Welcome,
We offer these meditations freely and your donations make a real difference so thank you.
Come into a comfortable position,
Welcoming yourself to your practice this morning,
Allowing yourself as much support as is required for you to feel truly comfortable.
Let's just start by noticing the breath as you breathe in and breathe out through the nose.
My lids can be down,
You might choose to have your eyes closed or you can choose to keep your eyes open if you prefer.
Both are welcome but either way letting the gaze soften beneath the lids.
You might come to notice your jaw resting the tongue up against the roof of the mouth,
Allowing the jaw and the gums and the palate to soften.
Instill this gentle push and pull current of your breath,
Noticing the texture of the inhale,
The texture of the outhale.
Bring our awareness to our necks.
Notice as you drop your chin a little how the back of your neck can lengthen and then maybe drop one ear down to shoulder and then drop chin down towards chest,
Coming across other ear to other shoulder and do those little semi circles slowly from one side to the other and coming back to rest at center,
Chin down,
Back of neck open.
We'll bring some movement into the shoulders,
Slowing the movement down so that we can stay with it.
We don't want to trip ourselves into going to automatic,
We want to sense and feel every part of the movement and then circling the heart in any way that feels comfortable.
Slow steady movement,
Maybe switching directions,
Making your way back to center,
Noticing the sitting bones as they connect to the floor or the chair and any other part of you that connects to your foundation.
It might be the soles of your feet or the backs of your shins,
So where there is contact between your body and the surface on which you're sitting.
Just bring your awareness there and notice it.
We might start to rock the pelvis forwards and back if that feels accessible.
A very subtle small movement,
Doesn't need to be dramatic,
Just helping the body to notice that it is being noticed,
It's being heard and then coming to settle back into stillness.
Staying with that connection,
Body resting on surface and noticing how that feels.
So we're really inquiring as to the relationship between the body and that which you are resting upon.
You might notice the sense of how it feels to let your body become heavy.
You might start to notice the pull of gravity drawing you towards Earth.
Perhaps there's a sense of the magnetism drawing body to Earth.
Often it's the exhale that allows us to really drop into that sense.
It might be that you can get a sense of the being cradled,
Being caught by the Earth,
Almost as if the Earth comes up to catch you,
To hold you.
Perhaps on the inhale you can find a sense of this being held as the Earth comes up to meet you and as you exhale dropping down,
Feeling the weight as you drop towards Earth.
Perhaps the breath is starting to slow and to deepen.
Notice if your body needs any kind of movement to just dissipate any tension.
Bring your awareness maybe to the palms of your hands and your fingers.
Allow them to soften.
You might place your hands on your thighs with your palms turned down and those palms turned down add to the sense of grounding,
Dropping towards Earth.
Drawing awareness to the very center of the pelvic bowl.
The pelvis is a pivotal part of the body.
It's that center point from which pretty much most movement originates.
Let's just see if we can drop our awareness deep to the very center,
The heart of the pelvis.
Inquire as to what we find there.
There are some practices where it's not even possible to get our awareness down into the pelvis so those days you can just imagine what it might be like.
What feeling sense,
Texture,
A temperature.
You might start to feel a relationship between the pelvis and the floor.
The solid parts of ourselves.
Those very tiny molecules that have some sense of solidity.
It's just minuscule but we can feel it against the surface on which we sit.
But much more than the parts that are solid in fact is space,
Fluid and space but primarily space.
So the space within the molecules,
Between the molecules of your physical body and the surface on which you sit.
So allowing the space to meet the space and blend the space of you with the space of the surface.
Blending.
That space might travel down to the floor,
The foundation of the building that you're in.
Perhaps the top layer of the earth is soil or sand.
Pretty soon it becomes rock.
The space of you blending with the space of the rock.
Dropping down through layers of rock.
Different textures and colors and sometimes damp,
Sometimes dry.
Moving towards the center of the earth.
Starting to feel heat.
Maybe finding the fire at the center of the planet.
Noticing the breath as you stay here in relationship with the earth.
Drawing the inhale down to the very heart of the pelvis and allowing the exhale to travel up through the spinal column,
The midline,
Up to the occiput ridge where the skull comes to rest on top of the atlas,
The very top of the vertebrae.
Inhaling to the center of the pelvis and exhaling up to the ridge at the back of your head.
It might bring around some movement with it.
Let it.
If it feels like it needs some adjustment or some flow.
As your awareness is on the movement of breath into the pelvis up through the spinal column on the exhale.
Can you simultaneously be aware of your connection to earth?
Can you remain in that blended dropping state whilst you consciously breathe through the midline?
It may not be possible.
We're just curious if we can hold two things.
The fluid that moves through the primal streak,
The midline,
It's liquid light.
Perhaps you can find a sense of that.
Cerebospinal fluid,
Liquid light.
Moving from the spine out to all parts of the body,
In and around the brain,
The skull,
Through all of the organs,
Arms and legs,
Fingers and toes.
A tidal current of liquid light moving through your body.
Then releasing the practice,
Allowing ourselves a few moments just to be with whatever is occurring.
Maybe the breath deepens a little.
Maybe we consciously press down through our foundation,
Contacting that more solid sense of you against or resting against earth.
Noticing how it's possible to be both spacious,
Blending,
Infinite space and also finite,
Individual,
Solid self.
Both are true.
Bringing any movement in that feels like it might be helpful.
Resting hands on heart,
Dropping chin to chest.
A moment to offer the fruits of our practice to all beings.
