This is a teaching I received in a journey. I suppose it's a kind of dismemberment journey, but a very soft and beautiful one. Close your eyes. Feel the sun on your skin, and the earth below your feet. The air around you is warm, and thick with the scent of forest and stream. Imagine a bubbling river, cool, and clear, and refreshing. Inviting...it would be so delicious to swim in. Stand on the bank, and imagine being in the water, letting its coolness embrace you, its buoyancy making your weightless. You might feel the mist in the air, tiny droplets cool on your warm skin. In the middle of the river a beautiful white marble statue of a god or goddess is sitting on a pedestal. The water splashes against it. It needn't be a specific deity; in fact, it might be better if it's not. The one that arose for me was not anyone who I would expect. Just watch for a while, the river splashing against the statue, the statue sitting, unmoved. Beautiful. Listen to the sound of the water, the bubble and splash of it as it parts and rejoins around the statue and below, the rumbly sound of the power of the current in the deep. Birds sing in the background.
Next, imagine that you are the statue. Cool, still, stone. Feel the waters rushing around you. Just sit, and abide. Feel the water rushing. Hear the sound of it. Slowly, slowly, the waters clarifies the statue, until it is as transparent as if it were made out of glass, shimmering in the sunlight. It's ok if sometimes you forget to be the statue. Just recenter yourself within it. Everything will go on without you, the river will still run, the statue will still sit, whether you are there or not.
Slowly, slowly, over aeons and aeons, the water wears down the statue, the statue dissolves into the water. Slowly, slowly your statue, your body dissolves, becoming clearer and clearer, more and more ephemeral. After a while, you will be the river, cool, and clear, rushing and liquid. Next, work on being the shimmer of light on the water. And then the sound of the shimmer. And then you are done.
