The Yogabliss on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. We focused on letting go as the leaves are letting go in the days before Autumn Equinox. We explored different ways of finding “the rest inside the unrest.” These restorative practices give us a chance to slow down. We create the space and time to tune into feeling alive and listening to our inner music.
Today’s guided meditation was inspired by Cheri Dostal Ryba. Cheri is a yoga therapist who focuses on women’s pelvic health. In her book Pelvic Yoga Therapy for the Whole Woman, Cheri writes “becoming aware without judgment or immediately “fixing” ourselves allows us to receive accurately, wholly. From that baseline of clear perception, we can respond skillfully, lovingly, articulately.”
We heard Danna Fauld’s poem, Go In and In, from her collection: Poems from the Heart of Yoga. Danna offers a “poem of the week” on her inspirational web-site.
We heard Jennifer Williamson’s beautiful poem, I Am Enough. Jennifer, a suicide loss survivor, offers grief support through her website, Healing Brave.
Guided Reflection
Here we are on this autumn day. It is a day we can see the dry colored leaves let go and float to the ground. This coming Thursday we will experience the Fall Equinox. The sun beams on the equator and Earth’s northern and southern hemispheres receive equal light. There is nothing we need to do to receive this light. Perhaps this “not doing” can inspire us to explore the gifts of being.
Poet Danna Faulds invites us to Go In and In:
Go in and in.
Be the space between two cells,
the vast, resounding
silence in which
spirit dwells.
Be sugar dissolving
on the tongue of life. . . .
I invite you to settle your body in comfort and ease. Sense how your body is shifting from doing to being. Relax whatever you can. As you feel your body breathing, experience this on going settling and support. Can you give your weight over to Earth’s body? Can you give yourself over to rest? As you slow down begin to go in and in. Drop below skin, muscle and bone, drop down into your very existence at the level of the cells. Rest. Rest here in the space between cells. Imagine them surrounded and buoyed by a kind of gel-like fluidity that holds and nourishes them. Can you trust that every cell knows what needs doing? There’s nothing here for you to “do.” Cells are breathing on your behalf.
Imagine how your cells shimmer. Feel how they pulse and vibrate with life. You are nourished and alive. The poet Danna encourages you to:
Dive in and in,
as deep as you can dive.
Be infinite, ecstatic truth.
Be love conceived and born in union.
Let go. The more deeply you rest and receive, the better your cells can sustain you. Attune to their fluid, cyclical rhythm, humming with aliveness. Imbibing what they need, releasing what’s done. Feel yourself float in this experience of being. Can you let yourself stay as if time itself has suspended?
Go in and in
and turn away from
nothing that you find.
Gradually let your senses come back up to the surface. Slowly moving from cells, fluids, soft and hard tissues to the temperature of air on your skin, the firmness at those places where your body touches Earth’s body. Hear Danna’s encouraging words:
Be exactly what you seek,
the Beloved, singing Yes,
tasting Yes, embracing Yes,
until there is only essence;
the All of Everything
expressing through you
as you.
Once again I invite you to settle your body in comfort and ease. Sense how your body is shifting from doing to being. Relax whatever you can. Trust that the sun is shining. Trust that your cells know what needs doing. Trust that your body is breathing. Trust in being. Poet Jennifer Williamson writes:
I Am Enough
There is a wholeness that’s already mine.
It’s already ours.
I am not just the seed,
I am the rain that waters the flower.
It’s a reality that’s already there,
That I am enough.
I take on faith
That wholeness is already mine,
That I need do nothing to deserve,
That my worthiness is based only on my being.
I am wise enough to let go,
And I am strong enough to remember the truth
Of who I really am.
I can encounter the world
In such a way
That I remember who I am.
Notice how these words land for you. What is true about your own sense of wholeness? How does it inform your relationship with being and doing? Can you let any answers surface in this space of being? In this rest inside the unrest, you might feel the forces underlying thoughts, feelings and emotions. You might feel the energy of personality: its attachments and aversions. Is it possible to offer personality compassion? It works so hard defending and struggling. In practice we are encouraged to let it be. Welcome it all and allow experience and insight to emerge.
Jennifer agrees:
There is no problem to solve in this moment.
There is no plan to make,
No failure to be feared,
No other place to be.
This moment is enough.
This place is enough.
This imperfection is enough.
I am patient enough for my life to unfold in divine timing.
I feel the fullness of my life in this moment.
I feel the richness of my life in this space.
I am loved beyond thought,
And I have nothing to prove.
There is no one to impress.
I receive the message
That being is enough. . . .
The message remains:
I am the same.
I have always been enough,
Simply by being here.
Simply by being.
It only takes a moment,
And I remember this again.
In closing from Lucy Matthews Heegard:
When the last leaf falls
the tree still stands.
There is no limit to love.