I invite you now into a time of meditation. You may wish to adjust your position: your feet flat on the ground, your body resting easily against the back of the chair, your hands gently open, palms up, resting on your thighs, your eyelids relaxed and half-closed, your breathing soft and easy.
SILENCE (60 seconds)
BEGIN AUDIO (ocean waves)
In these next several minutes I ask you to give yourself the gift of . . . time. Time for your spirit to lay down its burden; time for your thoughts to ease away from each other, creating pockets of silence between the noise of their passing; time for your body to simply rest. Time to rest, an infant safe and warm in the womb of our Mother Earth, listening only to the soothing, regular sound of her timeless pulse connecting each of us to All That Is. Time to simply be.
SILENCE (60 seconds)
You sit at the foaming edge of land and liquid, watching the rhythms of the waves, watching the water transmit the energy of the winds traveling over it, watching that energy crest across the barrier of the sand and pebbles. Some pebbles, larger than others, only shift gently in place as the water sluices around them. Others, smaller, more agile, seem to chase the backwash as the water ebbs away, only to be returned-more or less-to where they began.
SILENCE (90 seconds)
Sometimes, we are boulders at the water's edge, absorbing the water's energy in stoic strength, standing solid and unmovable, defiant and unyielding as the water churns around us. (PAUSE) Sometimes, we are rocks: stubborn, slow to be moved, sluggish in our response to the tides pushing and pulling us. (PAUSE) Sometimes, we are pebbles tumbling helter-skelter, higglety-pigglety-pop, overwhelmed and unable to resist the breaking waves and sucking backwashes that we just can't seem to get away from. (PAUSE) And sometimes, we are sand, with an infinite capacity to accept and absorb and transmit the energies breaking against us, able to allow those energies to pass through us, through the pockets of silence, of space, of peace within us. (PAUSE)
What are you today? The boulder? The rock? The pebble? The sand? All of these? What is the energy that is swirling around you? How is that changing you? How is that energy changed by your interaction with it?
SILENCE (at least 5 minutes)
In every breath, in every curving muscle and ligament, in every pulse and rhythm you experience, there is a story of you. Of who you were, of who you are now, of who you will choose to be. Of how you choose to be connected to All That Is. A story that is still being written--by you.
END AUDIO
Now, take a deep breath. Take another, and open your eyes, your feet flat on the ground, your body resting easily against the back of the chair, your hands gently open, palms up, resting on your thighs.
SILENCE (30 seconds)