Welcome everyone.
We have an alternative meditation today.
A sensual meditation.
It's interesting,
A lot of the times where meditation seems to have misconceptions is in this idea of what meditation is.
Often I speak with people and there is this underlying,
Almost like an expectation of meditation being kind of like a seated posture and you have your fingers in a specific alignment and you're sitting up very tall and you're rigid and your face is stern and you're meditating,
You're doing the meditation.
Yet there was a woman that I lived with in Australia and she hosted tea ceremonies,
Japanese tea ceremonies,
And I asked,
I had never heard of this before,
And I asked her why,
What is a tea ceremony,
And she said that the Japanese and the Chinese saw tea and sitting with tea as a path to enlightenment.
And in that one moment it was like a gong rang and it hit me that everything can be a path to enlightenment.
It's not the act,
Rather it's the approach we take.
It's the approach that is the path,
Not the activity.
So in that,
Our entire life can be that same path through different mediums.
And today I would like to offer,
Through a path of sensuality and connection to body,
We can develop awareness,
Compassion,
Presence.
Today we'll be exploring five elements of touch throughout our body.
And this is a session where you can just give yourself some physical love.
It's not something we do so often.
Usually we look in relationships for someone else to fulfill that need,
Which is beautiful and wonderful.
And at the same time it is just as beautiful and wonderful to learn about our own bodies through our own touch.
So this meditation and practice will be partially guided,
But there will be freedom in the guidance.
So if there's any part of your body that is wanting to be touched or attended to intuitively,
That's where you're going to go,
Even if I say somewhere else.
So everything we're exploring here is an invitation.
But ultimately the strongest and most sacred invitation is that which is arising within you.
Let's just take a moment to honor the intelligence of the body and surrender to that intelligence for this practice.
So we have these five elements in Ayurveda,
A beautiful Indian science model.
We have ether,
The spacious element.
We have wind,
Fire,
Water,
Earth,
Those that make up the entire world around us.
And each of those have qualities.
We can bring those qualities into our touch.
So today we'll find a comfortable place to be in.
Maybe it's in a bed or maybe it's in like a floor where we have space where we can spread out and move if we like.
And let's just start letting the body sway.
Maybe we let the head hang and we kind of roll out the neck and just start arriving really into the physical body.
That's what we're going to be exploring today.
Waking up the joints,
The shoulders,
The wrists.
And notice just this power of intention,
The ether element is this subtle.
We're not even touching anything yet with our hands and yet we're exploring the body with this subtle spaciousness.
This observation of where my soul,
What feels good,
What feels nice.
What feels therapeutic,
Nice,
What feels sensual,
Nice.
And notice the difference in those energies.
What feels juicy.
And I invite you to bring your hands,
Just the fingertips to the head,
To the hair,
To the scalp.
And ever so delicately.
We can kind of give little strokes to the hair and the head just running our fingers,
Just the fingertips,
Not scratching like very gently,
Just starting to make contact with the skull,
This head,
This mind.
Like the wind passing through the hair.
Maybe stroking the forehead gently running our fingers and almost a little light tickling.
Maybe running the hands,
Those fingertips down the face.
And the chest or the arms.
Down towards the belly as light as you can just coating the body in this very subtle,
Pure touch.
Losing yourself in the touch.
Not needing to know what it looks like.
The eyes can be closed and we're just like,
Oh,
This is so nice.
The hands come all the way back up to the hair and the head and the skull.
And this time we're adding the elements of fire so you can use the nails to really get in there.
You can even pull the hair a bit,
Pull the scalp.
You can scratch.
Dig in to the sides,
Maybe to the neck.
And again,
Using the same touch,
This kind of like grabbing like a lion or a tiger,
Lioness.
Maybe grabbing the belly,
The sides of the chest and kind of squeezing the skin and pulling like you were your own lover.
Like you were the sexiest lover that you've ever had.
And finding this fire in your touch.
This passion.
Like it was the first person who's ever touched you and they knew exactly how to do it.
This intensity,
This subtle intensity,
Directness behind the touch.
Maybe down to the legs.
Noticing the changes in your facial expression,
Maybe there's kind of like a gritting of the teeth.
And now we gently bring this water element in to soften this really soft but firm.
Caressing like a motherly nourishment.
This fluid,
Expansive touch.
Finding wherever on the body is called maybe the heart as we hold the heart.
Maybe the back of the neck providing safety right where the head meets the neck.
Maybe the other hand finds the lowest part of our spine,
The sacrum.
Almost as if we were being held like a child,
The back of the neck.
And the tailbone.
Feeling energy moving up and down the spine.
And then lastly perhaps we bring our hands to the legs.
This is the easiest part.
To find the earth element,
Like weight,
Just pouring weight.
Heaviness.
Finding creative ways to just bring pressure,
Strong,
Firm pressure into the body.
With the arms,
With the hands,
We can use all sorts of body parts to engage in this.
Pressing,
Pulling with this firm,
Grounded touch.
This heavy,
Grounding touch.
Perhaps on the thighs or the calves or even on the face,
Just putting weight in the face.
Letting the face pour into the hands and using gravity to do the work.
Slow.
Conscious touch.
And for these last ten breaths,
Perhaps using a combination of all of these elements or any of these elements that are wanting to be explored freely for the next ten breaths.
Perhaps we're desiring more sensuality or sexuality.
Perhaps we're desiring this soft,
Loving embrace.
Perhaps it's this light,
Airy touch.
Perhaps it's this firm and groundedness.
Or a mixture.
Turning the mind off and knowing that the body knows what it needs and we are simply following.
With the motivation of deep love and nourishment.
Zooming in to each moment.
The next two breaths coming to a close of the ceremony of this ritual.
Maybe just giving a little squeezes down the body and integrating this energy in.
And just saying,
Hey,
I love you with your hands.
As the body receives this loving touch,
Thank you for seeing me.
And we bring our hands to our heart.
We can either bring them to prayer or literally pressing one hand on top of the other on the heart.
And simply tuning in with this divine space suit.
This living container that holds us.
And just taking a moment of gratitude,
Of love.
Remembering that when we feed the fire,
The fire keeps us warm.
When we honor our body,
That which we are able to explore within this body just becomes so much greater.
As we deepen this relationship to the physical body,
We explore new worlds.
As friends,
As partners,
As lovers.
Honoring your partner for this life,
This beautiful body.
And just take one deep,
Deep,
Deep inhale and sound.
Thank you for taking the time to explore this morning.
Whatever registered,
Whether that was super awkward or really amazing and you're going to go do a few more minutes of it or 10 more minutes of it or two more hours of it.
Thank you for your curiosity and your joy that was present.
Sending big love from my body to your body.
Namaste.
Thank you.
