A poem for the first chakra: Sleeping in the Forest

The 1st chakra invites us to connect to the element of earth. This is an invitation to drop into the rhythm of our breath, inhabit our bodies and moves slowly and mindfully through the world. Open to the earthy energy of the first chakra with this poem by Mary Oliver.

Sleeping in the Forest
by Mary Oliver

I thought the earth remembered me,
She took me back so tenderly
Arranging her skirts
Her pockets full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before
A stone on the riverbed,
Nothing between me and the white fire of the stars,
But my thoughts.
And they floated light as moths
Among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
Breathing around me.
The insects and the birds
Who do their work in darkness.
All night I rose and fell,
As if water, grappling with luminous doom.
By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times
Into something better.