atmosphere exercise.

adapted from Jeanine Jones

An exercise in returning to ourselves. We work with attention so that we are prepared to hold our posts as conscious, awake servants. Settle into a meditative posture and gently read the following, pausing to sense the shift of energy within the holy temple of your body.

As we begin, I gently close my eyes, and find a comfortable position, taking a good posture, aligning my spine, moving my head until it easily balances on my neck and shoulders. I sense the support of the chair and the earth.

I am preparing my body, in all three centers, moving my attention gently to my breath and its natural rhythm. I begin to notice my body. I receive any impressions of tension without changing anything. I begin to let go of unnecessary efforts in my body, bringing the ease of my breathing to the places where I know I hold tension, just bringing the breath alongside.

Beginning with the top of my head, I allow my attention to begin moving slowly down through my scalp, my forehead, my brow… I relax the muscles around my eyes, and allow my eyes to rest gently in their sockets… I let any ease I notice to spread to my cheeks, my jaw, and throughout my whole face. (pause)             

I notice any spaciousness in my neck and throat and feel an expanding in my airways as I take in breath. As I do, my inner talking continues to quieten. I sense my shoulders and drop their weight… relaxation spreads down my arms, hands... upper back and chest, heart and lungs, middle back, and the back door of my heart between my shoulder blades. I open the solar plexus…I drop the diaphragm, the rib cage, relax the lower back, dropping and expanding the belly, the hips. I open up the connectivity between the torso and legs. Relaxing down through the legs, the thighs, lower legs, on all sides…the ankles and into the feet. I am relaxed in body, feeling, mind. I allow all associations to quieten. I am in receptivity. I savor this moment of being at ease in my body. (pause)

Now I bring my awareness to the bottom of my feet, sensing a quality of aliveness there—a tingly, buzzing, vivifying energy—and I let it rise up through my ankles, lower legs, like water filling a container. I work from the whole of my being and allow the aliveness to fill up my legs with energy, I am open, I freely receive this sensation as it continues to rise up through my thighs, the pelvic floor, the lower back and belly, the whole length of my spine…I sense my solar plexus light up with energy, rib cage, heart, upper back, and chest…the hands and arms, shoulders.. the neck, throat, and head. The whole of the body is now filled with a relaxed sensation. (pause)

Now I bring my attention to my center as I continue to sense my wholeness.  Connected within, I remind myself that I am surrounded by an atmosphere, just like the earth is surrounded by its atmosphere. I am allowing the radius of my attention to expand outward, sensing contact with the entire sphere of my atmosphere. My atmosphere is surrounding me on all sides, about 3-4 feet in every direction. To the right, left, behind me, in front and above me and below. I receive a sensation of it. I become aware of the quality of my atmosphere. My thoughts, feelings, tensions make waves in this atmosphere and they continue to subtly settle. I notice the places where my thoughts and emotions go out past my atmosphere and bring them back in. I keep my atmosphere under my conscious stewardship. I gently return to my center and remain collected there.

All the atmosphere is settled now and my associations are quiet. Working with sensation, I draw in the atmosphere, into my skin. I suck it into my body. There is a consolidation and solidness to me, I’m not leaking energy. My body is still relaxed even as it is filled with sensation. I keep within.

I breathe three times: I Am…all my feeling centered in the solar plexus as I inhale “I”…all my sensation centered on the whole of the spine as I exhale “Am”… three times….I AM.

Gathering, resting here for a moment…..Silence.

We practice so that we might stay collected, within our atmosphere. We practice so that we might give and receive with one another, we practice offering all our work on behalf of the whole.