Oh, the weather outside is frightful…
Hello January in Minnesota. We’ve hardly known you for the past few years. Today is the second day in a row that we have begun the day with below zero temperatures and windchills in the double digit negatives. Schools have 2-hour delays and some northern Minnesota schools are closed for the day. People who work outdoors will probably not find work, as many job sites will be closed down.
Baby, it’s cold outside.
Weather like this reminds us to seek internal heat. Not only from our home furnaces, but from the fire within us all. We can visually and mentally make this connection through a short meditation.
Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down. Begin to focus on your breath as you breathe in and out through your nose, keeping the heat and moisture inside your body. Slow done your breathing and take the inhale in through the belly, moving the breath up to the top of your lungs. Your exhale is released first from the heart and then is squeezed out from the belly last. And so your breath moves up through the lungs with your inhale and down through the lungs with your exhale. Deepen this breath, moving your body into a state of calm.
As you breathe deeply, become aware of the heat and moisture of your internal body. Be aware of the moisture in the mouth, the nose the eyes. Become aware of your organs and the moisture surrounding them. Envision this moisture as healthy and cleansing.
As you breathe, become aware of your body temperature of 98.6 degrees. Remember what that temperature feels like on the warmest summer days, and then envision that heat within. Let that heat radiate outward to your skin. Feel that heat.
Breathing, imagine that the heat source for your entire body is encompassed within the heart, as it pumps warm blood throughout the body and to every organ, including your skin organ. See your heart working.
Imagine the heart as a flame, sending heat out through the body with every inhale, and sustaining that heat with every exhale.
Now recognize this flame as the eternal YOU. This flame never extinguishes. Even when our bodies no longer function, this flame continues to burn. It cannot be extinguished. Reflect on your flame that never extinguishes. Allow your thoughts to linger here. Spend time in this meditation.
As you finish your meditation, take in one cooling inhale through the mouth, and then exhaling out your mouth. Then continue breathing through your nose with both the inhale and the exhale. Recognize that, even as we breathe through our mouths, our internal flame will never extinguish.
Namaste