've lived here,

All the people who have attended to this place,

Who have made it what it is.

And every time you have an image come into your mind,

And that image might be very blurry,

It might not be distinct,

It could just be a feeling or maybe it's a picture you've seen somewhere,

An idea,

Every time there's something distinct that comes to mind,

Pause for a moment and connect to their body.

And imagine,

Ah,

That person,

Those people,

They inhaled and they exhaled and their cells were a community and they received nutrition and information and inspiration and they changed over time and they influenced things around them and they were influenced by things around them.

And they had an experience probably not that dissimilar from the experience we're having right now,

Just breathing and being in our bodies.

And as you remember these people and remember their bodies and their breath,

Just say hello to them and maybe smile and give them a wave,

Acknowledge in a friendly way,

Hello.

This basic hello,

This basic acknowledgement and friendliness is perhaps one of the most healing tools that we can have in our tool belt.

When we're experiencing pain,

It's normal that our attention will gather around the pain.

It's kind of like how we pick at scabs or kind of compulsively press into the things that hurt.

When we have arguments,

We tend to be fixated and obsessive about those arguments.

Sometimes the quickest way to or the most efficient way to resolve pain is by saying hello to the things that aren't in pain but are around it.

So if you have a wound,

Maybe some part of your body that hurts,

You could spend a fair amount of time being attentive to the part of your body that hurts.

But in that amount of time,

Being that attentive,

You might also then create more pain through your posture and through your fixation and perhaps on how you treat the people around you because you're in pain.

Another option would not be to ignore the pain,

To rather acknowledge that it's there,

To know that it's there,

But then to also acknowledge the things that are around it that are functioning well and maybe aren't really having that many exciting things happening right now.

They're just doing their thing and feeling fine.

So this basic acknowledgement builds support,

It builds friendliness and collaboration.

It's a normal human tendency to get very fixated on our own experience.

When we can look at one another in the eye and just acknowledge,

Say hello,

Smile,

There's a bridge that gets built.

So that's all we're doing here right now is we're doing this in our own bodies,

We're sensing the tissues,

We're sensing the cells,

We're sensing our breath,

We're saying hello,

Hello body.

If there are parts of your body that you feel like you're in conflict with,

This is an excellent practice to feel your cells in those parts of your body.

Notice the judgments that come up in your mind,

Notice the stories that you tell,

And then continue to come back to the practice of just cellular breath,

Feeling that these tissues are living,

That they are part of a community,

That they absorb,

That they receive,

That they have a job to do.

They transform energy,

They utilize it in some way,

And then they release it.

And in our communities right now,

Just saying hello in your mind's eye and in your felt sense,

Reaching out,

Can you feel your neighbors right now?

Can you feel them?

Place them in your imagination and send your heart out to them.

Feel their bodies.

They're amazing bodies that are a collection of cells.

They're bodies that at one point experienced conception,

Development,

Birth of some kind,

And life until now.

All of their experiences,

All of their pain,

Their bodies that are breathing,

Just say hello.

Hello,

I recognize you over there.

I don't need to do anything for you,

But I'm just gonna say hello and feel yourself again.

And then reaching into the past,

Reaching into the layers that have existed in this space that you're in,

In this space of your ancestors,

Whether or not you're related to them.

These are the ones who've come before,

Who've inhabited the space you're occupying now.

So in the energy of the space that you're in,

Can you feel the influences that have existed here before?

And as you meet them,

Don't worry about what's imagination or what's true.

It doesn't really matter.

You imagine them,

Maybe you know.

Just acknowledging there were humans,

Animals,

Plants having experiences,

Consuming,

Absorbing,

Creating,

Dying,

Transforming.

Who were the first people to occupy,

To live in the space that you are now?

Who were they?

What did they look like?

What did they sound like?

Can you see them in your mind's eye?

Can you greet them?

Can you acknowledge their lives here?

Their love,

Their pain,

Their hunger,

Their hope,

Their hurt?

The energetic resonance that we have between our cells is vital function.

The cells communicate to one another,

They send messages to each other,

They know what needs to get done in order for your body systems to keep working.

The cellular communication we have between our bodies and each other's bodies is not quite the same in terms of specific vital function,

But it functions similarly in that we need relationship.

We need to grow.

We need to feel each other,

Feel ourselves.

We need warmth.

We need love.

We need challenge.

We're relational beings,

Even the most introverted,

Even the ones who'd rather be alone.

You came from a family and you are part of a family and you can't really get away from other people.

So acknowledging those in the community right now and those who have come before.

And it's all just the same really,

Just this inhaling,

Receiving,

Digesting,

Absorbing,

And then releasing.

It is the basic process of life that we receive what's around us and we don't have control over it.

So when you breathe in,

When you inhale,

You are inhaling plant matter.

It's springtime,

So maybe some of you know that even more than others if you're allergic,

You're inhaling fumes and toxicity.

You're inhaling ether and air and oxygen.

You're inhaling other people's scents,

Their pheromones,

And their perfume.

You're inhaling all kinds of things.

You don't have control over what goes into the air.

Same with what you drink and what you eat.

Same with how you consume culture.

Whatever is around you is what you absorb and then what you do with that is a complex decision and creation process that is based on an infinite amount of factors.

How you absorb it,

How you transform it,

How you create with it,

And then you put something back out into the everythingness.

You exhale,

You shit,

You do work in the world and it makes impact,

And all of that then goes back into the stuff that you and other people absorb.

This is the way that life works.

It is a constant moment of creation.

It is a constant moment of response.

It's not an idea that if we can control everything that then we'll get from point A to point Z that isn't going to work.

There are too many evolving and undetermined factors.

Better option to let go of that need to control and to just feel that things are breathing and to say hello,

To feel your own capacity for response,

To feel your own capacity for breath.

As you breathe into the ones who have come before you,

Into your ancestors,

The ancestors of this place,

Saying hello,

Extending gratitude and honoring for all of the responses that they made,

The momentary decisions,

The ones that seemed so small,

The choice to eat this instead of that,

To go here instead of there,

All those small decisions layering on top of one another,

Creating forms of experience individually,

Relationally,

Collectively.

Most often everyone just trying to get along,

To be happy,

To be productive.

And breathe that in.

Breathe in all of their choices,

All the choices that were made before you,

The ones who created your home or the place that you are in now,

The ones who've influenced your environment,

The ones who've changed your family,

The ones who determined what you're wearing.

Just honor and acknowledge we're all responding together.

And take a deep breath in,

A long exhale out.

And now let your attention and your feelings spread into the future.

And in this moment,

In this future that we're feeling into,

Let's feel the future of our actions.

Let's feel the future of how we make our choices.

What kind of vibe do you want to spread?

What is the stuff that you want to put out into the everythingness to be absorbed and reabsorbed and reabsorbed and reabsorbed and to ripple and to resonate?

Can you feel that in yourself?

What is it that you want to continue?

And the invitation here is to feel the quality and the sensation of your best intent,

Of your biggest heart.

Not the specifics.

This isn't about the story,

What you will or will not do.

This isn't your five-step plan.

This is just the feeling.

What is the feeling that you want to spread?

And let that infuse your breath.

As you inhale,

Feel whatever it is,

Let it fill your body.

Let it infuse all of your cells.

As you exhale,

Feel it spreading out into the air,

Permeating the walls around you,

The structures around you,

Whatever is around you,

The air,

The grasses,

The trees,

The rocks.

Can you feel how your intention and attention infuses your cells and infuses the space around you?

Where is your attention moment to moment?

What are you swimming in internally and then spreading into the external?

This is a choice just in every moment,

In every breath.

And then I want you to imagine something,

Someone in the future.

What is it?

Maybe it's a human being,

Maybe it's a hybrid,

Maybe it's a plant,

I don't know.

Some way that you feel you want to spread into the future your values,

Your best intent.

And now can you feel its call back to you?

Just like you felt your ancestors,

Can you feel its call back to you and it's saying,

Hello,

Thank you.

Just greet it and say hello.

Feel where you are now.

Held in community,

Everything that's around you,

Your past,

Your future,

Your inner,

Your outer.

And then if it's comfortable for you where you are,

To place your hands together in the gesture of prayer.

Feel the way that your skin touches and the space between your two palms emanates,

Holds,

Vibrates.

So it's this momentary space in the containers that we create that are the spaces for transformation,

The ways that we allow in to our awareness,

What we do with what we bring in,

And then what the world does with that.

So as we finish our meditation together by bowing,

In whatever way you want to,

Could be a very non-traditional bow,

But honoring the space between your palms and in every cell,

We bow to our own intention,

Recognizing ourselves in it.

Thank you for sharing in this meditation of evolution.

It's a very poetic and abstract evolutionary tale,

But I hope that you enjoy it.

So that's it for today.

Much love,

And I'll catch you next time.

Bye for now.