I invite you to close down your eyes and breathe through your body,
Relax each part of your body and let each muscle relax down.
Give yourself permission to be here,
Breathe in and breathe out and as you're breathing in and breathing out,
Bring to your mind's eye a beautiful tree,
Maybe one that you've seen in a picture or driven past or sat under and if you're not very visual,
Use your other senses to imagine that beautiful tree.
What does this tree smell like?
What does it feel like?
What does it sound like when the wind is moving through it?
What does the bark of the tree look like or feel like when you touch it?
How wide is it?
Could you put your arms around that tree trunk or is it so big that you wouldn't be able to hug around it?
What leaves are on the tree?
Are they flowers or blossoms?
What are the colors of the leaves?
We're going to lay down under the tree and watch the leaves blowing in the breeze.
Watch the sunlight coming through those leaves.
Maybe you can see clouds in your sky or maybe your sky is cloudless and blue,
Softly moving,
Breathing in and breathing out,
Slowly breathing with those leaves,
With that shimmering sunlight Thoughts may try and come and interrupt this beautiful view.
Acknowledge them and then release them and return to the leaves and the trees.
While we lie under the tree today,
We're going to contemplate the great spiritual leader,
Ram Dass.
He said,
When you go out into the woods and you look at the trees,
You see all these different trees.
Some of them are bent.
Some of them are straight.
Some of them are evergreens.
Some of them are whatever.
You look at the trees and you allow it.
You see,
Why is it the way it is?
You sort of understand that it didn't get enough light and so it turned that way.
You don't get all emotional about it.
You just allow it.
You appreciate the tree.
The minute you get near humans,
You lose all that.
You're constantly saying,
You're to this,
I'm to this.
That judgment mind comes in.
So I practice turning people into trees,
Which means appreciating them just the way they are.
We need to water our tree.
We need to water our soul with compassion and kindness to ourselves and others.
We need to be around people who water our souls,
Find people who believe in us.
We need to speak with kindness to ourselves.
Let's practice turning people into trees.
Let's appreciate each for their uniqueness,
Including ourselves.
I invite you this week to practice turning people into trees.
And as we lie under this beautiful tree,
Let's breathe and set the intention of turning people into trees and accepting ourselves and others for our uniqueness.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
