This month we are sinking deeper into the lands where we live and the lands inside of us using the energy of gratitude and acknowledgement. In order to be with our discomfort and healing, we need to take time to gather our internal and external supports. I have a meditation and accompanying reflections to support this process, as well as an audio to describe the energetics of how this process works.
REFLECTION
Show me how Fall & Winter model gratefulness.
Observe the falling of autumn leaves from different perspectives:
Imagine you are the leaf - what does it feel like to release from your tree branch? What does it feel like to land on the floor of the earth? Imagine you are the branch - what does it feel like to release your leaves. Imagine you are the earth - what does if feel like to receive the leaves?
AUDIO
A note on gratitude
Building our internal web of support
Letting the force of gratitude and acknowledgement back into our bodies is critical to re-building our internal web of support, which feeds our capacity for resilience. Gratitude/thankfulness is an essential energy that's woven into the fabric of our being. Nothing can take it away, but our relationship to it can change as we encounter certain energies, experiences and conditions. We will spend the month developing what I call deep gratitude - gratitude that is slow, lengthy and robust. I invite you to listen to the intro audio on gratitude and the mediation to guide you in this process. If it feels good, use the reflections below to integrate the meditation more deeply.
PRE-MEDITATION REFLECTIONS
How does the earth model gratefulness at this time of year?
Acknowledge gratitude as a divine force, a deity. What would be it's story, characteristics, look, or qualities? Recall any divine representations of thankfulness that you grew up with and resonate with.
Draw, write a story, create movement, or song that tells the story of your gratitude deity.
MEDITATION
Feeding our reservoirs of thankfulness
This is a longer meditation. No need to stay in a traditional meditation pose here. Feel free to draw, move or walk to the words. This goes for all of the meditations. Do them in a way that is accessible to you.
POST-MEDITATION REFLECTIONS
Record anything that came up during or after the meditation.
How did it feel doing a deep gratitude? How might you want to shift your own way of nurturing the force of gratitude after the meditation?
What or who might you want to give deep thanks to that you haven't acknowledged in a while?
Draw or dance or make a song to reflect the reservoir of gratitude you connected with during the meditation . Where in your body did you feel it the most? What did it feel like? Offer your expressions to your sit spot and to the earth.
MAP YOUR WEB OF SUPPORT
Imagine your web of support is an ecosystem, if your supports could be represented by a part of your ecosystem what would they be represented by? For example, my mother is an old growth tree in my ecosystem. Draw your ecosystem. Make sure to include:
Your human supports
Your earth supports
The four directions
The Indigenous elders that stewarded and currently stewarded the lands where you live
Your ancestors (name any that you know are with you)
Your guides (spirit guides, non-human guides)
Memories, songs, places that are life-lines for you
What time of day is a support to you
Any other supports that came to you in the meditation or are coming up for you now
Keep adding to your diagram over time as new supports reveal themselves
MAP YOUR WEB OF SUPPORT IN YOUR BODY
Where did you feel the supports in your body? What did it feel like? Draw, write, or move the energy and sensation of your support system and how it lives in your body. You can do this outside with your sit spot as well. Perhaps you have a playlist that feels connected to your support web.
MAKE OFFERINGS TO YOUR SUPPORTS
Find a way that feels easy to you to symbolise your supports on your altar(s) and make offerings to them over time. This is a practice that is good to build into the fabric of our lives.
WELCOME YOUR WEB OF SUPPORT THROUGHOUT YOUR DAY AND DIFFICULT TIMES
Play around with calling in your web of support during important moments in your day in life. In the morning to support your day, before work, an important meeting or conversation. Call in the web of support at times when you are feeling alone, or in a moment of difficulty. When I am having a moment of difficulty I ask my support to surround me and help me find my way to guidance and feeling that will help me digest and be with what is feeling difficult.
Call in the web of support by either re-visiting the meditation, or finding your own way to do it. If I’m having a hard time conjuring the energy with my mind I move my body and use music to physically bring them close. As you play with this you will likely find places, songs, mantras, words, images etc. that remind you and help you feel that you are connected to a larger web of support, because you are, always. You are never alone, may you feel that more and more with time.
Sit Spot Noticings
I was experiencing quite a bit of grief this month after experiencing a personal loss. During this time I came across a tree that was releasing a lot of it’s leaves during a walk one day. I stopped in my tracks and let myself feel the leaves falling, feel the tree releasing. I began to cry and asked, does it hurt when you let go? I didn’t get a full answer, but I felt some sense of peace in my body as I asked this question. Later in the week we had our first snow day on a Sunday, the same day that many of us take to rest in the week. It felt so nice to have congruence in the weather and what humans were doing for the day. A day where the earth said “yes, let me wrap you in a snowy blanket so you can rest. It brought so much joy and peace to the day. The snow stuck around for about two days, I reflected on the beauty of ephemerality and how ephemeral snow fall (and even rainfall) can be. Ephemeral moments are often whimsical, they bring new perspective and even a feeling of miraculousness. As the season deepens, more snow will come, it will stick, the ephemeral will become permanent for the season, one miraculous event building on another, continuing to wrap us in a blanket that says “rest, go to bed for the winter”. I wonder if we surrender to it, how we may welcome more and more miracles in this time.