As the Irish writer James Stephens put it, a well-packed question carries its answer on its back, the way a snail carries its shell. On the day Jupiter, the planet of expansion in astrology, turned retrograde, this session turns that expansion inward.

Witness your breath and slow it until your body softens. Scan for places of constriction and ask each sensation why it is there and what message it carries. Choose one point in your body or one chakra and arrive there fully. Name the feeling that lives there, magnify it a little, then release it, keeping what works. Sit in the silence and let the answer come. Then rest your hands on your heart, recall someone two-legged or four-legged who brings you happiness, and ask your heart what it wants you to know.

The bowls settled into an E major chord, then traded perfect fifths and fourths, a question and an answer. Listen closely: the heart whispers very softly.