Eco Meditation

BONES⁵ is a simple, yet comprehensive process to meditate in Nature.


Each letter represents a specific activity. Similar to our bones being the structure of our body, BONES⁵ provides the structure in which we can access the embodied experience of being a unique, evolutionary expression of Existence.


CONTEXT


SolEarthing -- our meditative posture is to stand barefoot on the Earth opening to the Sun; similar to our vegetative kin. Our organism serves as a conduit, rooted in the Earth and reaching towards and receiving energy from the Sun. This is the physical corollary of expanding our consciousness to embrace the truth of who we are: the result of a 4.5 billion year miraculously creative process between the Sun and Earth. 


My shorthand for this expanded identity is SHE, which stands for Sun, Human, Earth. SHE and me, aka Shme, opens as an unique expression of Universal consciousness,  the culmination of the Universe’s 13.8 billion years of evolution. We are both personal and the Universal simultaneously.  Becoming a mystic -- a person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to unite with or absorb into the Absolute -- is the  direct, inherent result from SolEarthing while identifying as SHE. 


The context of Existence is this evolutionary process. Being the growing tip of SHE aligns us with this process. 


Simplicity is key. We’re fostering beingness, aligning with “what is”, and avoiding “doing” from a contracted personal self that is operating from a separation from the whole. Our habitual sense of “doing”, which is our strategic response as young children to be accepted and to avoid punishment, involves self-evaluation and self-conscious awareness that abstracts us from direct experience. 


On the other hand, evoking our childlike capacity to be in “beginner’s mind”, a prominent goal and feature of contemplative practice, is highly desirable. To experience ourselves and our ecosystem unencumbered by abstract thinking, is most conducive to being a full body conduit for Universal unfoldment playing through us, as us, and with us. A playful synchronicity is that the word “beginner” begins with the letters of the word “being” in it. 


Other than establishing a full, embodied breath and the suggestion to smile, all the other steps are intentions and prompts that can flow from our immersion in being SHE.

BREATH 

Touch the roof, hit the root. 


Becoming aware of the placement of your tongue allows it to rest comfortably behind the top teeth along the roof of the mouth. This will naturally bring air in through the nose, which is more conducive for relaxed and embodied breathing. 


Smell the breath entering your nose. Imagine the air coming down to your root at the base of your spine. From there, imagine the air continuing down your legs into the Earth, and rooting you there. 


The fullest breath is to relax our bellies on the inbreath, filling it completely. Then allow the chest to expand and continue opening up into the neck and shoulders. To open even more, repeat this process while breathing in through the mouth.

OPEN


Responding to the prompts, “How open can I be?”,  and “Opening always and in all ways” gives us permission to move, sound, and expand as freely as possible. Imagine filling up like a balloon on the inhale, raising your arms up and out, fingers stretching wide, expanding as the breath fills the lungs.


Yawning, shaking, swaying, and sounding “ahhhhhh” are natural responses of our bodies as they relax into opening.


We live within an expanding universe, so our opening to this expansion is simply aligning with our cosmic context. 


Another aspect of opening is imagining the reality that our world is the result of billions of years of evolutionary process. Feeling the momentum of this, we can ride on this current of energy and consciousness.

NOTICE 


Notice process, “not ice”. 

This synchronistic play on words reminds us that everything in existence is vibration and in motion at a fundamental level;  a fluid process rather than a static representation. The actual territory rather than what the map depicts. 


As we focus outwardly on the ecosystem and inwardly on our senses, a natural expansion of consciousness occurs. We notice the ongoing process unfolding in each moment that underlies our abstract description of it. Like a young child, be aware of awareness without commenting or fixing it in place.


The noticing rides the current of opening so we are naturally aware of the entire body. Allow awareness to include your whole body as much as possible, and this will naturally expand your focus and field of awareness from your head, where it typically resides. Along with the prompts to open, this focus on expansion of body awareness naturally lends itself to an expansion of consciousness. I imagine my “consciousness body” happily playing “monkey see, monkey do” with my physical body.

EVOLVE


Focusing on one's whole body from an evolutionary perspective, can naturally elicit a spontaneous appreciation and gratitude for the process that has given us this extraordinary gift of 50 trillion cells, originating from a single egg and a single sperm. As well as gratitude for the countless mothers and fathers that cared for their babies so well that this unbroken chain of life continued for millions of years until the present.


We effortlessly ride along the road of every moment, new and more. Not a doing for self-improvement or improving social status, but a cheerful and carefree being in playful engagement with what the universe serves up for our education and enjoyment. 


The context for our existence is the expanding Universe.  When we open and fully embody expansion, we can allow this inherent expansion to animate our bodies and feel ourselves ballooning outward. We give ourselves a chance to experience this by opening our arms up and out, and allowing sound to move through us.

SMILE


At this point, people often smile or smile easily after a prompt.  But the smile is more than something we need to do. The ancient Eastern mystics identified three characteristics operating in the Universe -- Truth/Existence, consciousness, and bliss. They believed that bliss was inherent -- therefore our joy aligns us with this, and our smile is a natural, outward sign of this bliss.


SOFTEN / SURRENDER 


Softening can elicit a physical relaxation, and a letting go throughout the body, which strengthens the flow of energy from head to toe, and deepens our experience. 


Surrendering is a releasing of the contraction of the separate self, which naturally opens one to the universal self


SAVOR


Given all the above steps and the context in which we exist, it's up to us to see how much we can enjoy the process. 


One way I include this step, which links back to the first step, is to give myself the prompts on my in-breath, “How good can it feel?” “How can I enjoy this moment?” “How much fun can we have?”


Our capacity for joy is a superpower that can increase our capacity for wellbeing, creating a positive feedback loop. 


For those of us who are concerned about the Earth,  we can help save Her by savoring Her, and acting accordingly.



SWEETEN


The simple inquiry - how to sweeten this moment, can elicit deepening emotional and sensing awareness. This heightened enjoyment catalyzes increasing, natural gratitude  to arise spontaneously in appreciation.


 



AFFIRMATIONS, SONGS, CHANTS 

(Silently or out loud if it pleases...)

       

  1. Be a tree 
  2. Every moment new and more
  3. Open always, in all ways
  4. I am the Universe playing hide and seek with itself
  5. How to enjoy this moment? How good can it feel? How much fun can we have?
  6. Opening up in sweet surrender 
  7. Home – Om
  8. We are SHE 4.5B-ing Perfection and beyond Perfection 
  9. I am one, with the Earth and the Sun, forever and ever and ever
  10. Every little cell in my body is happy, every little cell in my body is well
  11. Super saturate me with goodness
  12. Surprise me
  13. We are the emerging rainbow butterfly 
  14. SHE’s us
  15. Thank you, thank you, give us more, so all may share this love and joy




ADDITIONAL NOTES 


Because everything in the universe is process, then awareness of this process is essential to access the new paradigm most effectively and to align and engage with the creative genius of the Universe in all the possible touchpoints.


The inquiry, “every moment new and more” aligns us with the evolutionary frequency of the Universe. 


Once Bones³ is established, then the inquiries,”Who am I?” followed by “What do I want?”, where both questions are an experience of process rather than representation, are extremely revealing and rewarding.


The 7 steps are not just a linear process, although initially they can start out that way. There's a synergistic experience of softening, surrendering, opening, and embodying as our breath and our experience deepen.


We experience a literal reprogramming and renewal every moment we are solEarthing because we are constantly adding millions of cells every second. Having spent most of 12,000+ hours vibrating as SHE, I have found the process literally and inherently transformative. This is maximizing epigenetic potential.


Notice verbs, not nouns. Fluid not static. 


Nothing to do includes no conceptualizing. And the favorite Target of the inner conceptualizer is my sense of myself as an entity. 


Simply allow awareness to be without boxing it into a specific something. 




THE 7 MIRACULOUS GIFTS OF THE UNIVERSE


We have been gifted with 7 distinct miraculous realities that naturally generate tremendous awe and gratitude and align us with the nature of Existence:


  1. The unbroken chain of life that gave us our bodies to inhabit
  2. The clever, kind, and generous humans who gave us this world of wisdom and technological progress
  3. The Sun that self-organized enough hydrogen atoms in deep space to burn for over 4 billion years so far, providing heat and light that makes life possible 
  4. The Earth and all that it has miraculously created
  5. The manifested Universe
  6. Eternity/Creator from which the Universe emerged
  7. The 5 hyper-fast ways we are moving through space simultaneously while experiencing stillness