Press your feet flat into the floor.

This is your first act of preparation: contact. Not reaching, not achieving. Just contact. Earth under you, weight moving down through your sitting bones and the soles of your feet.

Take three slow breaths — in through the nose, out through the mouth. Let each exhale be a small act of arriving.

Begin a slow scan down the body, starting at the crown of the head.

You are looking for held places. Not problems — held places. The jaw. The back of the neck. The space between the shoulder blades. The belly, where unprocessed things tend to collect quietly. The hips, where old decisions sometimes stay longer than we expect.

When you find something tight or braced, don't try to release it yet. Just acknowledge it. Place your attention on it the way you'd place a warm hand.

Here. I see this.

Move slowly. There is no hurry.

When you have scanned all the way down to the soles of your feet, take a full breath in — deep, longer than usual, drawing it all the way into the belly.

Hold it for a count of four. Let the held places feel the fullness of your breath.

Then exhale slowly, through parted lips, for a count of eight. As you exhale, imagine the resistance in those places loosening slightly. Not dramatically. Not completely. Just enough — like soil that's been turned.

Do this three times.

On the third exhale, let your hands go heavy on your thighs. Feel your weight drop a little more into the seat beneath you.

Gardeners know that what you clear from the ground doesn't disappear — it composts. What's been broken down becomes the fertility for what comes next. The old leaves, the spent roots: nothing wasted, just transformed.

Bring to mind one thing you are ready to stop carrying into the next cycle. Not a goal, not a new intention. Something you are ready to put down.

It might be a worry you've been holding on behalf of something that hasn't happened yet. A version of yourself you've been protecting past its time. A weight you picked up so long ago you forgot it was optional.

Hold it in your awareness. Then place one hand on your belly, and take one slow, full exhale.

You don't need to fix it, understand it, or resolve it. You only need to be willing to loosen your grip.

Return both hands to your thighs, palms down.

Breathe normally for a few breaths.

Feel the floor. Feel your weight. Notice the quiet that follows when something is set down.

This is prepared ground — not empty, not stripped bare, but ready. Open, turned, holding the warmth of the work you just did.

Let your eyes open slowly and let the room come back at its own pace.

The New Moon will arrive. The planting will come. For now, what's been loosened in you is already enough.