Autumn Meditation

The seasons are changing.  It's time to start slowing down and embracing the Autumn.  Autumn is a time for balancing, a time to see everything as a part of the big picture.  A time to celebrate and embrace opposites, darkness and light, activity and rest, young and old, masculine and feminine.  The days are getting shorter and the weather is getting colder.  This is a time for rest, renewal and sleep.  It is a time for planning for the future, planting seeds of ideas that will reemerge in the Springtime transformed and renewed by their time in the subconscious.  This is a time to turn the attention inwards, listening to the inner teacher of your heart, to your intuition.The energy of the earth turns inwards at this time.  Young plants and trees will grow stronger over the winter as their roots grow deeper.  Autumn is a perfect time to connect your roots down into the ground and draw on some of that energy from the earth.  This short meditation allows you to connect to the earth, find balance and draw strength and stability from the ground to help you through the changing seasons.Begin by finding a comfortable position to sit. Make yourself as comfortable as possible, come to a position where you can be still. Take some deep breaths.  Notice where the body is in contact with the ground beneath you.  Allow yourself to feel supported, fully supported by the earth beneath you.  Allow the body to start to relax.  Feel gravity gently pulling you downwards as you are held and supported in the lap of mother earth.  This is not an unpleasant feeling of heaviness, but a feeling of being supported and held.  Rest your upper arms, your forearms, your hands, releasing any tension you are holding in your shoulders. Release tension from the muscles in your face, softening the muscles around your eyes and your forehead. Relax your jaw, perhaps allowing the mouth to open slightly.  Enjoy this sensation of a pleasant heaviness, this feeling of stability and stillness.Feel as if you have deep roots, anchoring you firmly to the strong earth beneath you.  Breathe out, down into the ground,  Feel your breath flowing through your body and into the earth. Connect down to the silent strength and stillness of the earth beneath you.  Feel the energy of the earth beneath you, and send your energy down into your roots.  As you become rooted you become strong and stable.  Your muscles let go of any tension they are still holding onto.  Your mind becomes quiet and calm.  You let go of all the stuff whizzing around your head and move into your body, inhabiting it fully.You may like to visualise an idea or a plan that you have for the future, seeing it or stating it to yourself in the present tense as a positive statement, as if it is happening right now.  Imagine yourself planting this idea like a seed in the ground, where it can draw from the earth energy and grow stronger over the coming months.Now imagine drawing up nourishing energy from the earth.  This energy may be strength, courage, stillness, or something else that you need at this moment.  Draw this energy up through your roots.  Let your mind, body and soul be filled with the energy you need right now.  Let this energy flow through the body.Then as you begin to feel ready, gradually begin to move the body, ready to carry on with your day.  Feeling reenergised by the connection to the infinite support and energy of the earth beneath you.  Feeling balanced and ready for what is to come.  Knowing that whatever changes are ahead, you are safe, you are secure and you are loved.  You are held safely by mother earth.Om Shanti.Namaste