Coming Home Meditation 2x This Week ~ Plus, A Sample for Those Curious Souls Who Haven't Been
Join me this week for our regular group meditation offering on Tuesday at 9am or Thursday at Noon EST
Dear Friends,
This week, I’m offering Coming Home practice twice. You can join us on Tuesday morning at 9-10am EST and/or Thursday from 12-1pm EST.
Coming Home has held a special place in my heart since it emerged out of COVID’s agitation and isolation. It is a beautiful and warm community of sincere practitioners, some of whom have been with me from the beginning (thank you). In recent weeks, we’ve been exploring a new format where we spend the first 30 minutes surfacing what is alive and present for each of us. I then guide a meditative journey that weaves together all of the themes and stories and characters that have emerged over the course of our sharing. The primary medicine is in the sharing.
The premise is that the living world is constantly speaking to us; trying to help us on our path. Sometimes it speaks in feelings or intuitions. Sometimes it speaks in symbols and coincidences. Sometimes, it speaks through challenges and resistance. We sit in radical presence with all of it—together. The effect is deeply healing and invigorating. Somehow sitting with our experience this deeply allows the medicine each of us holds, all of these experiences, to penetrate. It’s a kind of group alchemy.
The “stew” we make together is delicious and nourishing. I hope you’ll come this fall and offer what you are holding. Let’s mix and mingle. Let’s become a more receptive field together…Let’s become pure awareness together…and receive the medicine the world and all its divinity is trying to give us. Here is the link to join:
Last week’s journey was so incredibly beautiful. I have transcribed it almost verbatim (just cleaning it up here and there for clarity). I wanted to review it myself and I thought it might be nice for some of you who are curious, to see for yourself where we go. Of course, reading a transcript is nothing like the spontaneous experience of being together as the prayer emerges through us! But, it is still lovely to see the way the journey progresses and where we stop along the way. Perhaps, it will encourage a few more intrepid seekers to join us! I have highlighted in bold the themes that arose in our discussion beforehand. These are the threads I was weaving…
Meditation: “Coyote” (30 min)
Take a seat or lay down, whatever feels good to you. Just relax.
We’ll start by evoking rest. So, just sitting with rest in the body. Rest in the mind. Resting into the body. Resting into this moment, into the group space.
Maybe noticing as you begin to rest, how tired…I begin to notice how tired the body is. I invite a noticing of where you’re tensing or holding. Find the resistance in the body. Where can you rest a little deeper?
Now, notice what can we rest into? This brings up trust. See if we can find…something to rest into…the earth? The ground? Into this community? Into the sharing of stories? My voice? Can you rest in your heart? Your own heart. What’s something you can trust to catch you—Right now? Whatever it is, it doesn't have to be profound. Though it might be.
Now let's experiment. Let's try trusting our own perception (the thread was discernment). Okay. See if you can tune in to your own awareness, your own senses, your own feeling, your felt sense. We’re just practicing to see what it would be like to trust that a little bit more. If the body feels agitated, just trust. Trust that experience. If the body feels relaxed. We can trust that. If there are sounds in the space…they might be very subtle, very, very subtle sounds. You can trust your ears, your hearing. You can trust the cushion beneath you, your seat, the floor. The couch. I think what we're exploring is trusting ourselves. Just check. How deep does that go? How deep? There's no judgment. Just look.
Let's bring the heart into our awareness. Check in and see what the heart is feeling. We can use our imagination. Imagine trusting your own heart a little bit more. The knowing, trusting the knowing in the heart. Can I trust my perception? Can I trust my experience in this moment? I trust my heart to know.
And right now it's safe to try, to explore. We're not acting right now, right? We're not doing. So we can just be in a space that is sacred space and with deep trust in ourselves. The impulses, the desires. How well do you know your own heart?
Now, let’s find the prayer. I love that Carolyn Myss says “pray like a crazy person.” But, who says what’s crazy? “Crazy” is from the outside looking in. So, be inside…the heart. Be inside. What’s crazy to you. Crazy night just work. Crazy inside is the place where miracles might actually be possible.
Don’t think too much. Don’t worry about what it means right now. We're just opening, opening the body. We're opening the heart, we're opening the ground. We're opening to trust because we're feeling ourselves. Right. Isn't that the gnostic experience? It's direct experience. Maybe I don't understand. But I can feel, see, and trust my experience. If it's not easy for you, that’s perfectly okay and makes sense. So, don't worry. We’re just practicing. Notice where it gets complicated or you jump out of your experience, or maybe your mind starts to tell you stories about how you can't really be trusted. Don't buy it, don’t judge, just watch. There’s a saying, “the heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of.”
Now, opening the top of the heart: that place of hope, inspiration, joy. Feel that aspiration, that yearning. Okay. But make sure it's grounded. This is a little bit for our friends who have been working so hard and looking for results. Feeling impatient with not being “there” yet. Let's open the crown. Let's feel the yearning upwards. And let's feel that yearning being met. It's light. Something very…Oh, I’d call it Grace. Badass grace.
We’ve exhausted every other modality, so now let’s try prayer. I open to receive. Humble myself. Stop trying so hard. Rest, trust. “Oh Lord or Universe or whoever or whatever you feel you’re praying to…I'm sorry I've had my head in the sand. I'm sorry I've been walking around like you're not there….” Now, it's up to you…Each of us, let’s speak our prayer, our needs inwardly or do it aloud. Pray like a crazy person. I’ll give that a minute…
Now, we’ve done it. We spoke our prayers. Grace heard us. They’ve already heard us. It doesn't mean it will happen, but it means that the request has been made. See if you can trust this channel even more. And if you feel like you've finished your prayer, you can pray for others. You can support the whole; you can pray and ask that others’ prayers be heard and received. You can pray for a miracle.
Now, here’s the funny part…just imagine that you've been praying very earnestly. We can be very earnest when we pray. And now you notice Coyote sitting there looking at you. See if you can play with some of that Wiley Coyote energy. You can see him, right? He sees you. How does it feel to be watched by Coyote? Abashed is the word that comes to me. I think Coyote sees the absurdity in our seriousness. If there's something you're taking way too seriously right now, call it to mind. Then see if that coyote has any advice. It could come in the form of words, symbols, gestures. Or a feeling. What is the medicine of Coyote in these times? Notice where there's resistance. It's not a meek energy. This is powerful medicine. As someone wise said to me once: “You have to let go of the part of you that's taking it all so seriously.” What would that be like? Maybe you think that you're holding it all together. Maybe it needs to fall apart. Maybe you're not actually in touch with how much help you have. It's like once Coyote runs amok and cleans house, he seems to leave something more real in his wake. And it's way more in touch with reality. Something closer to real.
So our friends who are looking to be more in touch with their anger, take a look and see how it arises after Coyote has been through town. What does that anger feel like? Is there anything different about the way you can hold it? If you’re working with discernment or clarity, see how that's different in Coyote’s wake.
In these last few minutes, if there's anything you feel you want to be rid of, just shake it off. Okay? If that feels good to you…just shake your hands, your body, your head. If it does not, then you can remain still or remain in any pose that feels good. But if it feels like it would be nice to just let go…then shake it off a little bit before we close. And just keep shaking until anything stale, stuck, stagnant old, righteous…Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…goes away. See what you're left with. What do you have here at the end of the sit? What's yours? What is your experience now? Mark it.
Let’s close the practice now with any gesture that feels right: hands to heart, bow your head, offer it up…
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