Hello there.
Thank you for joining me and the plants here,
For taking a moment for yourself,
A moment to connect more deeply with the living world of which we are a wonderful part.
This tea meditation is a simple tool to cultivate an embodied relationship to plants.
I invite you to bring a special quality of exquisite awareness to this process,
A deep and loving mindfulness,
As this is what will bring a feeling of connection alive in you.
To do this meditation,
You will need to prepare a hot cup of herbal tea.
I recommend you use a single herb like chamomile or peppermint or tulsi rather than a tea blend.
Feel free to also use green tea or black tea or even black coffee,
These are what you love,
Because they are also plants.
If you need to pause this recording to get yourself ready in any way,
Now is the moment to do so.
Place your tea on the table or ground in front of you and find a comfortable seat,
Wriggling around a bit before coming into stillness.
Notice how you are.
All is welcome.
Accepting whatever feelings,
Sensations or thoughts that might arise.
Just be how you are right now.
Connect with the breath.
Feel the air flowing in and out of you like waves on the shore of an ocean.
Slow and steady.
Feel your body moving with the lungs and the breath like a wave.
And as you breathe,
Allowing your body to soften and relax.
Feeling any tension in your neck,
Your shoulders,
Your arms and hands,
Your chest,
Your back and your belly just softening and melting away.
Relaxing your glutes,
Your legs,
Your feet.
Feeling gravity draw you gently down into relaxation.
Relaxing the small muscles around the eyes and the mouth and softening the mind.
Take a few deep breaths,
Long and slow and steady.
Feeling the breath entering you and feeling yourself soften and relax as you breathe out.
Open your eyes,
Allowing a gentle gaze to fall on your cup of tea.
Consider the fact that this liquid is full of the body of plants.
Allow the mystery and wonder of this to enter you.
This tea is full of the body of little beings that have grown somewhere on this earth,
Probably far away,
Who have turned water and sunlight into an incredible symphony of chemicals that just happens to offer flavour and scent and healing to your body.
Consider this loving gift from the plants.
Take your tea into your hands and feel the warmth of the cup penetrate into your flesh,
Warming you,
Relaxing you.
Draw this comfort deep into your body and feel your body soften and relax further.
Bring the tea to your face and inhale the steam deep into your lungs.
What do you smell?
What different strands of fragrance can you distinguish in this herbs aroma?
What does this smell make you feel?
Breathe deeply of this plant.
Now take a sip of your tea.
Allow it to roll around in your mouth.
What can you taste?
What are the different flavours embedded in this one tea?
And as you swallow your tea,
What do you feel inside yourself?
What do you notice?
As you drink your tea,
Draw it into yourself.
Feel the warmth,
The liquid and the essence of this plant penetrate deep into yourselves,
Offering its gift to you.
Continue to drink your tea slowly,
Noticing any sensations,
Thoughts or images that arise.
Just being with the experience of drinking this tea,
Drinking this plant.
Return to the breath.
Soften your body.
Bring your awareness back into loving attention towards these plants in your tea.
Towards the sensations,
The flavours and the smells that you are experiencing.
If you find yourself drifting,
Just returning to the breath.
Returning to this sensation of embodied connection to the plant world.
Release the energy that Centre Life will grow over you.
As we finish this meditation I encourage you to offer your thanks and gratitude to the unique individual plants that you have been drinking.
The plants that grew somewhere in the earth and turned soil,
Sunlight and water into this beautiful cup of tea you have just enjoyed.
You have been communicating with these plants in your tea because plants communicate in chemicals through taste,
Through scent,
Through soil,
With each other,
With microbes and with us.
This complex biochemical infusion you have been drinking is a delicate bundle of instructions for your body.
Invitations from this plant into deeper wellness,
Deeper nourishment and deeper relationship with life.
By bringing a quality of tender awareness to the simple act of drinking tea,
Taking these little beings into your own body and heart you can start to weave yourself back into the web of life.
You might start to feel this incredible belonging that we have to the earth.
The immense love and care that we are always receiving from this planet regardless of our achievements,
Our failures,
Our desires,
Our fears or our dreams.
I invite you to use each cup of tea as an opportunity to briefly drop into this embodied sense of connection with the living world and with the specific plants who have offered themselves to you in your cup of tea.
Even for just one breath.
