Cultivating a sense of arriving and settling into this practice. Accepting that this can take some time. There's no rush.

Adjusting your body into a comfortable but upright position. One that supports wakefulness.

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Briefly checking in with whatever feelings and thoughts are around. There might be a heaviness or a lightness in the mind. Busyness or calm. You might feel energetic or tired.

There's no need to linger here or analyse. Just recognise how you are right now, getting a sense of your current experience.

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Bring your attention to your feet on the floor, a sense of being connected to the surface beneath you; and also to the contact points with the chair that you're sitting on.

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You can allow thoughts to come and go and then maybe drift into the background as you foreground the body sitting here. Contact with the floor and the chair. The breath, a gentle rhythm.

Maybe on an out-breath, a letting go; softening the belly, letting go in the legs, the knees, ankles, feeling the weight travelling down into the feet.

As you sit, visualise a great mountain, allowing your imagination to create a picture. The foothills of the mountain are a solid and vast foundation. Maybe they're green and lush, or stark and snowy.

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The slopes and sides of the mountain may be rough and jagged, and also gently sloping in places; maybe there's snow, or a waterfall cascading mistily.

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The peak reaches up with grandeur, maybe piercing through the clouds into a clear blue sky.

The mountain is still.

We might feel into this stillness, your posture similarly grounded. Hips, legs, and feet connected with the earth, like the stable base of the mountain.

Weight traveling down, soft belly, gentle breath, arms falling away from the shoulders, like the slopes and sides of the mountain, softening the shoulders, easing tension from the face.

Your head is like the top of the mountain, maybe raising your chin slightly, a sense of dignity, an uplift through the body from the base of the legs and hips, up through the torso, through the neck, the head and face granting you perspective, a view of the landscape all around. The near distance and the far horizon.

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The mountain's stability is like your own right now, feeling into your core. Strength, stability, and dignity.

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All around the mountain is activity, life coming and going; movement, the seasons.

Darkness, light, the sun, and the stars.

Still, warm days, freezing blustery conditions, intense heat, violent storms, gently falling snow. Refreshing, life-giving rain.

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The mountain sees it all. It remains unmoving.

Like the mountain, our experience is one of changing seasons, maybe many in one day. The world shifts, sometimes predictably, often in surprising ways.

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We can be like the mountain in our minds. Patient, stable, strong. Embodying mindful composure that supports clarity, wisdom, and compassion.

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Allowing the image of the mountain to fade from your mind, knowing that you can revisit any time.

You can recall and embody the stability this meditation offers.

Feeling into the body now, a sense of the space the body is occupying, noticing the room that you're in.

Introducing some movement to the body, taking your time, opening your eyes if you've had them closed.

Engaging through the senses with what is around you, noticing any impulse to re-engage with any particular activity, or worry in the mind.

Pausing, recalling the stability and strength of the mountain, observing everything that you can see and feel and think, with interest, before proceeding with your day.