Often, when we talk about simplifying, getting back to basics or our foundation, we say “getting back to our roots”... and my offering this month is exactly that -

It is an invitation to get back to our roots in the most literal way possible. To explore our rootedness and how this relates to our meditation practice.

Today’s mini meditation is offered with the reminder that community is a valuable part of any meditation practice. It is what helps us to explore meditation off the cushion and to put our practice into everyday use.

Join me!

One of my intentions for 2022 is to truly pay attention to and foster community both in my work and my personal life. This is a value I hold so dear, and I’ve felt the impact of the last 2.5 years as it has asked us all to reimagine community connection.

You’ll hear some short thoughts from me, and we will share in a 20-minute guided meditation as usual.

In today’s mini meditation, I’m sharing another elemental practice with you in celebration of my upcoming program Elemental Awakening.

We have explored two different wind-based practices recently and now we will revisit an old favorite - fire. Today’s meditation is one of my original offerings in Roots - my nature-based meditation app. In this practice, you hear the embers of a campfire crackling as it burns in Little Yosemite Valley. This soundscape was recorded by Gordon Hempton and the meditation was written from  my direct experience of sitting in front of decades worth of campfires.

“Back when humans lived in communal caves and tribal encampments, we told stories about the stars. When we started sailing, we used these same pinpricks of light to estimate our own location. When we began planting, we relied on the constellations and the Sun to plant and sustain crops. Yet today, most modern humans have lost this deep connection to the cosmos that was once central to our daily lives.”

Join me for this exploration of the cosmos, mindfulness, and some new practices you can try tonight.

Join me for today’s mini meditation as we practice holding multiple truths and bringing synthesis to the moment.

Today’s meditation is inspired by the guided visualization Higher than Delight, Deeper than Sorrow written by Rabbi Jill Hammer

“Even things so diverse as pleasure and pain are still made up of the same building blocks, the same human consciousness and experience, the same divine creative force. The wheel of letters contains all phenomena. All happenings are ultimately one, even when they appear radically different. When we understand this, we can come to a state of equanimity within the cosmos.” - Rabbi Jill Hammer

It is all the same wind, just blowing differently.

And, the suggested solution, over and over again, is Equanimity.

Rather than fight with the present moment, can we learn to be with it exactly as it is?

Today’s mini meditation invites you to meditate with the idea and experience of wind.

This experience invites us into equanimity as sometimes we resonate with the sensation of being blown around. Chaotic, uncontrolled. Other times, we resonate with the sensation of our feet solidly on the ground, a steady anchor as the wind whips around us.