Plant-based Meditation: Expanded Awareness
Plant joy & the fullness of rain in dark, soggy times
Earlier this year, I led a series of “plant-based meditations” — Plant-inspired dharma talk followed by a 20-minute meditation held outside, in a local plant nursery.
The vision for these sessions was to enable deeper connection with self alongside deeper connection with the natural world. Each week’s theme was inspired by the weather, season, or quality of the earth at that time, and meant to plant us more deeply into the present moment and we explored a different meditation technique each time. There are so many ways to be with your self.
This is the first in a series of four that I’ll share. Below is an abbreviated, adapted version of the dharma talk. The full audio from the talk + guided meditation is available for paid subscribers. But if you want access just ask :)
The view—
By mid-March of this year, LA had seen more than two feet of rain. That’s more than double typical rainfall here and more than Seattle during the same time period. Angelenos were struggling. Uggs were becoming ughs.
I’d taken to including Pearl Jam or Eddie Vedder into every yoga class playlist, channeling PNW grunge and gloom (which I love, obviously, as it is the texture of a good part of my soul). Everything was leaking. It was a true sog story.
But while we were feeling soggy or downtrodden in the rain — and you may be during the interminable gloom of fall-into-a-very-long-winter (you know that season), consider this: the plants are THRIVING. Know that in the rain, the plants are JOYFUL. They are living for it.
Plants LOVE rain! Rainwater is the best water of all for them. It has the perfect chemistry: delicious and nutritious.
There is a fullness to this joy. This plant joy. Plants take the water in through their roots by osmosis and deliver it to the rest of their beautiful plant bodies. To the stems. To the leaves.
There is a fullness to this joy; an expansiveness. Plants accommodate, welcome in the abundance, literally and energetically. Vacuoles plump up like teeny tiny water towers; their cells become taut and swollen. Full full full. It’s awesome to witness.
What is it like to witness another’s joy?
What is it like to witness joy that isn’t spoken, but only sensed.
Joy that is abundant, unabashed, and ephemeral. Because the rain always ends. We know this. Plants know this.
California natives know this.
They’re “drought proof” through skillful means. Through structural adaptation they hold and store the water, and reduce the leakage (transpiration) — allowing the joy to linger longer.
They know, in the way they know, that this moment of rain-joy is just this moment. It won’t last forever.
Fullness sustains them through times of non-fullness. There’s a plant wisdom in knowing “it won’t always be like this.”
Thinking about how we’re watered, each of us. How each one of us is resourced. What it feels like when we know it’s coming — your equivalent of heavy storm clouds rolling in — and how does it feel when the first drops hit? And how do we store them when we get them, for the hard days ahead?
We all need water, light, and air to grow. We don’t always have it. When we have it, we know we will also experience not having it again.
The meditation—
Correlative to the fullness of plants in rain and the abundance of plant joy, we practice expanded awareness meditation. Expanded awareness is the practice of becoming aware of everything at once and nothing in particular.
We begin with an anchor at our seat - sitting comfortably and at ease, yet upright. We become aware of our seat on the earth, and the quality of that earth. We sew a relationship with that earthy earth beneath us just now.
We begin to notice the breath, easily in and out of the body. Slowly, we notice sounds, sensations, smells. We gently allow for our awareness to expand outward to accommodate all of this, like a elastic compassionate vacuole.
Through the practice of expanded awareness we can cultivate space to feel full. Spaciousness allowing fullness.
Perhaps we expand out into the universe and beyond. You choose.
Thoughts will try to catch you, anchor you. Notice them kindly and bid them goodbye for now. Return to the spacious now, or find your roots — literally your seat on the earth — and start again.
Through expanded awareness intensity or saturation becomes just the right amount of fullness - joyful. We are buoyant, not waterlogged.
When you are ready, slowly begin to recede the awareness until you are back at your point of earth.
Take your time and take good care. Breath easily and remember who you are, where you are.
Feel full.
Feel joyful.
Enjoy the full audio of the talk with guided meditation:
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