Alexa Firmenich // Nature's Gifts

You are life living inside of life. This meditation will bring you into a state of being that enhances your embeddedness with all of nature. Sink in, take a moment in your day to breathe, to release into the Earth’s body.

You are life living inside of life. This meditation will bring you into a state of being that enhances your perception of your embeddedness with all of nature, and the landscape you find yourself in. It is part of a toolkit that cultivates your ecological literacy. This is the ability to read and understand the ways that the living world expresses itself -- to understand the natural systems that make life on earth possible. 

The practice is followed by a brief writing exercise, if you so wish to do it. I recommend bringing a pen and paper to write with.

I will share a practice to bring us into a greater remembering and  reconnection with our place amongst a teeming planet of life. I hope that you’ll accept and sink into this  meditation, taking a moment in your day to breathe, to release, to relax into the Earth’s body, to find Nature as a source of comfort and  inspiration, and to become aware of this special midsummer moment of our  lives. The meditation is followed by a creative writing prompt to ground and integrate the practice, all for you to do in the ease of your private space.

This meditation is a form of prayer -- an ode, a poem, a song, to the element of water. Let its words flow over you. Invite in a sacred practice of recognition and gratitude anytime in your day when you come into the presence of water; during your morning shower, when you take a sip of tea, or contemplating clouds through the window. Reflect on the qualities and gifts it brings you. Write them down. Create your own way to remember your prayer. Leave it somewhere close where you'll see it often. Say the words. Smile. Live in reverence.

This is a 25 minute Nature-inspired meditation, based on a personal practice of mine that always brings me into greater remembering and reconnection with my place on Earth.

I’ve taken company with some of the oldest living beings on the Earth this week, the great old-growth redwoods in Humboldt County. I have stood stunned and silent as their colossal lives extend along fault lines and timelines I can barely comprehend – and yet – reveling in the knowing that their lives are inherently linked to my own.

I wondered if there was a way to share this perspective, this sense of belonging to a wider community of life, with others. Especially during a time of social isolation and distancing, we should strive to remember how we are always connected to each other through and within the beyond-human world.

I hope that you’ll accept and sink into this invitation, to take a moment in your day to breathe, to release, to relax into the Earth’s body, to find Nature as a source of comfort and inspiration, and to become aware of this particular springtime season of our lives.

Ideally you would find a place outside, no matter how small, to participate in this practice. At the end, I’ll offer a way for you to move into the land and come into conversation with the world. It can also be done indoors and I offer ways for this. If you feel called, please share below what comes up for you in your experience, to be witnessed and witness in turn, a collective sharing of soulful rekindling and kinship.