I wanted to record this guided meditation for connecting to the cosmos
because I thought you might really like it.
Do you think about space as someplace
out there,
As something in the future,
Somewhere where you'll never go?
One of the most amazing things about space is we're already there.
In this guided meditation I'd like to invite you to experience the
interconnections of your everyday life with outer space,
The interbeing of our
lives in the cosmos.
You might want to start by getting
comfortable in a chair or on a cushion,
Anywhere
where you won't be disturbed.
You could sit in a meditation position
with your back upright and your shoulders relaxed,
Scanning through your body and easing each part that you can
while remaining alert and in the most stable posture for you.
You might want to set your hands in your lap or rest them on your thighs
and before you carry on reading just take a few breaths.
And before you carry on just take a few breaths.
Maybe you'd also like to invite a bell or chime
to ring and breathe with that ring.
As you breathe in just recognise the
simple reality that you're breathing in and as you breathe out just recognise
that you're breathing out.
There's nowhere to go,
There's nothing to
do,
No one to be.
As you sit and breathe open yourself up to the idea that
outer space is already an intimate part of your everyday life.
Breathe in deeply.
Fill your lungs with air,
Deep into your stomach.
Feel the air flowing past your nose and into your mouth,
Down into your lungs and then back out again.
Follow this breath as it travels the course into you
and out of you.
Breathing in,
Know that you're breathing in.
Breathing
out,
Know that you're breathing out.
Start by imagining the world around you shifting back in time
to the deep history of our planet.
As you stay still time travels backwards
all around you,
Unwinding,
Returning you to the wonders of our
early life of the planet Earth.
You're watching the seas of our ancestor planet.
Massive plumes of phytoplankton are blooming in ancient oceans.
Billions of these microscopic organisms,
Bacteria,
Plants,
Protists are swirling in
the sea.
You see them using chlorophyll to soak in
and absorb radiation from our star,
From the sunlight.
They're breathing in carbon dioxide,
Breathing out oxygen,
Increasing the oxygen in our atmosphere.
They are building the atmosphere as we
know it now,
Making it less toxic for future life.
As they bloom they're making it possible for our distant evolutionary ancestors
to eventually leave the sea for the first time,
Grow
and even walk on land while wearing spacesuit-like bodies filled with ocean
water.
Returning now to the present day,
Notice that
as you inhale Earth's atmosphere you're breathing with all the plants and other
photosynthesizers.
Those everywhere,
Those near you,
Maybe those indoors with you,
Those just outside
in the cities,
The parks,
Forests,
In the deserts,
On the top of mountains.
All around the planet they're still breathing with us.
We breathe together in our shared biosphere,
Made possible by the bright warm radiation from a star.
As you feel this intimacy of the breath with our plant ancestors
and with the plants today,
Feel your breathing.
As you feel this intimacy of the breath with our plant ancestors
and with the plants today,
Feel in your breathing
how we live and die with the stars on a solar-powered world.
Breathing in,
Knowing that you are breathing in with the plants.
Breathing out,
Know that you are breathing out
with the plants.
We live with all the life of this planet Earth.
We all live together on a thin layer of mineral and organic material
covering the surface of the planet.
Life is born from this layer of material,
Life returns to this layer of material and then re-emerges again in a new form.
The water of the clouds falls into this living layer,
Flows through it,
Evaporates into the sky and
falls again as rain.
The water goes into our bodies,
Comes out again
and flows to the Earth,
Rises again,
Returns to the clouds,
Falls again.
Feel this in your body,
The way you're made out of so much water,
Just as you sit here.
You've carried the ocean with you onto the land
and just as the water circulates through the biological and mineral layers of the
surface of our planet,
The water also circulates through your
body.
The water in you was once a cloud,
Was in a deer,
Was in a slug,
A whale,
A fly,
A mushroom,
In bacteria
and in other humans.
The water in you was once a river.
The water in you carved great canyons,
Froze into snowflakes,
Reshaped the landscape as glaciers sliding across continents.
The water in us reminds us that all life on this planet is part of us.
Breathing in,
Knowing that you're breathing in with the water
of the rivers and clouds and seas.
Breathing out,
Know that you're breathing out
with the water of the rain and the ice.
Right now,
Feel what it's like to know you are sitting on the surface of a
planet in space.
Our home planet,
This Earth,
Is already in space.
You are travelling on a living hybrid
organic inorganic spaceship with a life support system
more complex than anything humans have created.
A complex environmental system that keeps us
and keeps us all thriving,
Breathing,
Continuing.
You can even feel this massive planetary ship humming with life
and movement and weather and energy as it soars through the vastness of space.
Bring your attention to where you are right now on this planet.
Feel your body grounded here on the Earth.
Feel the points of contact your body is making with the chair or the floor or the
cushion you're sitting on.
When we sit like this anywhere on Earth,
We're being held
gently on the surface of a planet by the vast life support system of a
planetary ecology.
Breathing in,
Know that you're breathing in with Earth.
Breathing out,
Know that you are breathing out
with the ecosystem of the Earth.
As you sit here on the surface of the Earth,
There is only one direction.
Inward and outward are the same.
Space is in every direction.
Spaciousness is out there and inside us.
Whether you're indoors or outdoors,
Underground or high in a building,
The sky is around you,
Of you,
Even below you.
Whether you go left or right or climb higher or lower,
Every time you see the sky,
Every time you breathe,
You're looking out into space,
Touching space.
You are breathing because of the radiation from our star
and you're protected from that star by a planetary force field.
As a solar wind rushes out of the sun in every direction,
It reaches Earth also,
But our planet's magnetic field creates a soft cushion
all around us.
As the solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field collide,
The friction ignites the aurora fires in our skies
and these cosmic sky fires have reminded humans
since the dawn of our species that we're already living in outer space.
That we're protected by the Earth.
That we're safe.
So as you sit here now,
Breathing with the Earth,
You are protected by the Earth.
Right now,
You're not only on Earth but inside our entire solar system.
The sun,
Our moon,
All the planets and their moons.
We're all enveloped inside an even bigger force field
created by our sun,
Known as the heliosphere.
An even larger bubble pushing her back against the interstellar winds,
Just as the Earth's magnetic field repels the solar wind from our star.
Breathing in,
Know that you're breathing in with the Earth's magnetosphere.
Breathing out,
Know that you're breathing out with the heliosphere,
As the solar winds mingle with the interstellar winds
at the edge of our solar system.
As we ride through space on the surface of this planet,
Embraced by the atmosphere,
Breathing with all the plants and the animals and
other living things,
We're all embraced by the interstellar
planet.
Embraced by the atmosphere,
Breathing with all the plants and the
animals and other people,
The body flowing with water of the
clouds and rivers,
Grounded by gravity.
Think about Earth's
trajectory.
Consider our path as we travel through
outer space.
As the Earth rotates and night turns to dawn,
And day darkens to sunset and the skies full of stars are revealed at
night,
Again and again,
All over the planet,
We are also moving around the Sun,
Circling our star
at the heart of our solar system every year.
As we rotate and circle the Sun,
Our entire solar system is also in motion,
Moving around the centre of the Milky Way galaxy,
Along with all the other
planets and stars and systems in our galaxy.
And our galaxy is in turn moving as part of an
almost unimaginably vast river of galaxies,
Inside one filament of the massive galactic superclusters,
All these streams filled with countless galaxies,
Surging together along cosmic threads of gravitational flow,
Like rivers across continents flowing to the sea.
We are spinning,
Circling,
Rotating,
Spiralling
and flowing across the universe inside rivers
made of clusters of galaxies,
Composed of
galaxies which are themselves made up of billions of solar systems,
Which are made up of billions of planets.
Breathing in,
Know that you're breathing in with the enormous
slow turning of the entire Milky Way galaxy.
Breathing out,
Know that you're breathing out
with flowing rivers of galaxies,
Streams of galactic superclusters
reaching across the universe.
This is how we go through space together,
As a river.
Together we breathe with the
plants and animals,
We flow with the water,
We are embraced
by the planet,
We circle the Sun and we're held and
protected by the magnetic fields of the Earth and the solar winds,
We circumnavigate the galaxy,
We flow in rivers of galaxies,
We breathe,
Drink,
Walk,
Speak and flow with the cosmos.
You are on the Earth,
You are of the Earth,
You are in the solar system and you are of the solar system,
You are traveling around the galaxy and you are of the galaxy,
You are crossing the universe,
You are of the universe,
You are moving in space,
Space is moving in you,
The cosmos is interbeing,
Interbeing is the cosmos,
You are the cosmos,
The cosmos is you,
We are cosmic interbeing.
