Narrator (00:07):
This recording is an offering of Networks for Training and Development's Online University.

Jeremy Duke (00:12):
Hello everybody, and welcome to the Networks Healing Circle for March 7th, 2022. My name is Jeremy Duke, and I'm going to be your host for this evening. Just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the fact that we're all here to take some time for ourselves to relax, to acknowledge that we all need healing in some form or fashion.

Jeremy Duke (00:56):
The fact that we're all here together with the same kind of intention, whether it ultimately comes from needing this peace in the evening after a long day, or curiosity to see what the Networks' crew is going to come up with next, or whatever reason it is, just take a moment to acknowledge all the people that are on this call, separated by space, but yet brought together by our energy and our attention, all coming together in this moment. So just take a moment and use your imagination to acknowledge everybody else on the call and feel some gratitude that we all took this time out to share these few moments together this evening.

Jeremy Duke (01:53):
I'm glad you're all here, and I'm glad I have a chance to share this time and this space with you.

Jeremy Duke (02:01):
So it's interesting, I'm actually just getting over a sinus infection, if you will, so hopefully there won't be any sniffling or coughing here on the call tonight, but if there is, I apologize in advance. I had COVID as well, back in early December, got hit by it pretty hard, so I have to admit, I felt a little bit of frustration with being sick again just three months later, but it reminded me that even though we can't always control our circumstances, we can always control our mindset, our attitude, our perspective. So what we're going to do tonight is gear towards finding flow, getting back into flow. So the practice that we're going to do in just a few minutes is related to the water element. So my goal is for each of us to find the water element within ourselves and specifically that aspect of flow.

Jeremy Duke (03:23):
The weather here has been kind of stormy all day. The winds are howling outside, which makes me think of the winds of change. If anybody's paying attention to news or world events, we're hit almost daily with reminders that change is upon us in many shapes and forms. And honestly, it looks like things are going to continue to change for the foreseeable future, so to whatever extent you feel that in your own life, in your own experience, it's all the more important to remain in flow.

Jeremy Duke (04:05):
Sometimes things in our life, or things on the bigger world stage can feel overwhelming or even shock us, and that's okay, we're only human at the end of the day. But as long as we don't get too stuck on them, as long as we can still find our way back into flow, we can manage to stay centered, stay grounded, and continue to move on, to continue to move forward progressively in a direction that we choose instead of being blown around by these winds of change.

Jeremy Duke (04:50):
So let's go ahead and get started just by doing some nice relaxing breathing here, very simply to start. If you've got your feet flat upon the floor or the floorboards, maybe scooch a little bit up in your chair, just so that your back can be straight and yet free, as opposed to leaning back against your chair. That would be great. That helps me keep my attention in this kind of practice instead of getting maybe a little too relaxed.

Jeremy Duke (05:33):
So let's start with what we call the embryonic breath, bringing attention to the breath as a doorway into the body, as a doorway into the present moment. However your breath is right now, make it just a little bit slower. Try not to force the breath, just guide it gently in that direction a little bit slower.

Jeremy Duke (06:11):
The next quality is deep. Try to guide the breath towards being a little bit deeper. Feeling it go down into the belly.

Jeremy Duke (06:29):
The next quality is long. Guide the breath to be just a little bit longer.

Jeremy Duke (06:34):
The next quality is even, making the breath even. Not that the in breath and out breath have to be perfectly even, just have a sense of evenness between them. Sense of evenness in the space between each breath.

Jeremy Duke (07:11):
And the final quality is smooth, smooth like silk, not like sandpaper, especially that part of the breath where it turns from the in breath to the out breath and the out breath to the in breath. Just make those edges a little bit smoother. Slow, deep, long, even, and smooth. Good. Keep those qualities of the breath going. And let a smile touch the corners of your lips. Could be a big smile. Could be a little Mona Lisa smile. Maybe you don't feel like smiling, and that's okay. Just give it a try, just to see how it feels. Notice the way the muscles of your face form that smile.

Jeremy Duke (08:38):
Take the feeling of that smile and the muscles of the face on the lips, even the corners of the eyes, and bring that into the center of your chest and imagine a nice smile forming across the heart, radiating out to the rest of your body. Just like your face can radiate a beautiful smile, your heart can radiate a beautiful smile as well.

Jeremy Duke (09:11):
Okay. Great work so far. Now, want you close your eyes, if you haven't so far. Just like we used imagination to create that smile in the heart, we're going to use imagination in this moon-based practice to help us get in touch with the flow of water inside.

Jeremy Duke (09:45):
With your eyes closed, imagine before you in a cloudless night sky is the full moon glowing brightly, gently, silvery. Imagine that moon growing brighter, still gentle, yet more intense. Bring the light of that moon towards you. Allow that light to hit the point between your eyebrows. Imagine you can reach up, grab that moon and bring her gently towards you. Allowing that bright round silver glowing disc of the moon to enter your body through the point between your eyebrows, brightening your entire head. And allow that moon to gently drop through your body, coming through the throat into the chest. See the moon in your chest as it pauses there, glowing silvery gentle light, bathing your heart, bathing your lungs in that energy, restoring the yin of the heart, the yin of the lungs.

Jeremy Duke (11:38):
Allow the moon to drop again, this time through the solar plexus all the way down into the lower belly. See the moon in your lower belly. If you can, feel the moon in your lower belly. Imagine the moon sitting above a great ocean that sits inside your lower belly. These are the waters of existence. The moonlight gently plays upon these waters. It ripples, it reflects, it scatters in joyful, playful bits of light, nourishing these waters.

Jeremy Duke (12:45):
Holding this image of the moon over the ocean inside your belly, allow your hands to come rest in front of the belly, maybe just a few inches in front of it. As you breathe in, I want your hands to gently expand. And as you exhale, let the hands gently fall back towards the belly. As you inhale, the hands expand away from the belly. Exhale, the hands fall back towards the belly. Inhale, the hands, still connected to the belly, expand. Exhale, the hands, still connected to the belly, fall back. Go ahead and continue this pattern. Let it become almost like a wave. As the ocean waves in your belly roll gently back and forth, so your hands roll gently back and forth outside the belly. And now with each breath let the hands come back a little bit closer to the belly each time until finally your hands gently rest upon the belly itself, just below the belly button.

Jeremy Duke (14:36):
See the moon and give thanks for the moon. See the ocean in your belly and give thanks for that great ocean, and the relationship between the moon and those waters. Feel your belly energized beneath your hands and by that moon.

Jeremy Duke (15:09):
Allow the body to sway gently, moving the shoulders just a bit, moving the hips just a bit, as if you were a seaweed in the ocean, moving effortlessly with the waves as they roll in and out, as if your body was weightless, as if you had no restrictions, almost as if your body is moving on its own. Just allowing it to move however it wants, gently back and forth, perhaps gently twisting just a bit.

Jeremy Duke (16:19):
And keep this sense of weightlessness, of effortlessness, of free movement, of no restriction, and allow that moon in your belly to drop outside of the left hip. The moon slowly goes down the outside of the left leg, down the thigh, past the knee, down the calf, energizing the whole way, still shining brightly, over the ankle, over the foot and toes, and up the inside of the left leg, up the ankle, up the calf, up the knee, and up the thigh. And allow the moon to slip to the outside of the right hip, going down the right thigh, the outside of the right knee, the outside of the right calf, past the ankle and over the feet and the foot and the toes, up the inside of the right leg, the ankle, the inside of the right lower leg, glowing into the inside of the right knee, glowing into the inside of the right thigh, and then back up into the belly.

Jeremy Duke (18:01):
Allow the moon to rise up through the night sky inside you, past the solar plexus, into and through the heart center, through the throat, into the head, and allow the moon to pop outside of your body through that spot between the center of your eyebrows. And the moon rises back up into the sky to take a rightful place.

Jeremy Duke (18:42):
Now take three deep breaths. Blink your eyes. Wiggle your toes. Wiggle your fingers. Bring yourself back into normal waking consciousness. And even as you do, I hope that perhaps you can take some of that sense of flowingness, that sense of gentleness, that sense of effortlessness and weightlessness, and ability to move without restriction, and understand that you can find that within yourself. You can take those qualities with you throughout your waking day, or you can take them with you as you go to bed tonight and sleep peacefully.

Jeremy Duke (19:54):
I hope you enjoyed that. I know I did. And I'm certainly very grateful for all of you for joining me in this practice tonight. So wherever you are, many blessings to you.

Jeremy Duke (20:12):
Remember that next month will be another Networks Healing Circle, and if you want to go back and listen to any of the past healing circles, they're available on the Networks website, there's many of them from many different practitioners. Feel free to make use of that database.

Jeremy Duke (20:35):
And once again, I appreciate you. Blessings to you. Thank you, everybody. I hope you have a great night. Take care.

Narrator (20:50):
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