Meditations, experiments, books and guided meditations to assist with nourishing spirituality, healing childhood wounds, and living more consciously.
Meditations, experiments, books and guided meditations to assist with nourishing spirituality, healing childhood wounds, and living more consciously.
This month’s meditation on wholeness ends the year with touching into the fact that every living thing on the planet emits its own unique tone and quality of wholeness and that these individual contributions offer themselves to the brilliant light radiating from the wholeness of our precious earth.
If you’d like to see images with your meditation, the YouTube version is below the audio…
As I did some exercise in Central Park the other day, I came to a tree that I wanted to greet, so I put my hand on it and kind of leaned in and thanked the tree for being such an important presence in my life. I also asked the tree to extend my appreciation to all the other trees in the park. Together, they create an environment in which we humans can find a degree of comfort and inspiration. As I talked with the tree, a woman walked by and said, “I do that, too!” As I turned to face her, she said it again and we both commented on how lucky we are to have the park as a living part of our urban lives.
Continuing on, I noticed how many other elements of the park speak to me and offer a sense of belonging to something so much more than my individual human self. I noticed, and have as park friends, some of the large boulders that are found throughout Central Park. I also noted and appreciated, as I always do, the earth under my feet, this precious earth. Then, there are the squirrels, hawks, pigeons, rats, and other wildlife who inhabit the park and who appear here and there as I walk along. No insects to honor at this time of year, but they’ll be back come Spring.
Read More “825th Week: Offering Appreciation to Nature”
Returning to what we explored earlier this year, notice any change in your experience over this time of recognizing the living presence of relationships, collaborative communities, that are everywhere in your life and that your radiating presence touches everyone and everything you encounter along the way.
Bring to mind all the many people and life forms who work behind the scenes of your everyday experience to make your life possible; think of farmers and what they produce to contribute to what you eat and enjoy; imagine all the people who make and repair farm equipment; imagine the people who participate in communities that bring you electricity, water, garbage pickup, mail and packages; imagine all the people who contribute in any way to items you use as part of your daily life, including gadgets, household items, clothing, and more; each time you do this meditation, think of more people who are part of this community, people with whom you are in relationship even when you don’t recognize it; offer gratitude and blessings to all of them—acknowledging that without them your life would be very different. Notice your experience in your heart space as you do this.
Please remember never to listen to guided audio meditations while driving or using dangerous machinery.
Here’s the YouTube version if you’d like to see images of nature as you listen:
I ended last week’s practice with a suggestion to come back to the present moment and to this current breath as a way to manage some of the stress of this time in our collective lives.
One of the practices that I used to teach in the Somatic Experiencing® trainings was to invite people to notice how they “add fuel to the bonfires of activation”. Many of us have grown up in cultures that don’t focus on tracking how we allow our thinking to drag us hither and yon, an experience that generates enormous amounts of suffering. In this time of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s more important than ever to be able to notice when we increase our suffering by allowing our fear-generated thoughts to dominate our attention and experience.
One of the practices that can be difficult but is powerfully important is to hold the intention to come back to the present moment, to the breath you’re taking right now, and to focus awareness on this breath, on this moment. In terms of self-talk, one of the things that’s helpful to say while doing this practice is something along the lines of, “In this moment, right here and right now, I’m okay enough.”
Read More “782nd Week: This Breath, This Moment”
This month, we continue our theme of the range of relationships we have with the world around us and how we bring our presence to these many connections, even those we may not think about often but are aspects of our everyday experience. In this meditation, we bring to mind the many people and life-forms who work behind the scenes to make our life possible. Those who make it possible for us to have food to eat; those who bring electricity, water, and other necessities into our lives. All the people who contribute in ay way to items used in daily life, including gadgets, household items, clothing, and more. In this meditation, we offer gratitude and blessings to all…
Below are two version of the meditation. One is audio only and the other is audio with images of nature. Please remember never to listen to these audio meditations when driving or operating dangerous machinery…