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A Meditative Journey to the Center of the Earth

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If you are anything like me, this year has already started out busy and hectic. Crazy days at work, family drama, bad news and violence all over the media. If you thought that just by shifting to a new calendar, things would smooth out for you, you are probably finding yourself even deeper in your frustration and anger. In the spirit of this chaotic energy, I thought it would be a good time to take a few minutes and ground ourselves. It is amazing the clarity that can come in during even a few brief moments of quiet contemplation and relaxation.

Before we begin, you may be asking; “What is grounding and why do I need to do it?”

In the most basic terms, grounding is the practice of focusing and stabilizing the energy within us. In our world of high speed information and constant energy exchange, we often get left feeling as though we are being pulled in a thousand directions and little bits of us get scattered everywhere. Through every interaction we have, we create energetic cords that tie us to the people, places and things that we come in contact with. Unconsciously, we often leave these cords in place well after they have served their purpose and begin to act as energy drains instead of information carriers. The practice of grounding helps us to call in these cords and draw our energies back to our core. This not only focuses our own personal energy, but also helps us to create clearer, brighter connections with the power sources that reside in both earth and sky.

As we ground, we focus our thoughts and intentions on connecting to the Earth. Of all the energy sources around us, the ground beneath us is the most stable and permanent. It is in this permanence that we find our core power and an element of peace within us. This peaceful power can be very effective in helping us to navigate our days with greater clarity and purpose.

Tonight, we will be taking a meditative journey to ground ourselves. This will be a group trip to a place within your own consciousness that you can then return to whenever you feel the need.

 

Begin by finding a comfortable place to sit or lie down. Adjust your lighting, settle yourself in and close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths with me and relax your body. Feel the relaxation in your toes. With each breath in, feel the comforting energy flow into your body. With each breath out, feel your tension and stress release. Feel the deep relaxation flowing into your feet. Feel the comforting energies of your breath release the stress in your legs. Feel the relaxation in your hips as you settle your breath into a relaxed pace. Feel the relaxation flow into your spine and extend out to your arms, hands and fingers. As your breathing relaxes, feel the comforting energies rise through your neck and throughout your head. You are completely relaxed and enjoying the bliss of your own comforting energies. The sounds of the room dissipate, the sensations of your body go soft and the only thing you hear is the sound of my voice as we journey away.

Picture in your mind a crowded space. It may be a busy street, a bustling office space or an overly filled room. Allow yourself to feel the energy of the space and interact with the people and things around you. With each interaction, visualize a thin cord extending out from your body to connect with the person or object you connect with. Move throughout the space and continue to connect to the energies around you. Allow yourself to feel the energies of the space again and allow the cords you have connected to remain attached. Feel the energies that come from those cords and acknowledge that this is the same energy you feel in your waking day. Acknowledge and understand that any draining or negative energy you feel is the result of these cords separating you from your core power. One by one, call back these cords from your connections. Say to each connection: “Thank you, I honor your energy as yours, but it is not my own.” “Thank you, I honor your energy as yours, but it is not my own.” Thank you, I honor your energy as yours, but it is not my own.”

As you speak these words to each connection, see your cords retract within you and allow the connected person or object to fade away. As they fade away, see in their place a glimpse of an open field. Continue to release and retract your cords, honoring each connection as they fade away into the open field. As your connections fade, you begin to see the blooming flowers, majestic mountains and bright hues of the morning sky touching the green grasses around you. As you call in the last of your cords, you see that the bustling scene you once pictured is now a quiet place of calm and serenity. As you look around you, you can feel the Earth beneath you calling for the touch of your feet. As you remove your shoes and allow the cool grasses to caress your toes, you can feel the vibration of the ground beneath you. Soft and rhythmic like the beating of a heart, you can feel the pulse of Mother Earth beneath you. With each beat, you feel roots burrowing into the soil from the soles of your feet. Deeper and deeper they go into the cool moist earth. With each breath and with each beat, you feel the energies of the Earth flowing through you. Every breath in draws power and nourishment from beneath you. Every breath out, releases the tension, fear and anxiety from your body. Deeper and deeper your roots continue to grow. Nourishing and detoxifying your body, mind and soul with each breath and beat. As your roots reach for the core of the earth, you feel them wrap around it and embrace the pure energy of Mother Earth. A surge of power flows up through your roots and fills your body with a radiant light. This is the light of the Earth and the light of your soul. As you bask in this light, you can hear a voice calling to you from within. It is the voice of the Earth within you. “Your connection to my core is a divine bond that can never be broken. I honor you as you honor me. I pledge to your soul that I will hold you strong in my love for you. This light within you holds you tight to me. Remember this light when you feel yourself losing your footing and your connection. This place you have created here is ours and is here for you whenever you choose to return. This is our place of communion, our home and our sanctuary. I release you now knowing that our bond is in place, forever holding you to the power within you.”

Feel your roots beginning to release from the core and rise towards you. With each breath they rise towards you compressing and focusing the energies that they carry. As your roots reach your feet, you feel the surge of power again and see the light radiating around you drawn into your root chakra. As this grounding energy resonates within your root chakra, feel it spread throughout your body as a calming yet empowering wave. Allow yourself to remain in this state of calm for as long as you like.

When you are ready to leave, you turn to see a path behind you. As you begin to walk this path, you begin to hear the sounds of your room once more. The feelings and sensations of your space become apparent more as you walk further and further along this path. Your become aware of your breathing once more and as you are ready, your eyes open to the room around you. We acknowledge this journey with one last deep breath and thank our Mother Earth for pledging to always hold us strong in her love.

Namaste

Samhain Blessings

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Though I have never been one for haunted houses, scary movies and the other horror related aspects of Halloween, it has always been a favorite time of year for me. Growing up, this time of year was about the fun of dressing up, touring the neighborhood and of course loading up on sweets.  The simple joy of spending a couple hours dressed up as my favorite super hero, real-life or fictional character bagging a sack full of candy was enough to have me looking forward to Halloween all year long.

As I got older, the lure of costumes and candy waned but I still loved the season and the endings and new beginnings that came with it.  In the world of farming and living off of the Earth, October is a time of ending for the harvest season and celebrating the bounty that will hopefully last throughout the winter.  It is the ending of another season of growth and the beginning of a season of withering and introspection.  Throughout the winter, we are driven to spend more time not only in our homes but also in our heads.  This is a time of year that we are given the opportunity to look back on what we have been able to accomplish throughout the past 10 months and begin to plan for what we want to get done in the following year.  Though we as a society have managed to fill much of the last two months of the year with commercialism and greed, with the proper mindset there is still time to reflect on the spirit behind the fall holidays.

Here in the northern hemisphere, we are in the midst of Samhain.  As I have been exploring and developing my understanding of this holiday, I have been able to better understand the roots of our modern celebrations of Halloween.  The fascination with ghosts and monsters.  The concept of why we go house to house asking for treats.  It all started to make much more sense to me as I discovered the history and development of Samhain.  One of the things that really struck me was the ancient Celtic tradition of dressing up in costumes mimicking malevolent spirits to ward them off for the upcoming winter.  Our fascination with spirits, death and forces greater than us has been a common thread since the beginning of recorded time.  The idea of dressing up in the image of a spirit crosses into aspects of almost every culture as a way to pay homage to those forces that support us or to ward off those forces that hinder our growth or intentions.  This practice, though adapted and often obscured, is still alive and well today in our modern Halloween traditions.

As I look back on the costumes that I wore as a child, most of them had something to do with aspects of my own spirit.  Whether it was an aspect that I wanted to draw into myself or a shadow side that I wanted to expose, my costumes spoke volumes about who I was.   The hero costumes made me feel stronger, faster and more powerful than I felt as my shy little self.  Instead of monster costumes, I often chose self deprecating costumes such as dressing up as a geek, redneck or hobo.  These costumes seemed to speak to shadow sides of myself that I was embarrassed about in my daily life.  By exaggerating these aspects and cloaking myself in the most extreme personification of these aspects it helped me to feel more comfortable in who I was  in reality.  After all, even though I might feel like a geek at times I didn’t dress in the stereotypical fashion and I surely didn’t wear a pocket protector the time so I couldn’t be as much of a geek as I thought.  Through my choices of costumed expressions, I was able to harness the power of my own internal superhero as well as ward off the malevolent feelings of inadequacy.  Though I wasn’t feeling the possible doom of evil spirits affecting my survival through the winter, I was in effect battling my own inner spirits that threatened the survival of my self esteem and self image.

In Celtic tradition, the celebration of Samhain marked the end of one year and the beginning of the next.  This holds a very special place for me in that my birthday is only a few days away and this time of year quite literally marks the end of my solar year and the beginning of my next.  My focus tends to shift during these weeks from an active goal seeking motivation to a more and introspective mode.  It is during this time that I take time to look back on the year that has past and how many of my goals I was able to accomplish.  As you all have hopefully garnered from these segments so far, I am not one for spending time in the past.  However, everyone needs to take time here and there to not only reflect on the past, but also to appreciate it.  As I prepare to transition into my next year of life,  it is important to me to take some time to celebrate the successes and challenges that I have encountered.  These opportunities have helped to shape where I am and by evaluating where things went right and where things went wrong, I can build a better future to come.

In losing my focus on candy and costumes, I have replaced it with a desire for growth and transparency.   Most of us have this same shift of focus as we grow up and mature.  As we experience the shift, it is important to use this annual time to examine yourself and evaluate whether or not you are who you want to be.

I wanted to take this opportunity to share another brief meditation with you all in the spirit of Samhain.  In this meditation, we will take a look at what part of our spirit we need to focus on and how that will help us to grow in the coming year.  If you are driving, operating machinery or otherwise doing something that requires your alert attention please do not join us a this time, instead I invite you to revisit this meditation in the archives.  That being said, I invite you all to close your eyes and begin to breathe slowly.

Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Visualize roots growing out from the soles of your feet into the Earth.  Feel your roots growing deeper and deeper into the earth as you allow yourself to become grounded and centered.

Visualize a light shining brightly from the top of your head.  Allow this light to travel upward through the roof of your room and into the heavens above you.  Feel your connection to Spirit grow as your light travels higher and higher.  Upward into the stars connecting directly to Spirit.

Feel the energy flow through you from Mother Earth and Father Sky.  You are a channel of divine light and divine love.

Visualize yourself on a pathway leading up to a house.  As you examine your surroundings, you notice that you are dressed in a costume.  This is a costume of your choice that represents an aspect of your spirit that desires your attention.  Take note of your costume and begin to walk toward the house.

As you approach the house you see a kind old woman beckoning you to come closer.  When you finally reach her, she hands you a small gift and tells you that what is inside holds the key to understanding the power of your costume.

Open your gift and view what is inside.  It may be a message, a symbol or a tangible item that holds a special meaning for you.  Spend a moment with your gift and incorporate it into your understanding.  See how it relates to and interacts with your costume.

Thank the woman for the gift and send her your blessings.

As you turn to leave the house and walk down the path, feel the satisfaction of gaining your gift and feel the blessings of Spirit around you.

As you walk away, begin to draw your light back to your crown from Spirit.

With each step, feel your roots begin to draw back up from the Earth into your feet.

As you feel your energy centered back into your body, feel the peace and understanding of your gift and how it relates to your spirit and your costume.

Slowly return to the room and open your eyes when you are ready.

You can return to this house anytime that you wish for further investigation into aspects of your spirit that need your attention.  I invite you to share any experiences that you may have had with this meditation in the comment section below.

Samhain blessings to you all!