Guided meditation and inquiry with a focus on nature connection, body awareness and authentic experience. For relaxation, self-knowledge and a creative response to the flow of life. Hosted by Helen iles.
Moving from old year to new, what are we bringing with us? Is there a way of travelling more lightly into our future? What if we were to let the old year go, like snow falling to the ground...?
Traditions surrounding this time of year tend to be particular to our culture, religion, language and family background. Rituals we associate with celebrations are important and for most of us, include some we have inherited and some we have made our own. Wherever we find ourselves at the close of 2020, I wish you a sense of home and belonging, in whatever shape or form that might arrive.
Winter Solstice is an invitation to go inwards. To dial down the activity and welcome rest. Can we hear and heed this call? In 2020, the power of this time is heightened with a planetary event known as The Great Conjunction, as Saturn and Jupiter come closer together than they have in more than 1000 years. Astrologically, these planets move into the House of Aquarius, which is an air sign. Having been lodged in Earth signs for some time, placing the emphasis on material things, their energy now shifts towards matters of art and spirit. This heralds The Age of Aquarius, and the potential for deep change. Song 'Black Smoke' at the beginning of the meditation sung beautifully by Meg Bryan. Written by Emily Wurramara. Image by David Menidrey.
This 25 minute meditation was sponsored by our weekly meditation group. If you enjoy it, I invite you to join us live online or offer a donation. What if a meditation could be an invitation to visit ourselves. To drop by as we might on an old friend. To sit close and listen to what they have to say, and for them to listen back? Spending some quiet moments, hanging out in an aimless way. No grand intentions to discover or to fix anything. Offering ourselves an experience of gentle companionship. Allowing the world to fall away. Could this be a doorway to somewhere we'd like to go?
This 30 minute meditation was sponsored by our weekly meditation group. If you enjoy it, I invite you to join us live online or offer a donation. All week I've had this song by Mamuse in my head. It's one we are learning in my choir. The words begin : Every time I feel this way, this old familiar sinking... You know that feeling? I think we all do. The song goes on to suggest we can : lay our troubles down by the water, where the river will never run dry. What is this river for you? Where you can take your troubles and feel supported? For me, it's meditation. The kind of meditation that takes us towards and into the flow of life. The kind of meditation that lets us be lifted...Will you join us? Image by Simon Wilkes
This 30 minute meditation was sponsored by our weekly meditation group. If you enjoy it, I invite you to join us live online or offer a donation. Gathering our scattered selves into the body and resting, we begin to discover more about our deeper nature and the cycles of flow that move through us. As the season changes, so our animal body responds and adjusts, if we will only allow it... This journey through the chakras can help uncover where and how energy might be blocked, freeing more of our deep self for creative living. Is there a spirit animal bringing a message? Tune in and listen in to what your spirit animal might want to say. Let yourself be surprised! Image by Hannah Troupe
This 25 minute meditation was sponsored by our weekly meditation group. If you enjoy it, I invite you to join us live online or offer a donation. When traversing the inner landscape, there are places bright with light and colour and places that feel quieter. Dropping deeper, what do we hear and see? In the silent spaces, can we get to know ourselves with more clarity? Knowing ourselves means knowing when we are reactive. When a trauma response might derail a balanced view. Coming home to our deep okayness, we learn to ground in a place where response is measured. More equanimity is possible. Less drama happens. Life is still real, but we are able to deal with events from this place of balance. It takes practice, but it's worth it. Image by Johannes Plenio
This 25-minute meditation is sponsored by our weekly group. Like it? Join us live online, or show your appreciation by offering a donation. Daily pressures and anxieties can be like barking dogs. They call for our attention and refuse to be quiet. What happens if we let them know that we are resting? That we will come back to them later, but for now, we are resting. What do you discover when you rest deeply inside yourself? When you allow the layers to drop away. When you ungrip? Let's rest together, shall we? Image by Angelina Kichukova
This 30 minute meditation takes its theme from our weekly live meditation group. Share your experience in the comments? Contribute a donation? Sign up here to join us live. In the Tibetan meditation traditions, the Mahayana is the Great Vehicle. This vehicle, or practice container, carries the bodhisattva towards enlightenment on the dual wings of compassion and wisdom. The bodhisattva promises to delay complete enlightenment until all sentient beings are liberated. What kind of vehicle are you travelling in? Is it fit for purpose? This meditation takes us under the skin and finds space for knowing to arise. Let your inner wisdom show the way forward. Image by Meditista
Meditation 30 minutes. Recorded during our weekly live meditation session. Will you join us? What if everything was always leading here, to this moment? Might we allow contentment to visit, like a cat curled in our lap? In this world there is so much striving. What does it feel like to let life take charge? Image by Ankush Minda on Unsplash
A 30 minute meditation from our weekly online group. Like to join us? When we honour our process, we allow time for nothing to happen. Or for everything to happen. Giving ourselves a wide berth, we find space to rest. Leaving nothing unwelcome, everything is allowed to rest. Subscribe below to get future meditations and talks straight to your inbox.
A meditation from our weekly online group circle. Like to join us? Our modern world is designed to help us scratch the itch. Constant notifications from email, social media and phone apps offer temporary pleasure and provide distraction from what is present in our body and mind. In this meditation, we take time to explore sensations and feelings, reaching beyond intial responses for a deeper experience. When we apply intention and attention in this way, it's possible to reach a state of absorption where the mind, curious and engaged in inquiry, is able to focus on its own qualities. This naturally brings relaxation to the body, release of tension, and a calm state of being. Image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
In the healing world, body imbalances can often be resolved internally or externally. Fixing structural imbalance without addressing the tissue systems that keep it in place makes change short-lived. As does massaging tissue without examining how unhelpful patterns came about. For it to be lasting, outer and inner change must come together. A 30 minute meditation from one of our weekly online groups. Photo by Mahir Uysal on Unsplash
Meditation 10 Minutes An adaptation of a somatic meditation by Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen, designed specifically to aid restful sleep. In this practice, we focus on the physical heart, holding it with attention and embodied awareness. Click the link above to find the original meditation from Bonnie herself. Donations to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Meditation 10 Minutes Quarantine - a period of 40 days, a state of enforced isolation. In quarantine, are we entering a liminal zone? A time out of time. A time between times? How can we find rest in this, in spite of the spinning wheels of our conditioning? Donations to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Meditation 8.5 minutes A gentle practice to bring awareness to the breath. An enhanced awareness of lung well-being will help us stay healthy during this time of C-19, and to know when we need to ask for help.
Meditation 5 Minutes Kapalabhati, or Shining Skull Breath, is a traditional yoga pranayama exercise. It supports respiratory health and is recognised as a purification practice. Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Meditation 5 Minutes Nadi Shodana or Alternate Nostril Breathing is a traditional yoga practice to balance the body and increase respiratory well-being. Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Meditation 12 minutes Anxiety is a thief who steals our life away. Meanwhile, deep in the body presence is calling. Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Meditation 9 minutes With the heart all wrapped up There is no getting in or out. Unwrap your heart. Open up to the flow. Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Meditation 10.5 minutes This irritation is but skin deep. Diving below, I find a calming presence. A space. Where irritation has permission to dissolve, and response arises. Free. Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Meditation 10 Minutes How to describe the formless? That state of being Resting in pure awareness. Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Meditation 10 Minutes Taking and Giving Receiving and Offering The Tibetans call it Tonglen. A practice rooted in Love. Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Meditation 10 minutes Breath like water Water-like breath Body in Flow. Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Meditation 12 minutes After the storm The calm. Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Meditation 10 Minutes It takes courage to be honest. With ourselves, with the Earth. But how else can we know What needs to change? Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Meditation 10 Minutes Are you lying to yourself? Are you better than you think? Please don't hide your light. In dark times, we need all the light we can get! Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Here or there. North or South. Slow Down. Leave room for...dot dot dot Helen’s book Hiraeth- Our Longing for Belonging is available on Kindle or from hiraethbook.org
Go outside Let nature come and meet you Right where you are. Helen's book Hiraeth- Our Longing for Belonging is available from hiraethbook.org
"When we feel we have too much space", she says, "it can be uncomfortable." "No kidding." I think. "We try to fill that space with something, anything. We call a friend, dive into work, or stuff down a muffin. We drown the emptiness in hot chocolate, or worse, in alcohol. Anything so that we don’t have to face that void." Helen reads from her book Hiraeth- Our Longing for Belonging. Order it now from hiraethbook.org
Connecting to the wild Can we be reminded Where we've come from And how far we've come? Get the new book from Meditista/Helen : Hiraeth – Our Longing for Belonging
Between discipline and play It emerges. Is it enough? Are we enough? New book from Meditista/Helen : Hiraeth - Our Longing for Belonging
Turn your face up to the sun. Your mind towards life. Your pleasure into a practice. Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings
When all the systems are on red alert Let's come home to the heart. Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
When life is stormy, When there's no time to meditate, That's when we need to meditate more! Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Holding space, can we permit life to emerge without judgement? Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Can you feel the winds of change? What wisdom are they whispering? Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Given the everything of it, How can we best proceed? Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
In the midst of life, let's drop anchor and dive deep into the watery stillness. Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Entering a new season, re-entering routine, I feel resistence. A need for more time. More rest. Can I take it? Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give in to it... Joy is not made to be a crumb. From a poem by Mary Oliver Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Where there is suffering and contraction, can we find space enough for surrender? Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
As the climate tips into crazy, What's the weather like inside? Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
...now you don't. Hiding away, or time to shine? Holding ourselves with a generous gaze, All is welcome. Image by Helen iles courtesy of instagram.com/clodaghmeiklejohn Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
"Who do you think you are?" Hanging out with the Inner Critic. Does it have anything useful to say? Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
You, Loud One. Shush a minute. Let me hear what Quiet One has to say. Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Meditation 10 minutes Nature has a way of reminding us How wild we really are. Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Sometimes, I go to the beach And no-one comes to join me. It sounds like this. Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
Meditation 12 minutes We know how to give the body a workout, but how do we work-out the mind? Gifts to Meditista. Your generosity helps support these offerings.
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