The Benji Project

Greetings, friends. We are approaching the longest night of the year, which also means we are approaching the return of the light. 

With this meditation I invite you to explore the warmth that you can generate, the warmth that your mind, your hands, and your heart can create. 

Find yourself a comfortable seated position. As you settle in, notice how your legs rest on the chair or cushion. Allow yourself to rest–really rest in that position. 

If you wear glasses, you will likely want to set them aside. 

Bring your palms together in front of you and rub your hands, generating heat between your palms. Continue to do this for a moment or two. Now bring your hands up to your face and cup your palms over your eyes, so your fingers rest on your forehead. Allow your eyes to bask in the darkness and warmth. 

Our eyes take in so much in our waking hours. Until we close them for sleep, we often do not allow them intentional rest. 

Bring your hands down, and repeat this. Rub your palms together. Then bring them up to your eyes. This time, as your eyes appreciate the darkness and warmth, notice your breath. Allow yourself to breathe in that warmth. 

Now bring your hands back together in front of you. Generate heat between them one more time. 

I invite you to bring one palm on your chest, perhaps near your heart, and place the other hand on top of that one. Notice the warmth and gentle pressure from your hands on your chest. You might try switching which hand is on top and which one is closest to the chest, to notice which feels more comfortable. 

Imagine this warmth radiating throughout your chest, all the way to the sides and back of your ribs. Imagine the warmth extending down into your torso. Perhaps this warmth comes with a kind of light… maybe a particular color comes to mind. 

Now try bringing your attention to your heart, inside the rib cage, underneath your hands. Imagine that there is a soft glow that begins to shine like the flame of a candle when we hold our hands around it, protecting it from the wind. 

This glow from your heart expands outward into your chest, meeting the warmth generated from your hands. Maybe it is a different color, merging with that first color. Imagine these two sources of warmth and light, from your hands and your heart, swirling through your torso. 

That combined glow begins to spread down your arms and legs, and up your neck and into your head. Perhaps this glow even shines forth into the air immediately surrounding your body, like a blanket. 

Take a moment or two to bask in this glow, this warmth.

Imagine carrying that warmth with you as you go about your day. When you are out in the cold wind, you can try bringing a hand to your heart to remind you of the warmth you can generate from your heart as well as your hands.

When you are ready, feel free to open your eyes, if they were closed, drop your hands, and come back to your surroundings. 

Thank you for taking this pause in your day. May you find warmth in the winter, rest in the darkness, and joy in the rhythm of the seasons.

Greetings, Circle of Compassion friends.

We are now at the mid-point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. Spring is fully in bloom–the scent of lilacs and the sounds of the song sparrows are in the air. This morning I walked down a path lined with nettles, which have already grown higher than my knee. The sunlight made the leaves a translucent golden green, like the line from the Frost poem: “Nature’s first green is gold.”

In this time of blossoming, I invite you to take a moment to reconnect with and acknowledge your own physical presence. To start anew, with the spring flowers, it can help to appreciate the form we take on this earth.

On May Day, ancient traditions from the British Isles include dancing around a Maypole. Some interpretations of the Maypole point to it connecting earth and sky, bridging our physical presence with the vast mystery above us.

Today I invite you to connect to yourself through your breath and by offering gratitude and loving attention to your physical form. For this meditation, I encourage you to lie down. You could be indoors, on a couch or a bed, or on the floor on a yoga mat. Or you could be outside, lying on the grass.

Feel free to pause this recording to find your comfortable, quiet spot.

**

From your reclined position, stretch your arms above your head, reaching first one arm and then the other, stretching out your sides. Then relax your arms by your sides. Wiggle your toes, and circle your ankles, pointing and flexing those feet. Now let your legs relax, allowing the feet to flop naturally to the sides.

If it feels good to close your eyes, please do so.

Notice your breath. Draw in deeply through the nose, and exhale in a sigh through the mouth. Try that again. Now allow the breath to come in and out through the nose, if that feels comfortable. On each in-breath, imagine you are inhaling the scents of spring, the smell of flowers, damp earth, and new foliage. With each out-breath, let your body sink down a little more, relaxing into the surface where you are resting.

As we offer some attentive kindness to the parts of the body, please be gentle with yourself. Notice if there are parts of the body that bring up painful feelings, either because you might have had unkind thoughts toward your body or because your life experience has not always been gentle with those parts of the body. If at any point, you need to pause the words of the meditation and come back to the breath, please feel free to do that.

Pause

To begin, turn your attention to your feet. Allowing them to rest, you might notice how often your feet are working hard taking you one place and another. The feet are generally our most consistent connection to the earth. Often without us noticing, they give us rootedness as well as movement. They have carried us through the winter to this moment of spring. For this, you might offer them some gratitude.

Moving from your feet up to your legs, notice if any of those many strong leg muscles are feeling tense or tired. Encourage them to relax, just for a moment. The legs and knee joints are complex mechanisms, allowing us to extend tall and to reach down low. Before we learn to walk, our knees carry us in a crawl. And they serve as key navigators for us–as anyone who has experienced a knee injury might recall, our balance can be greatly affected by what happens in those joints. Thank you, knees and legs.

Shifting your attention to your lower torso, your hips and belly, site of digestive and reproductive organs. So much of our life force is generated here. We digest our food, which allows all the other parts of the body to keep moving. When we say, “go with your gut,” we refer to the instinctual wisdom that we locate here in the area of the belly, in our core. If we were a globe, this would be our molten lava center. Thank you, core, thank you, belly and hips. Thank you for bringing me life and keeping me alive.

Moving your focus up to the chest area, you might notice that your breath is making your chest rise and fall, as the lungs are at work. Your lungs and your heart keep the oxygen and blood pumping through your system. This is the motor, as it were, that keeps the rhythms of the body continuous and sustaining. Thank you, heart, thank you, lungs.

And from the upper torso, the arms extend out from the shoulders. The shoulders for many of us feel the weight of burdens we carry in our minds as well as physically with our arms. Try offering gratitude to them for the tension they hold–and let them know that they can let go sometimes! And those arms–your arms reach out to others and can wrap around yourself. The arms can be messengers of love and care. They can serve others and serve ourselves. Thank you, arms.

And at the end of the arms, the hands. Those thumbs that allow us to maneuver objects in unique ways, and those fingers that give us the ability to express ourselves through art and music. They are tendrils, like the fern fronds unfurling. Thank you, hands and thumbs and fingers.

Now up to the neck and head. The head that holds the brain, that intricate and mysterious organ that imagines, analyzes, envisions, ponders. It is thanks to the brain that we can speak to one another, that we have language to share our thoughts, and thoughts to share in the first place. And the neck, that delicate body part, holds up the weight of that head all day every day! Thank you neck; thank you, head; thank you, brain.

Returning to the breath, imagine your in-breath bringing gratitude to all these body parts that you have considered. Each breath is a thank-you. Each breath is an acknowledgement of the beauty and capacity of the body.

Even if sometimes the body seems to fail us, or sometimes we are at odds with it, this body has brought us here to this moment, with the lilacs and the song sparrows. Thank you, body.

Pause

When you are ready, feel free to open your eyes. And stretch those arms again, coming back to your surroundings.

Thank you for taking this pause in your day. May you find joy in the rhythm of the seasons.

Greetings, Circle of Compassion friends. We are now at the time of the Winter Solstice, the season of long nights and short days.

Many of the plants and animals around us have adapted to the cold and the dark through a form of slowing down, hibernating for some animals or going dormant for some plants. For us humans, part of us recognizes the change in daylight and may be asking to slow down, but that can be a hard call to heed in our busy lives, especially during the holiday season.

For this meditation, I invite you to connect with the rhythm of trees, to tap into the wisdom of the tree in winter, much as we might tap the tree for sap in the spring.

You can experience this meditative journey in any position that feels good to you–standing, sitting, or lying down. You could be inside or outside. If you would like to listen while next to a real tree, feel free to pause this meditation and start it again when you are positioned next to the tree of your choice.

**

To begin, if you are comfortable closing your eyes, feel free to do so. Now bringing to mind a tree, imagine this tree in its whole being, from roots to crown. If you are thinking of many trees, try to focus your mind on one, whichever one draws your attention at this moment.

Is it tall or short?

What shape do its branches make?

Does it have needles or leaves?

Is it bare in winter?

Consider the bark of the tree. Is it rough or smooth to the touch? Does it have wide or narrow ridges? This bark is the skin of the tree, its outer layer of protection.

Try gently touching the skin of your hand or arm. This is your layer of protection. Does it feel rough or smooth? Your skin might change in the winter, becoming dry or chapped with cold or wind.

Underneath the bark, the tree in winter has adapted. The sap that flows through the trunk, as blood flows through our veins, has slowed. The sugars in the sap become more concentrated in the cold to protect the living cells of the tree.

Meanwhile, below the ground, the roots of the tree continue to seek nutrients. In the quiet, in the dark, the trees gather resources to prepare for spring.

Wherever you are, notice the parts of you closest to the ground. Imagine that you, too, have roots that go down below the cold top layer of the earth and into the warmer ground beneath.

Bringing your attention to your breath, imagine that on each in-breath you are drawing nourishment up from the earth. On each out-breath, allow those nutrients to cycle through your body.

Take several breaths like this, nourishing your body with your breath.

Allow yourself to relax into the rhythm of the breath. Perhaps the out-breath carries a concentrated sweetness through your veins, like syrupy sap in the tree.

Pause

Notice if your mind is asking questions or making observations. Thank your mind for its vigilance and activity, and ask it to focus on the breath.

Pause

Notice if your heart rate has slowed as you breathe.

Once again bringing to mind the tree you imagined, you may want to offer it thanks for its wisdom.

Whenever you are ready to emerge from this meditation, try stretching your limbs as you re-enter your day.

I offer you thanks and deep appreciation for taking the time to pause, to listen. May you find joy in the rhythm of the seasons.