Coming Home Tomorrow from 9-10am EST ~ View Like a Mountain

Join me this winter for a series on the chakras. We'll start at the base.

Dear friends,

I will continue to offer a regular sitting meditation on Tuesday mornings from 9-10 on Zoom. I call this practice Coming Home because it is intended to bring us deeper into embodiment and deeper into communion with the Earth, our home. It’s a grounding practice, a “descending” practice, and a dose of feminine wisdom. If you haven’t experienced it, the session is always beautiful and intimate. We start with a few words on the theme, go into a 30-minute guided sit, and then spend the last few minutes in a sharing space together.

Tomorrow, we will return to the core of this practice, which is grounding. I have been looking at this view of the mountains (above) which has been my great joy since moving into my new house in September. They greet me each morning out the bedroom window and I end the day with the sun setting behind them. It’s a tremendous blessing and one I want to share.

View like a mountain is a saying in Buddhism. It’s a pith reminder to practice equanimity—an evenness in mentality/attitude no matter what arises in your experience. It’s a matter of not grasping and seeing clearly. Of course, it’s also about not avoiding or exiting your experience when it becomes challenging or overwhelming. We stand tall and firm, unshakeable…but not indifferent.

I like to think about how the mountain stands sturdy even as the weather changes. Even as the seasons change. Even as the activities of living beings on its surface make an impact. The base of the mountain is broad, rooted, unmoving, while the peak is refined, precise and erudite. The mountain has stood for centuries. It has a long view. Whatever it is you’re going through, whatever feels urgent in your life…the mountain has seen it before, the mountain is living at a different pace. I am trying to glean what I can from these mountains by osmosis and by tuning in to them. They are great. That’s for sure.

For the next two weeks, we will work with grounding at the root chakra. Why is this important? Look around you…almost NO ONE you see is grounded and open at the root. For me, this is the single most important energetic adjustment we can make as a species at this time. The root is where our connection to earth and the ancestors lives. It’s where we can find a deep and enduring sense of safety, security and trust that we are cared for. It’s the chakra that suffers most and is least developed in our modern malaise and cultural conditioning. We’re SO DISCONNECTED at the root we don’t even know it.

I was working with a woman recently and as we began to descend into the body and open into the root she felt what many feel at first: fear. She asked a beautiful question: “Why is it so scary to go into the root?” The answer is simple and not-so-easy…because of trauma. Because we’re afraid that life is meaningless and we’ll find a void there. Because we’re not connected to the ancestors and we feel it. Because of the unprocessed history of humanity. Because there is developmental trauma there. Because it’s unfamiliar. Because we’ve forgotten how to feel our way forward.

But it’s also the most relaxing, most restorative, most life affirming thing we can do. It will change us. Being rooted, grounded, is a gift to yourself and others. It is the antidote to anxiety, the key to liberation, the gift of generosity.

The mountain will be our guide tomorrow. If you are needing a little grounding come join us.

Coming Home is a pay-what-you-feel experience each week. Suggested donation is $10-20 for drop ins. Whatever you feel called to give is wonderful and appreciated. Contributions can be made here: Paypal: schuyler@artofemergence.com or Venmo: ElizabethSchuyler-Brown. Paid subscribers, you are already covered. Thank you.