Welcome to the River Meditation.
For this meditation the invitation is to find a comfortable position lying down.
In doing so allowing yourself to surrender to being held by the earth below just as the river does.
Gently bringing your awareness to your physical body.
The posture that you've chosen with care,
Perhaps firstly feeling into the contact points.
Where your body is in contact perhaps with the floor,
Mat or whatever you're lying on.
Feeling into the weight of you firmly connected downwards,
Down towards the good earth thanks to gravity.
And as best you can surrendering in this moment to being held.
Softening into being held just as best you can.
Letting go.
Feeling the weight of you,
Firmly connected and held.
And whilst feeling into the physical body finding your breath here.
Maybe taking three deeper and slower than normal breaths.
To really get a strong felt sense of the breath in the body.
That inward breath nurturing the body,
Every cell of the body.
And the outward breath bringing that sense of settling,
Letting go,
Releasing the things that the body no longer needs.
And then allowing the breath to just ease on into however the natural rhythm for your breath is in this moment.
And just playing around here.
How can you make it as easeful as possible?
This being with the breath.
The body knows how to breathe.
So you can let go of the doing mind and simply rest feeling the body lying here in this moment.
A breathing body.
And now from this place of feeling quite grounded,
Steady.
Allowing yourself to bring to mind a river.
Either getting a strong felt sense of a river or maybe a clear visual of a river.
So in your mind's eye a river.
A large and natural stream of water flowing out into the sea.
Emptying into the sea.
A river that's fed along its way by numerous tributaries.
A river flowing along with numerous twists and turns.
Sometimes moving quite swiftly and other times almost still.
Similar to the flow of life in fact.
And the surface of the river is in sync with the weather.
The changing weather.
And below the surface the depths of the river remain relatively steady.
Held and contained by the receptive basin of the earth itself.
An understanding despite the ebbs and flows upon the surface.
The ever changing nature upon the surface of the river.
The water still asked to be held and contained for its journey to the sea.
It asked to be held by the earth along the way.
And the river that you're invoking it may be deep,
It may be shallow,
It may be cool,
It may be brown,
Blue,
Green or it may be clear.
With the river you're invoking understanding that when there's no wind the surface will be flat and mirror-like.
Reflecting and holding the landscape along its journey to the sea.
When the wind stirs up waves reflections become distorted or even disappear.
But the sunlight may still dance on the ripples and sparkle on the waves.
And when night comes it's the moon and the stars turn to be reflected and held by the river.
The river changes with the seasons having no true boundaries.
It grows deep and wide in the winter and shallow and narrow in the summer.
As you lie here establish this image of a river in your mind's eye.
Getting a strong sense of the river and its qualities.
And when you're ready allowing yourself lying here to embody those qualities of the river.
To feel into the river within you in this moment.
So that your being merges with the river becoming one with it.
So that your experience in this moment is held in awareness and openness.
Just like the earth holds the river.
Breathing as a river.
Feeling the rivers body as your body.
Allowing your mind and your heart to open and be receptive moment by moment.
Just as the earth is receptive to the ongoing changes of the water flowing in the river.
Experiencing moments of stillness where the water perhaps is clear and the surface is flat and mirror-like.
And then moments in your river where the wind stirs things up.
And things may become choppy and reflections are no longer there.
The depth seems muddy and lost for a moment.
And through it all as you lie here simply observing the play of your own body heart mind.
The fleeting thoughts feelings impulses and reactions coming and going just like the weather on the river.
Perhaps noticing their effect.
The various changing energies at play here in your river.
Just like those of the wind light smells temperatures shadows reflections and color of the river.
Noticing the effects of your thoughts and feelings.
Do they disturb the surface and clarity of the mind's river?
Do they muddy the waters and is that okay with you?
Isn't having a rippling or a wavy surface part of being a river?
So in lying here can you be aware of the ever-changing weather but also in touch with the receptivity openness and acceptance of the earth below.
The steadiness of your own awareness.
Able to hold all that is changing throughout.
Rivers and other aspects of nature can teach us this remind us of those qualities within.
The river reminding us of the river within.
Dwelling here in the stillness of this moment we can be the river in silence now.
As Raina Maria Wilkie says may what I do flow within me like a river.
No forcing and no holding back.
You you you you you you
