Guided Imagery: Honoring Loss and Carrying the Flame

Oct 13

Episide Summary: In this fall-inspired guided imagery, Susan Morgan Bailey invites you to slow down, honor the people and experiences you've loved, and reflect on what remains with you through life's changes. Inspired by the recent loss of two dear friends and the rhythms of autumn, this gentle practice creates space for grief, gratitude, remembrance, and the gifts we carry forward.

SHOW NOTES

Episode Description

What do we carry with us when someone or something we love is no longer here?

After losing two dear friends in the span of two weeks, Susan Morgan Bailey found herself experiencing grief in ways both familiar and new. Moments of sadness arrived alongside memories of joy, reminding her that love and loss can exist together.

Autumn offers a fitting setting for this reflection. As leaves fall, the light changes, and the natural world moves into another season, we're reminded that change is part of life. But letting go doesn't necessarily mean leaving everything behind.

In this special guided imagery episode of Rooted, Susan invites you to settle into a peaceful autumn landscape, gather beside a warm fire, and spend time remembering someone or something meaningful in your life.

Through the imagery of a flame passing from one log to another, the practice invites reflection on the gifts we receive through our relationships, the ways those relationships shape us, and what we might choose to carry forward.

Whether you're grieving a person, an animal, a place, or a chapter of your life, this is an opportunity to slow down, remember, and make space for whatever arises.

Key Themes

Grief, love, and remembrance
Nature's cycles of change and renewal
The relationship between loss and gratitude
The gifts we carry from those we've loved
Finding steadiness through grounding and connection with nature

Key Takeaways

Grief can hold sadness, joy, tenderness, and gratitude at the same time.
The changing seasons offer a way to reflect on the changes unfolding in our own lives.
Our relationships continue to shape us through the memories, lessons, and gifts we carry.
Slowing down creates space to notice what we're experiencing without needing to change it.
We can honor what we've lost while remaining open to the pleasures of being alive.

It's okay to be sad, and it's okay to focus on the pleasures of being alive. These two things can be true at once.

— Susan Morgan Bailey

About This Guided Imagery

This approximately 25-minute episode includes a personal introduction followed by a guided imagery practice. You're invited to find a comfortable, quiet place where you can sit or lie down without interruption.

The experience includes gentle breathing, grounding, an imagined autumn landscape, and time for personal reflection.

Because this practice explores grief and loss, please move at your own pace. You can keep your eyes open, pause, or stop at any time. Please don't listen while driving.

If your grief feels overwhelming, consider reaching out to someone you trust. In the United States, you can call or text 988 for emotional support.

Resources Mentioned

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
Free, confidential support available in the United States.
https://988lifeline.org

Reflection Prompt

What gifts have you received from someone or something you've loved, and how might you carry those gifts forward into the next season of your life?

Prefer to read? The full transcr is below.

Guided Imagery: Honoring Loss and Carrying the Flame
Susan Morgan Bailey | ROOTED: A Podcast About Nature & Wellbeing
Introduction
Susan:
Welcome to Rooted.
In the last two weeks, I lost two dear friends. Two beings who meant so much to me.
Their passing came too soon. Two souls who brought light into my life in unique and special ways. And here I am, in grief, in a way that feels new and fresh. I’m not who I was the last time I said goodbye to someone I love. This experience will change me, too.
I feel all of it. A hole in my chest when a memory surfaces and I remember they’re not here. The floor shifts a little when I realize I won’t hold them again. Joy comes when I recall the fun we had together. And tears arrive when I least expect them.
I’ve done this before. I’ve said goodbye to people I’ve loved. I’ve said goodbye to homes, jobs, places, more often than I’d like. When I was younger, I rushed through those goodbyes. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to recognize the power of slowing down, and how essential it is to healing, and to being fully myself each day.
It’s fall in the northern hemisphere, a time when nature is releasing and letting go. I used to push against fall. I love summer so much, and I didn’t want it to go. And yet it did. Now, fall reminds me that this is natural. Cycles. Shifts. Fall teaches me that things change, and life changes. Maybe it’s just that simple.
So I created this meditation to honor my friends, and the timing of the seasons. A space for all of us to drop in and savor the things we love, while honoring the changes we’re experiencing in our own lives.
If you’re carrying a loss of your own, whether a person, an animal, a place, or a season of your life, I invite you to join me. If your grief is very fresh, or the loss was a hard one, go gently. You can open your eyes or stop at any time, and you’re welcome to come back to this when it feels right. If this stirs up more than you can hold, please reach out to someone you trust, or a support line like 988 in the US. And please don’t listen while driving.
Find a comfortable position, sitting in a chair or perhaps lying down. Let’s begin.
Opening
Find a position that feels supportive, whether that’s sitting in a chair or lying down.
If it feels right, let your eyes close, or rest your gaze softly on the floor in front of you.
Take a breath in through your nose, slowly, to a count of four. And let it out, long and slow... six... seven... eight.
Once more. In... and a long, easy exhale.
One more, perhaps letting the exhale carry a little of the day out with it.
Now allow your breath to return to its own natural rhythm.
Notice where you are in space. The surface beneath you... the air against your skin... any sounds around you.
And notice where you are in time. A season of change, in a life that’s always changing. A creature, alive in body and mind, here in this very moment. Meant to be here.
When your mind wanders, and it will, simply notice, and gently return to your breath. That returning is part of the practice.
Grounding
Now sense the places where your body meets the earth. Through the chair... the floor... the ground beneath.
You might imagine roots reaching down from the base of your spine, or from the soles of your feet. Moving through the floor, into the soil. Cool, dark, rich earth, made over many seasons from fallen leaves.
Perhaps you sense your roots spreading wide, meeting other roots, threading through fine webs of fungi, all of it connected. However this appears to you, or simply as a feeling of being anchored.
The earth has held every leaf, every seed, every season that has ever fallen. And it holds you.
Let your body be supported. Nothing to hold up, nothing to hold together.
Notice your breath moving along with your roots. Exhaling, sinking a little deeper. Inhaling, steady and still.
These roots stay with you as you move through this time together.
The Journey
Arrival
Now, if it feels right, imagine a place outdoors. A natural space that feels safe and welcoming.
Maybe a clearing at the edge of the woods. Maybe a hillside, a lakeshore, a backyard. However it appears to you, or simply as a sense of being there.
You might notice what’s around you. Leaves in gold, rust and amber, some still on the branches, some already resting on the ground. The light, low and soft, the way it falls in autumn.
Perhaps you notice the air. Crisp against your cheeks, cooler than summer, with a hint of woodsmoke. The scent of fallen leaves, damp earth.
You might hear a breeze moving through the branches, or leaves settling. Or quiet.
And perhaps there’s a taste in the air, something warm... cider, tea, or simply the cool, clean edge of fall.
Now notice what’s inside you. Your breath. The warmth where your hands rest. Whatever you’re feeling right now, welcome.
In front of you, a small fire. Simple. Cozy. Flames low and steady, the crackle soft. You might feel its warmth reach your hands, your face.
If it feels right, let your gaze widen: from the fire, to the clearing, to the trees beyond, to the sky above. Everything here is part of the same turning season. And let your attention come back to the fire, to the warmth.
The Companion
And now, if it feels right, someone joins you.
Someone you love, or loved. A friend, a family member, a pet, an ancestor. Whoever comes, however they appear to you. They might arrive as a figure beside the fire, or as a presence you simply sense.
And if no one comes, that’s welcome too. The fire is good company.
You might notice how it feels to have them near. Perhaps warmth in your chest, a softening in your shoulders.
They settle beside you, close to the fire.
You sit together. No words are needed. Between the two of you, things are shared in their own way, in the silence, in the glow of the fire.
And as you sit, you might reflect on the season you’re in, in your own life.
You might notice that change is always happening. Fall into winter, color into bare branches, being together and being apart. Life, always unfolding.
The Logs and the Gifts
As you sit together, you might notice the fire growing weaker. Burning lower.
If it feels right, you place another log on the fire. And you watch. After a moment, the new log catches. The flame passes from the old log to the new, sharing its energy, sharing its light.
With your companion beside you, you might reflect on one light they shared with you in your time together. A gift they gave.
What did they share with you?
What did being with them teach you about being a human in the world?
You might feel gratitude arrive. Or tenderness. Or tears. Whatever comes is welcome here.
And if your mind has wandered, as minds do, simply return to the warmth of the fire.
Even as the leaves fall and the seasons change, we humans are gifted with the power of memory. We can decide how we will move forward into the season. What we will keep with us, and what we will let go of.
What might you take with you, like the log set alight by another? What might be passed to you? What might you carry forward into the world?
The Hug, the Wish, the Flame
It will soon be time to return to the life you have today.
And as you prepare to go, your loved one, your companion, leans in for a hug.
You might feel their arms around you. The warmth of them.
They share their gratitude for all that you were to them.
They remind you that it’s okay to be sad, and it’s okay to focus on the pleasures of being alive. These two things can be true at once.
And they whisper a wish.
Then your companion takes a long stick and lights it from the flames of the fire. They bring it to the torch you’ve been carrying, and in a flash, the flame from their fire is gently passed into your hands, to carry, and to keep alive.
You might feel the warmth of it, the weight of it, the light it casts ahead of you.
The Walk Back
With all that you feel and all that you know, and knowing you can return here to connect again, you stand.
You turn, and begin to walk down the path.
The ground beneath your feet, leaves underfoot, your torch lighting the way.
The trees begin to thin. The light changes. Perhaps you notice sounds from beyond the clearing, a bit more clearly with each step.
You are grateful for this walk, and for the moments of peace you’ve found in the changing of this season.
Integration
Now, simply pause here, wherever you are on the path.
Let yourself be still and notice what has shifted. In your body. In your heart.
If it feels right, bring a hand to your heart, or to wherever you feel the warmth of that flame.
Feel your breath beneath your hand.
You might offer a quiet acknowledgment to yourself: This is my grief. This is my love. This is my flame to carry.
Both can be true.
Closing
Notice that your roots are still with you, still reaching down, still holding you steady.
The fire in the clearing keeps burning, and the flame you carry is with you. You can return here whenever you wish.
As you move through the rest of your day, you might trust that your body will keep working with what you experienced here. Rest does some of its deepest work after a practice like this, so tonight, let yourself sleep deeply.
Now begin to return. Take a deeper breath in, and let it out with a sigh.
Wiggle your fingers and toes. Feel the surface beneath you. Perhaps a gentle stretch.
Notice the sounds of the room around you.
And when you are ready, open your eyes, and return.
Thank you for being here with me. Be gentle with yourself in the days ahead.
Buen Camino, friends. Until we meet again.

Susan Bailey