As Lorin Roche writes in Meditation 24/7, meditation “is a human instinct. It reminds us to savor life’s beauty and wonder.” Meditation also has survival value. It trains us to be alert to our surroundings and at ease at the same time. From this clear headed place, we are able to react to our environments quickly and with access to all our strengths and creativity. It enables us to be intimately connected with ourselves and the environment.

The brain is like a knife - a very good knife. And we can all be thankful for the way it handles its job! It dissects. It cuts reality into understandable pieces. From an early age, the brain is busy doing its job of separating and ordering reality

We learn to categorize. A child’s first words are often “dog” or “cat”. Learning the difference between the two is a major step in development and a delight to watch. The process of separating and organizing reality is critical. Its value continues through adulthood.

This skill is great and important. However, the brain can get too busy. It can create divisions where none exist, troubling us with fear of imagined catastrophes or unnecessary anxiety. Our fine knife can also turn the cutting inward. We may cut our connections to ourselves and others. We have all felt these tense and lost moments. So the brain in all its glory and necessity can take us out of the moment, away from our senses and the truth. The act and art of meditation brings us back into the present tense. It clarifies what is essential and true in each moment. It releases the brain from its surgical duties.

When we meditate we dip into the experience of connectedness. We are reminded of our own place in the nature of things. It reminds us that the same current runs through each of us. This current takes the shape of you and will never ever be expressed again in the same way. Your history and chemistry create a vessel unlike any other. We each carry a flame of the bigger light. Mountain Meditation Guide aims to help you use the ranch’s beauty to see the light in each moment, in yourself and others.

Like a good deep laugh, this guide is designed to bring a relaxed attention, a tranquil clarity.

This guide has four meditations:

• Boulder River
• Ron’s Rock
• In the Saddle
• Starlight

• Quotes
  
• Meditation Exercise
  
• Breath Chant
  
• Journal Space
  

• Take time with each section. Return to each again and see how your experience changes
  
• Take an extra layer of clothing and something to sit on for The Boulder River, The Rock and Starlight meditations.
• Take a pen with you for any thoughts that come up.
• Do the Breath Chants for at least 11 breaths. Say the chants internally with your mind’s voice. Let the words ride on the breath. Breathe easily and naturally. There is no need to force your breath. Just watch and listen to your own changing rhythms. And then add the Chant when the breath feels even.

The Boulder River Meditation
Walk down to The Boulder River in the afternoon. Find a place to rest near the water, maybe along the river’s edge, maybe on the bold rocks at the falls.

Feel the surface on which you sit. Are the rocks cool in the shade of the mid-day sun? Or does the ground cradle you in warmth? With all your skin take in the heat of the sun. Let it cozy into all the nooks and crannies of your flesh. Let it deepen into your shoulders and back. Find a comfortable sitting posture that allows the day’s heat to permeate any tense spots in you body. Breathe in and imagine that heat spread and soften all your tight or frozen spots. Exhale and let tensions flow out of you. Let your breath melt away any thoughts outside of this moment. Let the past and future go.

Clarify this moment. There will never be another one just like it. Send any ideas beyond now, floating down The Boulder River. Attend to your breathe to do this. Watch your breathing until you get a taste of this freedom and peace and then stay there as long as you like.

Focus on the rhythms of the water, of it’s movement. Listen to the fullness of it. Using your breath as an anchor, pull each sound out, separating and sinking into each one. Listen for the biggest voices of the water. Linger in the crashes and deep sounds. There is rushing and dividing.

Then tune your heart to hear the river’s small quiet voices. Attend to the lapping sounds, the trickles. Here the bubbles rise and burst. Keep the breath smooth and natural. Take a few seconds to enjoy your breath, watching it. The pattern of rising and falling is instinctively yours. Without judgment or change, listen to your own breath in symphony with the sounds of The Boulder River.

You are surrounded here by great tumbles of ancient granite and slender grasses that will only last a season. In this grandeur of new and old, flowing and solid, sturdy and fragile earth and sky, humans inhabit the middle ground, the space between. Soften your gaze and sense your place in the landscape. Notice the part you play even now. Return to noticing your breath. With each exhale you breathe out a gift to the trees that surround you. With each inhale you breathe in their gift to you. You needn’t be anything other than yourself. Only you can give this gift of your presence. Settle into knowing your place in the natural ways of things.

Breath Chant
Inhale In this moment….
Exhale I am home…

Ron’s Rock
Walk up on Ron’s Rock, the granite outcropping beside the lodge. Unhurriedly search out a comfortable place to recline. Find a rock that fits the shape of your legs or forms a rise for your back to sink into. There are so many choices. Follow the outcropping East.

Listen for the flow of The Boulder River. Can you hear the The Falls and, or Hell's Canyon? Here at Hawley Mountain Guest Ranch, we are hugged between them. Broaden your listening, by loosening attention to any one particular sound and staying attentive to what arises. What do you hear? Where are the sounds of the pond? Do the pines add to the music? Rest your ears on their scratching and moaning in the wind. What part do the grasses play? Can you hear the sounds of the birds in flight coming and going from the feeders below the lodge? Close your eyes and enjoy this symphony.

Opening your eyes, notice the forests of pines and fir trees that blanket the Hawley Mountains. Allow your gaze to soften and follow the shapes beneath the trees at their roots. Gently sweep your vision across the shape of the mountains, the bones and muscles anchoring the trees. Follow the contours. Delight in the edges where things meet. Track the edge where sky and earth meet. Breathe into the solid deep certainty of these mountains.

Slowly, twisting to your right, find Carbonate Mountain. Drink in the vastness of the landscape. Let your breath fill with this bigness and a sense of possibility. It isn’t necessary to pick out a particular visual point of focus. Settle into its breadth and depth. Sense the timelessness of this valley. Just allow the grandness of what could be to wash over you.

Now focus on a tiny visual landscape. Choose a large rock somewhere close beside you. The once plain seeming rock becomes a continent of color, with valleys of lichen and lakes of specked pink. Follow the color lines and pools. Find its edges. Even the bold simple shape shows it’s multitude of edges and points. Trace its shape and shadows with your eyes.

Close your eyes again. Find the direction of the breeze. If it is warm, strip off a layer and get more skin exposed. Feel how the wind chases itself, playing around the edges of you. It dives and eddies in your elbow, rolling behind your ear. Maybe it dusts you occasionally with fresh coolness. The wind is three dimensional like you. Like water reminds the river rocks of their form and place, let the breeze carve and shape you.

Let this space take you in as you have witnessed it.

Breath Chant
Inhale filling up…
Exhale letting go…

In the Saddle
On your way down to the corral, turn your inner eye to your walking. Don’t change it. As when noticing your breath, play the part of unobtrusive observer. Just pay attention. Feel the rhythm of your steps. What is your pattern? Can you hum it too yourself? Is it really your rhythm? Are you alone or matching steps with others? Notice your tempo. What does your rhythm say? I am in a hurry. I am trying to keep up with the children. I feel rested. My left knee is sore. I am excited to ride. Study the qualities of your steps, the way your knees rise and feet meet the ground. How do your hips move? Where is there vitality and wisdom in your gate? Just notice who and how you are right now.

As you approach the barn, sense the changes in the earth. Does the ground beneath you change? There are rich smells here. There is a complexity to rival any perfumers’ creation. Search out the distinctions of sweat and leather, dung and mud. Can you find the green smells of grasses, sage, feed and shade?

Nestle into your horse’s mane and neck. Making sure you won’t get stepped on. Close your eyes. Take in this moment through your nose. Breathe in this moment. Take in the whole cacophony of scents. Of all the senses, smell has the closest link to memory. It is directly attached to our emotional and associative learning centers of the brain. So breathe deep. Savor and build a pathway back to this moment. It will never be repeated exactly like this again. Enjoy it.

Riding a horse is an act of collaboration. Let it awaken your sense of self. What are your feelings? Your horse can read your feelings and may mirror them back to you, or respond in kind. Take inventory about how you are feeling right now. Find a couple of words to describe whatever it is. This is the truth that you bring to this collaboration. Deeply and gently inhale the smells of the coral. On the exhale repeat in your mind’s voice those feeling words. Notice how they settle into you as you settle into the saddle.

During the ride, feel your horse’s gait. Listen for its rhythm. What does it tell you? Let it rise through your legs and play into your hips. Allow your lower body to be heavy and firm as you ride. Move with this rhythm. Allow it, respond to it. In the silence use your body, to communicate your commitment to the collaboration. Respond by joining your whole self fully with the horse that you ride.

Breath Chant
Inhale I ride…
Exhale in harmony…

Breath Chant
Inhale Alert…
Exhale At ease…

Starlight
Go out tonight and take a walk. You may want to start out with your flashlight. Take your time. You are looking for some place safe and comfortable. Discover the perfect spot where you can settle in and fully see the night sky. Snuggle down or stretch out on the earth. Feel the temperature of the night air against your skin. As you inhale feel the sky expanding. As you exhale let darkness surround you. Feel the circular, soft weight of it draping over you.

Bring your gaze to the sky. Let your eyes look softly, deep into the night. Invite the darkness in with its heavy penetrating peacefulness.

Take in the broad and wide spectacle of stars. Is the moon in sight? Rest and soften your eyes to see the mellow light of the moon. This is no noonday sun filled sky. Let the moon’s inner luminosity pour over you.

Is the moon dark tonight? Is the sky clear or do clouds crest and flow? Breathe in the bold wholeness of the sky. Now, slowly, narrow your focus and delicately trace the moon’s contours and shape. Then soften your eyes again to take in the light. Look deep into the night. See the fullness, the deep layers of stars. Let the endlessness of the sky take you. Then let the stars reach down and find nearness to you. Listen to the wind. How far away can you hear? What sounds accompany the wind tonight? What is the texture and smell of this night? Is it the dense, sharp, quiet? Close your eyes and feel the qualities of the night and sky even without vision.

Remember yourself made from the stuff of earth. Warm like clay, melt into the dark offering of the mountain to hold you. Let the strength and breadth of the mountain safely cradle you. Rest, returning to this dark home. Be held without effort, allowing all your muscles to unfurl. Shoulders, belly, face, jaw and fingers. Release from the need to act on or in the world. No more “doing”. Now is your turn to receive. Breathe and welcome yourself home. Inhale your place in the nature of things and exhale gratitude.

Breath Chant
Inhale Deep….
Exhale Peace…

Breath Chant
Inhale Melting….
Exhale I am held…

Names for the full moons

January ..... Wolf or Hunger Moon
February ... Snow Moon
March ....... Sap or Worm Moon
April ......... Pink Moon
May .......... Flower Moon
June ......... Strawberry or Rose Moon
July .......... Buck Moon
August ....... Sturgeon Moon
September .. Harvest or Corn Moon
October ...... Hunter’s Moon
November .... Beaver Moon
December ... Cold Moon

On Endings
Inherent in every ending is a new beginning. This truth is celebrated in every culture, climate and religion on our planet. Even the beauty of Hawley and Carbonate Mountain persists through these renewing changes. Each season takes it place in the cycle of creating, sustaining and disintegrating. Every spring, the mountain is reborn again.

As you prepare to leave the Ranch, you join in this cycle. This transition is a threshold, both an ending and a beginning. Transitions are rich. They move us away from all the action and energy of maintaining. They offer space to remember the past and imagine the future.

Meditative practices come in many forms. Maybe you have your own mediation practice already. But you just haven’t named it as such. Maybe it’s fishing, walking the dog, listening to music, showering, a quiet moment with cup of tea, cleaning house, Salsa dancing, or holding a sleeping child. It is your task to find your own. Take your experience this week and experiment with it. See what gives you what you are looking for. No one else’s path is designed for you. Just as your thumb print is non repeatable, your path will be uniquely your own. On this journey, you are your own teacher.

Let the beauty of this place fill you and the beauty of your own life carry you.

Breath Chant
Inhale I accept…
Exhale I carry…

Each summer we meet for a week to renew and revitalize through hiking, yoga styled movement, fishing, time for reflection and introduction to meditation and Source Work. The mountains, rivers and time to follow our own rhythms bring us “back to our senses”. Source Work helps you to see the light in each moment and in yourself. Return to the Source Wellness Retreat builds

• Deep knowing of your body as integrated, rested and vibrant.
• Meditative tools to return to balance in stressful times.
• Renewed sense of inner strength, peace and delight.

Gratitude
This guide and its exercises grow from a gathering of thinkers, mystics and reality lovers. The gifts of their life work are the foundation for this guide.

Deep thanks to

Lorin Roche. He has shaken off the tethers of mechanized meditation “shoulds” and gone searching for the deeper knowledge of the individual self.

Ron and Phyllis Jarrett and Ellen Marshall and Bryant Blewett, owners of the Hawley Mountain Guest Ranch, for living their lives in a way that gives others the opportunity to join them in sharing and loving their land.

Jodey Dance. She saw the connection between the self and the mountains and the healing that could happen when the two meet.

John Friend, for his creation of Anusara Yoga. His concepts of grace and intention saturate this guide.

Marion Chace, the mother of Dance/Movement Therapy. Her work has taught me to start right where I am right now and let life grow from there.

John O’Donohue. His commitment to a life of scholarship and synthesis of the seen and unseen have enriched me beyond compare.

The Society of Friends for their 300 plus years of study and action of living in the light. The Quaker, contemplative worship is a home for me. North Meadow Circle of Friends Quaker Meeting allows me to find, treasure and deepen my relationship with the divine.