Hello and welcome. Thank you so much for listening.
My name is Renee Sills, I'll be your guide and host for the next
little bit of time in this somatic meditation.
Somatic meditation is a style or an approach to meditation that
begins with the body. It is an inner inquiry into our
felt sense. It's a way to access places in
our unconscious and subconscious.
It's creative and all Entry and guided visualization.
As often as I use invitations for touch, or for movement or
physical awareness, somatic meditation can be practiced at
any time. It's something that you can give
space and time to like, you are doing now.
And these spaces and times than become points for your
reflection in memory, and you can draw upon them at any other
moment and you can incorporate somatic meditation into anything
that you do. So, Attic is a word that means
of the body and so as long as you're in your body you can
meditate with it, you can come deeply into your felt sense and
there's a lot of wisdom. So the wisdom of many, many
Traditions points to this inner landscape as being a reflection
of the outer landscape. And of course, we know now
through quantum physics and science That a lot of what
happens in the molecules and the DNA of our bodies is reflected
and replicated in the molecules and DNA of other bodies.
And in the phenomenal world and the wisdom of yoga, we learn
that we can understand the mystery of the universe by
seeking to understand ourselves. And that's really what somatic
meditation is. It is listening.
It's deep listening. So today's meditation Station is
the beginning of a series of meditations.
That I'll be offering throughout the course of 2019 and I'm
recording this meditation on January, fifth. 2019, the year
has just begun today is a new moon and also a solar eclipse in
the sign Capricorn. I am an astrologer and a lot of
my meditations are based in astrology.
Thinking about what's happening at the current moment of
Consciousness. So if you're interested in
learning more about this moment, I just finished Creating the
2019 look ahead and you can find that link to this meditation or
from embodied astrology.com. 2019.
Here we are. It is an important moment on the
planet. Humanity has reached a Tipping
Point in terms of climate, in terms of human rights, in terms
of our relationships with one another, we're really in a
moment of deep change and it is a precipice of something.
And we don't yet know which direction it's going to go but
we will find out in the next year or two years And which
direction we go. I don't know, but I have a lot
of Hope and I also have a lot of fear and I think that's probably
true for most people at this time.
I know that Collective change is birthed from the change in
individuals and any offering that I have in these meditations
is meant for that to turn the tide towards what I believe.
We really need to change into which is a global culture.
Of compassion, dismantling of borders.
And basically it, considering ourselves AS Global Citizens who
are all working for resilience and sustainability, not just for
ourselves and our families and immediate communities.
But for the planet itself, So anything that I offer is coming
from that space, I'm also a feminist I identify as queer.
I'm really interested in dismantling oppression and
oppressive structures. And so throughout this year, I'm
going to be using the space to look at a lot of these
structures. As they've been internalized in
me and in our bodies, and today's meditation is on
positioning and it is a meditation on arrival, where are
we right now? And that's going to have a
Answer for everybody. So you might want to have a pen
and paper nearby. I'm going to ask some questions
and give some space for reflection, and it may be
helpful to write something down. So feel free to pause this
recording and grab that if you need it, and then whenever
you're ready, we'll begin. And let's begin in a comfortable
situation. So you can lie down, you can set
up, you can move around. However, your body needs to be
right now, is the way that it should be.
And please feel free to use any kinds of furniture or props that
you have. You can make yourself
comfortable with pillows and blankets.
I myself am sitting on a chair at this moment, so do whatever
you need to do. and then, when you're ready, Go ahead and start
to take some deep breaths. Breath is pretty much.
The only thing that we all have in common with one another.
So we live in bodies and bodies, breathe Breath is something that
we have in common, not just with other humans, but with other
animals and with plant life, and even in a larger sense with the
planet itself, there are larger phases and cycles of inhaling
and expansion, and exhaling and contraction.
So, as you breathe, as you inhale, and as you exhale, Just
feel what that is. Feel what it is to be the
recipient of your inhale. Feel what it is to contribute to
the atmosphere with your exhale. With your inhalations to your
taking into your body, the atmosphere around you.
The air around you. With your exhales, you're
releasing into the atmosphere around you into the air around
you. And of course, air and
atmosphere move. And the inhales of one person
become the exhales of someone else.
The exhales of plants provide our inhales are exhales provide
their inhales. So the not on and on and on and
on. So, when you take a breath in,
what are you breathing in? When you take a breath out, what
are you breathing out? And you might imagine now that
as you inhale, you're inhaling the place that you're in.
You can just start with your very immediate location.
You're inhaling the air directly around your body.
And as you exhale, your body is releasing.
And the air that you breathe out, Swirls and filters into the
space around you. You're breathing in the energy
of the room that you're in or the space that you're occupying.
What's the vibe of this place? How does it feel?
Receive that into your body. When you exhale, notice how your
presence here changes the vibe. Maybe you are in a room that
you've designed. You have to become this vibe in
a lot of ways, you've created it.
Maybe you're outside and your presence in the outside, space
changes, the way that air flows. Changes the way that animals and
people move. Brings awareness reduces
awareness. So, as you inhale, allow
yourself to be affected. And as you exhale acknowledge
that you in turn affect. Bring your attention into your
body as a general space. And you might choose to look at
your body or to use your hands as well to touch your body if
you're lying down, or if you're around tree or something that
you want to lean on, you can use other bodies to inform your
body, you might roll on the floor and feel your body weight.
You might push into the back of your chair and feel the
resistance of one form against another.
And then wherever you happen to be feeling your body.
Pause what your attention stay there, and then try and breathe
into that space. And of course your lungs are
where they are and so literally you may or may not be able to
breathe into the space where your attention is but
figuratively you can breathe into any space in your body.
And so, wherever your attention is allow it to be a recipient of
your breath. And as you inhale, you can feel
the way that breath moves into a certain place that brings
awareness. As you exhale, you can just ask
for relaxation, a softening letting go.
Can you find the expansion and contention condensing of your
inhales and exhales in this space in your body?
And then release that. And bring your attention to your
body as a whole. And if you have a strong mental
image, you might just see yourself in the shape that
you're in right now. Using your hands and your touch
is a great way to just brush over your skin and of caress,
your body feel its shape feel its boundaries.
And container, as you touch your body, stay in the literal, If
you notice that your mind jumps off into a story about your
body, what it feels like what it looks like etcetera, call it
back. We're just thinking about the
literal. Can you feel your skin, can you
feel your bones? Can you feel your parameters?
This is where the idea of you, begins and ends. your skin marks
the place, where others, and therefore you perceive yourself
as a separate being And your skin is the container for your
inner body for all of your vital functions.
All of what keeps you alive, your circulation, your breath,
your digestion. And also for your inner
experiences, all your feelings and your thoughts.
And then, as you breathe, can you imagine, can you feel your
entire body expanding, and as you exhale, imagine and feel
your entire body condensing. You can condense into whatever
it is that feels like the center and so that might be the center
behind your belly button. It might be the center at your
spine. Might be the center around your
skeleton. The skeletal outline or maybe
the center of every cell and then, as you inhale, feel all of
the tissues in your body expanding, And as you exhale,
all of the tissues in your body condensing.
So the remainder of this meditation, I'm going to be
inviting some imaginations and voyages to other places other
people other times. And if you get lost in the
meditation, just come back to your body, come back to this
presence, the feeling of your own touch the expansion and
condensing of your breath. So now, let's bring hands or
awareness to your belly button. One thing I'll just say before
we begin as well as that if at any point this meditation brings
up a lot of feelings and if the feelings are too much to handle
in the moment just pause and again, come back to your body,
come back to this simple just being with yourself.
All right, so bring your attention to your belly button
and if it's all right, wherever you are touch it.
Touch the shape of your own belly button and then breathe
into your belly button. Try and let your belly soften
and expand as you inhale and as you exhale, feel your belly,
drop back in. This is the place in your body
where you had the first connection, So you and your
biological mother share this. Space.
This conduit and from her body, you received nourishment, And
through this space through your umbilicus, You released by
products. So when you are in the womb, you
didn't breathe and your body released waste products, of
course. Through peeing and stuff into
your amniotic fluids, but a lot of what was released was
released through the umbilicus, back into your mother's body and
she processed that waste for you.
It's pretty amazing. What mothers do and all that
they give and all that they process.
Regardless of the relationship that you've had with your
biological mother. See if you can just breathe into
that. Into that first connection of
sharing and assimilation. Notice anything that arises for
you and any associations, any feelings in your body, any
emotional feelings. In the weeks and months and
hours before you were born, you were a recipient of your
mother's early, excuse me of your mother's environments.
So you're early environments were her environment.
Feelings that she was having sound, she was hearing
movements, she was doing the first sense that we develop is
the sense of movement actually is feeling ourselves kind of in
the amniotic see and gravity shifting and we feel ourselves
kind of a float and moving around.
And we bump up against barriers of the uterine wall.
We push against it and the pushing against Andrey's turns
into the strengthening and the knowing of our own bodies.
And as our bodies develop, we push more, we explore where we
are. We move more and then imagine
that these early experiences this moment in time when you
were held in the body of your mother, when you were directly
connected to her, Imagine that that still exists and now your
mother is a baby and yes this is an imagination, it's not what
actually happens. So you are in the inner body,
the internal experience of your mother and she is in the
internal experience of her mother and the connection that
she had to her grandmother. And of course you've heard this
before but all female babies are born with all the eggs they'll
ever have. So If your mother was born with
all the eggs she would ever had, and one of those was going to be
you, there's some kind of cellular memory that you have of
being alive in your grandmother's body.
Okay? So that's what we're imagining
right now is the emotional experiences that your
grandmother was having when she was pregnant with your mom with
your biological mother. And let's just breathe into that
as resonance. And notice What feelings come up
in your belly and in your womb space.
So your chest space. And for all of us, regardless of
our sex, regardless of gender, regardless of genitals and
reproductive organs. This part of the body is the
part of the body that energetically holds others, it's
where we get corded and tied energetically and emotionally
with other people. So as I'm talking about these
relationships, I'm imagining that there's probably stuff
that's coming up. Up pretty much for everyone.
And whatever that stuff is, I don't know, it's some shirts the
whole range, but can you just breathe into it?
Can you soften it? Can you greet it?
If you need to move in and out of awareness with the present
moment, just noticing your environment, feeling your body
now and then coming back into the memory, that's fine.
And then, let's turn our attention towards the
inheritances from our biological fathers.
And of course, we're growing in the bodies of our mothers.
But half of our DNA comes from the paternal source and whether
or not your experience of your biological father was one that
was present or loving or not his instincts.
His traits Etc exist in you and they're alive in you. so let
your attention spread out into all of your being Into your
skin, into your bones and to all the soft tissues into your
mannerisms and into your habits. You might know immediately or it
may be less of a mental concept and more of a felt sense.
Of your relationship and connection to your biological
father and what he passed down. I recently met my half-brother
who's my dad's son and they've never met and it's just really
amazing to realize how much genetics are at play.
My half-brother is the spitting image of my paternal.
Uncle looks a lot like my dad did at his age and there's so
many similarities and my brother never grew up with that part of
his family. But the similarities are there
at the Tendencies are there. so, whether or not, you know, who
this person is, or was And you feel him.
Can you feel the way that he lives in you now?
And imagining back to the fathers of your father and the
paternal lines. And then you might allow your
mind to imagine and I see this very clearly in my imagination
as like a fractal. And the way that our lines and
lineages come from small rivulets and then stream into
these, you know, rivers of our own lives.
And so, in your body right now, you contain, not only the DNA of
your mother and father the emotional experiences of your
mother and your grandmother. But all of the collected
memories of your mothers fathers and your fathers mothers and
back and back and back. Back that with each generation
there is a passing down and it's not everything but it's a lot.
It's not all the stories but it's the feelings of the
stories. It's their residue.
It's what gets retained. if there were people in your
family's history who lived through a famine that memory is
stored in your body somewhere, So, can you imagine this mapping
of the mini streams that are pouring into the river of you?
And you might know a lot of the stories you might not know any
of them, you can imagine. You can feel and breathe in and
feel the way that you collect them all and then breathe out.
And feel how you as a product of all of your influences create in
the world and you maybe a parent, you might have created
another human being who's going to pass on these stories and
memories as well and embody them.
You might be an artist or a builder or an inventor.
You might be someone who works with people is in relations.
All the ways that you influence the world around, you are ways
that you have been influenced by the world around you.
Your preferences. Your privileges.
What are the ways that you've been positioned by the people
who came before you and this is where I'm going to invite you to
either name. Things out loud.
Or write things down. And the general question right
now is what did you inherit? And you may have inherited what
we often think of with inheritance, which is money or
privilege resource. You may have also inherited
debt. You've inherited anything that's
associated with your cultural or ethnic identities.
You've inherited the history of the country that you are born in
and the countries where you live.
You've inherited memories of your people embodied memories.
You've inherited belief systems about your priorities about what
is good and what is bad? What is useful and what is not?
So, take a few moments. if you wish pause the recording and
right on what you have inherited, And then when you
ready come back and I'm just going to keep going for now. so,
as you feel all of the layers of inheritance, Can you feel the
way that its residue that these moments of history and the
accumulation of the momentum of all of your associations and the
people in the places that you've come from have collected and
paused and stalled in time? And, of course, now, you should
have said this earlier, your biological inheritance through
the DNA, and through the memories is very strong.
It's very real, but if you are a person who is adopted, or who's
lived a lot of your life with and not a family, that's not a
biological origin. We're so sensitive, you've
inherited a lot from them as well.
And I am sorry, I didn't acknowledge that earlier, it's
important. The ways that we inherit our
residual, right? They leave a film and a trace
and there is some this idea that I've carried for a long time
that our bodies are layers of Frozen memories.
They're frozen Shadows. And the ways that our bodies
have built are the accumulated residue of all of the
nourishment and the habits of our ancestral.
Origins Whether or not our people had enough to eat eight
hundred years ago, means something about the density of
our bones or our immune systems. Now, Whether or not our people
went through, you know, a big emotional crisis at some point
will have a lot to do with how we respond to trauma and
activation now. Breathe into your body as layers
of Frozen Shadows. And then ask yourself how do you
know yourself? In all of this.
If we know that the phenomenal material world is a constant
recycling of matter. That energy never ends it just
changes form. And if we know that there is no
new ideas, just the retelling of old ideas.
And if we know that our preference is and belief systems
and biases were formed because of the way that our people grew
and our culture is grew around them.
Then, who are you? What are you?
Are you your name? Are you your gender?
Are you even your body? And when you think about how
quickly your body changes, And the association's you might make
with your body in terms of how it looks or how it functions and
therefore what or how you are the question of are you here?
Body takes a lot of time to kind of sort through.
Are you your passions? What are all the ways that you
identify? How do you know yourself there?
And this would be another moment to pause.
If you choose and just reflect a little bit on who am I, what am
I? And there's a line of
questioning and philosophic thought that starts here.
And basically, there's no answer.
So all the things that you think you are, If You Really Turn to
look at them, they are constructions.
They are constructed ideas that were made by the human mind.
And there's not very much that any of us can actually say that
we are that is anything at all permanent.
So you might say that, you are your body but your body, of
course is always changing. And your body is the
accumulation of the past as well as the influences of.
Now, the foods you eat the toxins in the environment, the
Stuff in the water. The emotional atmosphere.
So what are you who are you? How do you know?
And then if your eyes have been closed, open them again, and
take a look around Wherever You Are.
And once again, feel your inhale on your exhale. notice the way
that you take in your environment, notice the way you
affect your environment. What is the environment that
you're taking in? And how are you uniquely
affecting it? Our exhales release the
byproducts of our bodies and their internal state of health
or toxicity, as you breathe out, what are you breathing out into
the general atmosphere? As you influence the space, what
is the general influence of your emotional, mental and physical
state upon that space? And how do you respond and
internalize the space that you're in?
This question of, who are you? And what are you is a
never-ending question. And ideally, it's a question
that has no answer. It is unanswerable when we think
that we can answer it, we're confused.
We've begun to identify with something that is incomplete and
imperfect and impermanent. What we're made of is everything
around us. It's the residue of everything
that has been and of course each of us is part of the momentum
that creates whatever will be. And in that there's perfection
in that there's magic. And so that is also within you.
And of course, magic can be used for good or ill, and that's also
within you. This is the end of the
meditation for today as I work through the next couple of
months and the rest of 2019 I'll be looking at deeper layers of
positioning, mine States and ideas about our identity and
ways to work with them and inquire more deeply and maybe
even to start to transform them. So I'll leave it with with this,
just a general invitation that All of us, including me, spend
time with this question of, where did I come from?
What made me? What did I inherit?
And then, who am I and what am I?
I think those questions alone are pretty important space, to
spend some time with right now. Thank you for participating.
Thank you for listening if you're interested in where this
meditation is coming from as a theme of course.
Check in with the astrology for 2019.
There are also lots of guided meditations that I offer a boned
all different ideas and subjects and you can find them on
Soundcloud and you can also ask for themes.
You can ask for meditations or healing practices.
And I also always welcome your feedback and comments and feel
free to get in touch with me by commenting on the SoundCloud
link or by reaching out and sending me an email.
Thank you so much for listening. Wishing you all the best.
Bye for now.