Metamorphosis Meditation (for 1/2024 retreat)

Please get comfortable and if you’d like, let’s close our eyes, or not, and breathe together.  Inhale through the nose, and exhale through the mouth.  Slowing down our breathing and taking a pause at the in-breath and a pause at the out-breath, continuously breathing.  Now, picture this circle’s energy as we breathe together.  You may see colors or textures, motion, you may not have any visualizations at all. Just let what comes to you, come, as you breathe with all of us a few more moments.

When you are ready, you can bring your attention back to our physical space here, wiggle your toes/fingers, and when you are ready, feel free to open your eyes and join us.

I’d like to start with a blessing by Richard Rudd, who wrote The Gene Keys and who is orchestrating a 3 month retreat that I am enjoying called the Dream Arc.  I can give you details later.

Read Richard Rudd’s blessing: 

May love pour through our souls

May light flower in our hearts

May warmth radiate through our bellies

May purity shimmer in our bones

May kindness resound in our voices

May clarity shine through our minds

May solace abound in our lives

Touching all who we meet

May solace abound in the world

Bringing all beings into perfect union

Introductions and/or Checking in with how you are feeling today, in a brief word or two, and we’ll do more sharing later.

Metamorphosis Meditation

Ring bell

Sitting comfortably, or lying on the ground, in whatever position you prefer, let your body relax, let all your muscles fall with gravity to the ground. Let us breathe together again. Breathing in on the inhale, pause, breathing out on the exhale, pause. Breathing in through the nose, if possible, pause, and breathing out through the mouth, pause.  Slowing down our breathing for a few moments.

Let your eyes relax, closing them if you would like.  Let your jaw and tongue relax.  Let your cheeks relax.  Your shoulders relax. Your chest and your heart relaxing as you breathe.

Let your belly relax, let your gut relax, let your bottom, the root, sacred and solar plexus chakras relax, letting gravity pull them down while you feel a release, letting them go, all those muscles and nerves we use and have to hold us upright, solid.  Let them all relax. 

Let all your appendages, your arms, hands, fingers, legs, ankles, feet and toes relax. So many parts of our bodies we often don’t think about, just let them all relax. As we breathe, inhale, pause, exhale, pause.

This guided meditation that I offer here is voluntary and if you stray from my words, that is totally fine.  No need to listen, but just relax. I'll ring a bell when we are complete. If you want to listen to my words and want to participate, please do.  Not more than 5 - 10 mins.

Let’s adventure together into a jungle, continuing to breathe gently. You can imagine any kind of jungle, Amazonian or a city jungle. You can imagine a jungle-like forest or any other kind of jungle that comes to you.  Picture your jungle or whatever space comes to you.  Good.

Now, look around you and see the plants, the trees. You may see a stream  or a small river somewhere nearby. What do you hear in this jungle? Pause. What do you smell in this jungle? Pause. What’s the weather like in this jungle?  Pause. And, how do you feel in this jungle?

Imagine yourself in this jungle or whatever space you are in right now. How does your body move within this space? Are you walking, swimming, floating, how are you moving?

Are there any creatures in your jungle?  Insects, birds, snakes, other mammals, reptiles, what creatures do you see?  Pause. Are they close by or distant? Pause. Do they interact with you, or not?

Now, you see a medium size spring of water, near or connected to a stream. You come closer to the spring and see the slight ripples of water at the top and you wonder how deep this spring is. You might touch the water and feel how cool or warm the water is.

Just look at the spring and the surrounding area for a moment. Pause. And, as you watch the spring, you will begin to see an object rising to the surface of the spring. Dimly at first, and then clearer and clearer. This could be a symbol, an animal, or any object, anything at all that you see rising up in the spring, coming closer and closer to the surface.  How do you feel?

When this object gently breaks the water’s surface, you now feel a sense of calm, seeing what the full object is.  You have no fear because you know that somehow this object has risen here to communicate with you, sharing information with you.  

I’d like you to ask the object or being a question, a question of any sort but one that seems important for you to ask. Pause.  Remember to breathe in and out, and in your imagination, ask the object this question, and wait patiently for a response. Pause.

You may have heard an answer to your question from your object or you may not have heard anything, and any and everything that happens belongs.  Either way. For the moment, just hang out with this creature or object, knowing that soon, it will be time to thank it and then say good-bye for now.  Knowing that you can always come back to this space and time and visit again, whenever you choose to. Pause.

Now, you can thank this object for participating in this meditation, wondering how this object is a part of you now. May have always been a part of you. You can call upon it any time you want. Or, it may come to you in a dream, waking or asleep, if you have more to learn about it and from it.  A part you may not have known you had, or a part you are very familiar with. Or anything in between.

Now, we will continue to breathe together as we come up out of this spring-like meditation, rising to our surfaces, breathing and knowing we are returning to this circle, full of these beings, carrying with us, all our parts, known and unknown, all of them belonging to us, within us.

When you are ready, wiggle your toes or stretch your limbs, tighten and release any muscles that became tense during this meditation and you can open your eyes when you are ready.  Take your time….

Ring bell

If you’d like to jot down just a few words about your experience, feel free and then we will share.  Pause.

When we share, let’s become excellent listeners and witnesses. We are not here to give advice or to interrupt someone’s speaking.  Instead just listen and if you are triggered by whatever is said, or have big feelings about any parts of the sharing, please try to hold and contain your reactions, verbally and physically if possible. And, later if you feel the need to talk about your reactions, find someone safe to do that with, sharing only your experience, you reaction, not the speakers’ content.

Now, let’s go around the circle and if you want to share about your experience and any part of this time together or your internal experiences, please feel free.  You can also pass, and no judgment about passing.  You can speak as openly as freely as you choose to, or not much at all.