locating yourself.

Life has a tendency to come at us fast and sweep us downstream in distraction and frantic busyness before we know it. Even when we’re stationary physically, our minds get trapped in the past and the future. The great art of life is bringing our full selves and our full attention into this present moment. It beckons us to ground ourselves in time and space. Body and soul.

Space begins in my body at a specific location at a specific time—this minute. As we sink into this reality and sense ourselves tuning in to this space, we have the opportunity to pan out and locate ourselves within time and season. As we do this, it brings a wider, more grateful and gracious presence to this singular moment. Which allows us to participate in the divine flow that is only available in the present moment. From this posture, we can be “collected,” as the old liturgies say, in divine fellowship and partnership.

The Practice.

Movement 1. "Locating” yourself begins with a body scan to consciously release tensions and unresolved stuckness that has landed in your physical body. Starting with your head, let go of these knots and distractions and work your way down the body to your feet. In this place of emptiness, sense yourself simply being held and loved by God. Then invite the love and vitality of the Spirit to refill you—your feet all the way up to your head. Now you are much more “here.”

Movement 2. Pan out to the larger picture of what's happening in this season of your life. Are you in the first-third, the second-third, or the third-third of your life (in roughly 30-year increments)… and how are you showing up for this season? Where are you resisting it, anxious about it, or welcoming it? You don’t have to judge any of the feelings—just notice with kindness toward yourself. What are you being called to steward in this season of life, and what is it time to let go of?

Movement 3. Now meditate on what it means to be embodied, not just in the physical container of your body, but in the geographical place where you are living out your unique story and purpose. What does it mean to be part of this particular land with its own history, wounds, beauty, and future? How does your journey show up in this place, time, and people?

Movement 4. Reflect next upon the change in earth seasons. Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter… are you in the heart of a season or in transition between them? Your life is located within these larger wheels of time, so how does the turning of time affect how you show up in this day, this moment?

Movement 5. Finally, locate yourself in an even larger sweep of time—the ancestral movement from one generation to the next. As you consider the progression from grandparents to parents to you to your children and their children, what perspectives want to be shared with you? Perhaps you’re even invited further back or further ahead—what do you see? And once again, how does this grand overlook inform your place in time? What is yours to do and be right now?

Close your practice by giving thanks for all of it—the inspiring and the messy, the blessings and the losses. Time belongs to God, but it is a gift placed in our hands. As the great Gandalf says, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” Space too is a divine gift that we are invited to occupy with intention and attention. Can you receive it?

Breath Prayer:

            In-breath          I am here.

            Out-breath       I am now.