I invite you to enter a period of quiet for a guided meditation. You may wish to adjust your position so that your spine is straight, your body relaxed, your hands resting gently in your lap. You will probably want to close your eyes and shut out all the distractions of the light. Let us take a few deep, slow breaths and begin…
With vision muted, notice what your other senses are telling you… you may feel a sense of pressure in your back or your sitting bones, where your body comes in contact with your chair… you may have feelings of tightness in your shoulders… along the jawline…
Release any areas of tension that you notice… soften the neck and the swallowing muscles… release any tension you feel in your abdomen, imagining the inner organs in your belly letting go of tension… soften your eyes, let them feel warm and relaxed, as if floating in a pool of water… inhale, exhale… you may notice strange sensations such as tingling in a muscle, or a ticklish feeling on the skin… whatever comes to your awareness is okay, just acknowledge it in the silence…
Let us turn our attention to the sounds around us… What do you notice in the sanctuary? You may hear your own breathing, or growling stomach… you may hear a neighbor shifting position… perhaps cars passing on the street, and wind blowing by the outer walls of the building…
Having acknowledged these outward sounds, let us turn our focus inward now… thoughts may float through your consciousness, you can just let them float on by… feelings may bubble up from some deeper place with you – you don’t have to name the feeling or put any words to it, just notice if there is anything there for you, with gentle acceptance…
Now imagine your body and mind are filled with darkness and silence, like the deep, dark night in a wilderness… Take comfort in the stillness, the restfulness of this space within you… Don’t try to make anything happen, just rest into this inner darkness, knowing that you are safe in this moment… you can simply Be… breathe in and out…
In the quiet corners within, let us sense the healing powers of the body… the amazing ability of our soft animal body to restore damaged cells, to create new healthy cells, to bring balance to systems that have gotten out of whack… let us acknowledge, too, the creative powers of our minds and hearts… from the mysterious inner regions comes all poetry, all music… from the inner dark emerges all sculpture, and dance… all the art and cultures that are the heritages of humanity… even consciousness itself, the great unsolved mystery of science, resides in the deep unknown of ourselves…
Continue to be with your breath and a still, quiet mood as you rest a while longer in the darkness, with humility and awe and gratitude for all the powers of the darkness within yourself...