A shared practice
Ground Beneath the Weather
S
Guided bySean Fargo
For the stretch when you don't know what's coming — a visualization of ground and weather that finds what is actually stable right now.
Narrated by Spuds10 min
ShareSave card
Read along — the full script
Uncertainty is hard on a nervous system. When we don't know what's coming, the mind runs ahead, trying out futures, checking and rechecking, as if enough rehearsal could make the unknown behave. This practice doesn't ask you to stop that. It just offers somewhere else to stand while it happens.
10s of stillness
Beginning by settling into your seat. Eyes closed or lowered, whichever leaves you more at ease. And you're free at any point to pause this, open your eyes, or stop — the door is always open, and stopping is allowed.
10s of stillness
First, taking stock of what is actually stable, right now, in this moment. Not in the future. Here. The chair or cushion holding your weight — it hasn't moved. The floor under your feet. The ground under the floor, going down further than you'll ever need it to. The walls, standing where they stood this morning. The light, doing what light does. Feeling those points of contact, one by one.
15s of stillness
Your breath, coming and going without being managed. Sounds arriving and passing on their own. If it's steadier to rest with the breath, resting there. If touch feels more solid, staying with the contact points. If sound is easiest, letting sound be your ground. You get to choose, and you can switch anytime.
15s of stillness
Now, if imagery works for you, inviting a picture to mind: a wide hillside, or a broad old hill of land you've seen or imagined. Grass, stone, earth. And above it — weather. If pictures don't come naturally to you, no problem at all; you can stay with your feet and your seat for this whole practice, and the words will still do their work.
10s of stillness
Watching the weather over this hill. Some days bring fog, and the hill can't see its own slopes. Some days bring wind, rain, sudden shifts of light. The hill doesn't know what tomorrow's sky will hold.
10s of stillness
And you might notice — the hill doesn't need to know. Its steadiness was never in the forecast. It's in the ground itself.
15s of stillness
If you like, watching one weather system cross the hill from beginning to end. A bank of cloud arriving from one side. Its shadow moving over the grass — darkening the slope for a while, then releasing it. And the hill under all of it, unmoved. Not resisting the shadow. Not holding on to the light. Just there, being ground.
20s of stillness
And seasons, too, if you like — whole years of weather crossing this one hill. Springs it couldn't have predicted. Winters that seemed to have no far side, until they did. The hill has never once known the forecast, and it has never once needed to.
15s of stillness
Sensing, if you like, the ways your own body is like this. Weather moves through you — worry, hope, dread, plans, relief — real, and changing. Some of it casts long shadows. And beneath the weather, something sits here breathing. The weight in the chair. The feet on the floor. The part of you noticing all of it.
20s of stillness
When the mind runs off into forecasting — and it will, because that's what minds do when things are uncertain — you haven't lost the practice. The moment you notice you've been up in the clouds is the moment you're back on the hill. That noticing is the practice doing exactly what it's for. Coming home to your anchor, whichever one you chose.
20s of stillness
You might quietly acknowledge what's true right now, in simple words: In this moment, I am sitting. In this moment, I am breathing. In this moment, the ground is holding me.
15s of stillness
And if more of these want to come, letting them: In this moment, there is air. In this moment, there is sound. In this moment, nothing is being asked of me. Each sentence a point of contact, like a foot finding the ground.
20s of stillness
Not — everything will be fine. We can't honestly say that; nobody can. Just — right now, this. Steadiness doesn't come from certainty about the future. It comes from contact with the present. That contact is available even on the foggiest day.
20s of stillness
Resting a little longer here. Weather above. Ground below. Breath moving between them. Nothing to figure out from this seat. If the mind wanders into the clouds again, that's more practice arriving for free — noticing, and settling back down the way rain does.
30s of stillness
You might notice, too, that the hill has been through every kind of weather before this one. Storms it couldn't see the end of, from inside them. Long fogs. And the ground is still here. Something in you keeps a similar record — every uncertain stretch you've ever stood in has, one way or another, become ground you're standing on now.
20s of stillness
And beginning, gently, to bring this to a close. Letting any imagery fade, and feeling your actual body, in your actual room. The real chair. The real floor. Maybe pressing your feet down lightly and feeling the ground answer back.
15s of stillness
The uncertainty you walked in with is likely still there — this practice doesn't take it away, and it doesn't need to. What you're carrying out is a place to stand while things stay unknown. Feet on the floor, breath in the body, sound in the air. Ten seconds of contact, anytime, anywhere. The ground travels with you.
10s of stillness
When you're ready, opening the eyes if they were closed, letting the room come back — colors, edges, light.
10s of stillness
Thank you for practicing. Whatever this day turns out to be, you don't have to meet it all at once. Just the next moment, from steady ground.