Glacier Meditation

To facilitate moving into the space of glaciers, I offer you this glacier meditation.  If you would like to create a deeper sensory experience, I invite you to hold a piece of ice while you experience this guided journey to the glaciers. 

Feel the melting ice and water drip through your fingers, close your eyes or soften your gaze, bring your awareness inward—not away from this moment, but deeper into it.

Let’s begin by drawing one slow, full breath in… through the nose… and out through the mouth.
Again. Inhale—feeling your chest expand like the slow swell of a tide-fed fjord… and exhale, Let your breath fall gently down your spine like meltwater tracing ancient stone.

Now, with the next breath, I invite you to imagine you are standing before a glacier.

You are small here. But not insignificant.
Take another breath. Let it deepen.
Feel the air shift — it’s cold, but not unkind.
It smells of minerals and time. Of rockflower and moraine.
Of something vast and enduring.
A quiet unlike any other surrounds you—not silence, but the slow exhale of the Earth itself.

Before you, a wall of ancient ice— white and blue with age, ridged with the memory of centuries. Each layer a story. Each crack a song. This is time made visible. A frozen archive of cloud and wind and snow.
Notice how it’s presence makes you feel—not just in your mind, but in your body.
Maybe there’s awe. Maybe grief.
Maybe a tender ache—somewhere in the chest, or belly.
Let that sensation be your companion for now.

Draw closer to the glacier –
Imagine placing your hand gently on the ice.
Your skin against its surface.
Two bodies exchanging presence – as kin.
Stay with that feeling:
That this glacier — this being — is alive.
Not like you, not like me — but alive in its own way.
It breathes through seasons.
It sings in slow movements.
It grieves in calvings and crevices.
It is Slow. Ancient. Attentive.
It remembers the rhythm of the Earth long before we came, and it will remember long after. If we let it.

Breathe with it. A slow, deep inhale… and as you exhale, feel yourself settling into this kinship.
Let go of the illusion that you are separate from this body of ice.

Your breath—its melt.
Your tears—its rivers.
Your warmth—its loss.
And still, it remains. For now. A witness. A teacher. A companion.

Now, let us stay here a little longer. In the stillness. Listening.
What is it saying?
Perhaps it speaks in pulses… in pressure… in presence.
Does it grieve?
Does it hope?
Do you?

Take a moment now to offer it something—from within. A word. A gesture. A promise.
And allow yourself to receive something in return.
Maybe it’s courage. Maybe clarity. Maybe a deepened sense of belonging.

Now, with your next breath, begin to return.
But bring this glacier with you—not as an image, but as an imprint.
Feel its weight in your bones. Its voice in your breath. Its light in your heart.
You are no longer just a witness. You are kin.

These feelings are not yours alone.
They are shared by mountains, by rivers, by children not yet born.
By those who’ve watched the ice retreat and said nothing.
And those who wept when it did.
As we open our eyes and rejoin the space around us, may we carry that truth forward:
That in grieving, we remember.
That in remembering, we reweave.
And that with the meltwaters, so too we go—not in surrender, but in solidarity.

Let’s take one final breath together—inhale… and exhale.
Carry with you what you felt
As the ice remembers – and so must we