As we previously wrote in our guide to the Best Free Meditation Apps & Podcasts, we adore Sarah Blondin’s poetic, beautifully-written meditations, which the Vancouver-based writer and meditation teacher puts out for free on her Live Awake Podcast. Recently, we came across Blondin’s “Honoring Life” meditation, which strikes us as a perfect meditation for our current, tumultuous times.
Part of this guided meditation’s appeal has to do with its careful, deliberate storytelling. It’s almost like an affirmation prayer— but the words are completely agnostic, inspired by nature, time, and the vicissitudes of living. (Blondin, who is surrounded by the natural wonder of British Columbia, has a knack for poetry.)
Listening to this “Honoring Life” meditation is lovely– and the music that undergirds Blondin’s narrative is also exceptionally poignant. This is deeply moving stuff, both gentle and fiercely insightful.
The words, it seems, resonate beyond the recording. As a result, we recommend this Honoring Life meditation to everyone– especially those who are going through a tough time. It’s said that a good meditation comes to you whenever you need to hear it most, and I find that this one is always on time.
Curl up in a comfortable spot and listen to Sarah Blondin’s Honoring Life meditation, below.
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Below is a transcript of Blondin’s full Honoring Life meditation, for those of you who want to revisit the words.
Honoring Life Meditation
By Sarah Blondin
“To my lover, my husband, my wife, my child, my dearest friend, my mentor.
To the stranger I pass on the street. The kind eyes who met mine.
The gentle breath shared while being embraced.
To the ear that listened and held my words as precious.
To the ones who stand with me in this lifetime.
To the life that comes rising along with the sun,
that opens my eyes, that floods my body with vitality and vigor.
To the love that spills from light, the love that falls
from the seams in my clothing.
To the abundance that fills the cup of clean water I drink.
To the fighting, the warring, the violent storms that crash within me, and around me.
To the ones that come to help show me what hurts, in order to be healed.
To the people who are on this healing journey with me, that are not allowing me to stay small,
but are forcing growth to come bursting forth from the wound that binds us together.
To the remembering of who I am.
To the glimpses of my formless beauty, my unstoried self.
To the remembering, and then forgetting again.
To the cycle, and circle, and dance with essence, and all that is not.
To the heartbeat of my humanity, the tenderness of learning to walk without hands to hold.
To the gentle, most incredulous journey we are all on.
To the breaking free from our painful, conditional joy and happiness.
To loving someone and needing nothing in return.
To the giving of yourself to the fires that come to burn your restrictive walls to ash.
To the coming home. And leaving. And coming home, again.
To the fear found in my clenched fists, my sore shoulders, my shallow breath.
The gilded knot in my stomach.
To the fear that seizes the homes of the places within me
that are not aligned with my intrinsic self.
To the fear that is there to remind me, relentlessly, of the places
I need to open my eyes, the places I need to love.
The places that made me forget who I was,
before I learned to clench against it all.
To the dark nights, the relief of the moon,
the soft earth that forms to cradle the shape of my foot.
To the crickets and the birds who sing our world into harmony,
To the flowers that wish to sit on my windowsill,
the trees that grow to reach the most sunlight.
To the grass that sways, and soothes.
To the webs the spider tirelessly builds overnight,
only to be torn down in the light of day.
To the life that pulses in exaltation below my feet, every day that I’m alive.
To the portal it offers into remembrance of our wholeness.
To our source of unconditional love.
To the beauty that comes from hitting the rocks at the bottom of the well.
To the surrender that comes after I have been squeezed of my last drop of control.
To the overwhelming freedom that lives there behind everything I diligently carry.
To the wealth that waits for me to turn my gaze toward it.
To the gift of letting go. To the outstretching of palms.
To the laying down of arms.
To the miracles born of not doing, but being.
To the unclaimed love we are all blundering toward.
To the gravitational pull that constantly tugs us towards center,
even when we are screaming in the other direction.
To the constant unearthing of who we really are.
To the waxing and waning, to the groaning, and roaring.
To the discoveries that blaze.
To our valiance, our fortitude, our constant learning.
To our courageous, beautiful selves.
To the purity of who we are, the mighty force we were born as.
To the vulnerable, most magnificent heart in our chest.
To the world of wonder, shrouded in every soul.
To the simple, the plain, ordinary life I get to live…
I would like to say, ‘Thank You’.
I would like to share my most sincere gratitude, and love,
and appreciation to the simple, the plain, the ordinary life I get to live.
I would like to say a most sincere thank you,
for all of this glory that waits for me to turn my gaze toward it.
I thank you. I love you. I thank you.
Close your eyes. And let these recognitions be what you carry close,
as you rise and fall throughout your day.
Let these recognitions anchor you to the love that is yours,
that is waiting, that you are infused with.
Let yourself be reminded that everything is a gift.
A raucous, riotous, astonishing gift for you to revel in.
There is no right and wrong, no good and bad, no must-be’s. This is it.
It is a tale of fervent love. A tale of how you learn to discover the immense beauty living inside of you. Breath. Hold your heart. Take a deep inhale and exhale.
Go forth dearest love, into the great pilgrimage of your life, and offer your most sincerest thanks for all of this. For all that is. For all of the glory that waits for you to turn your gaze toward it.”
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Related: A Prayer for When You’ve Hit Rock Bottom.
“Self Care” and “Self Comfort”– and Why You Need Both.
3 Helpful Tools & Insights From Dr. Michele Kambolis’ Book on Women and Stress, When Women Rise.
Or, try this 5-Step Method for Identifying Misplaced Emotions.
Read our article, A Healing Way to Think About Grief.
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