Meditation Close your eyes and turn within. Allow yourself to feel the support of your chair, your feet flat on the ground, your breath coming and going. Let yourself take in a big breath into your belly and as you exhale use your breath to help let go. As you breath in be aware of the energizing quality, the renewal and as you exhale relax and let go. Be in the center of your head and create a flow of energy from just above the base of your spine all the way down to the center of the earth. It is a spiritual creation, no effort, simply imagine it and it can be there. You may see it as a beam of light or feel it as a flow of energy. Be aware of the area just above the base of your spine and send energy down to the center of the planet. This is a grounding cord. Your grounding helps you the energetic spiritual being to come into your body. It also can be used to release any limiting or uncomfortable energy down to the earth. Everything is energy so simply release any tension or discomfort you are feeling down your grounding cord. You may use your breath to help let go. Simply release down your grounding tension or anxiety. See or feel it moving away from you and your body down to the ground and down to the center of the earth. Once you let go of it the energy it is neutral and can be reused or recycled. Be aware of the area slightly above and behind your eyes. Allow your awareness to rest in this area and be in the center of your head. We will have a few minutes of silence. Create and destroy a few roses. Then tune back into feeling the body and grounding. Song. Talk You are spirit and you have a body. The aspect of you that is spirit and one with all is eternal, vibrant, luminous, unconditional love, all those qualities that we name as aspects of God; what is true and real, unborn or un-manifested. The body is born and operates in time and space. Deals with gravity. Has many emotions, wants and desires. Some we judge as good and others as bad. You create as spirit through the body. You, the spiritual being, get to be the driver of the vehicle. The easiest place to do this is in the center of your head. It is hard to drive your car from on top of the roof or at least it would effect your sense of depth perception. When I am not very well synchronized in mind/body and spirit it effects my depth perception and I am more likely to graze the door jam on my way through or set down a glass a little off thinking the table to be lower than it is. Many of us took breaks from the body as kids, daydreaming in school, or as teens and young adults experimenting with drugs or alcohol or more extreme disassociations from abuse or neglect. I really liked the T-shirts that came out the late 80s or early 90s that said out of body, back in five minutes. This happens so much of the time. Those gaps in conversations where you are just kind of lost, possibly because some past thought or interaction took you away for a moment and then your back. Before learning more about spirit and playing with energy, I studied mindfulness practices became aware of how fluid that dance is around being present and being gone. Learning about spirit added the appreciation of how we as spirit really do go with our attention. We are not bound by time or space. You are driving to the grocery store and you are already seeing yourself walking down the aisle thinking about what to buy. All you need to do is think of the past and it is like you are there. If you bring up a memory that has a strong emotional charge, it is often hard to stay in present time when viewing that in your minds eye. If you are looking at your world through a picture of when you were three, or 5 or 15 years old with a lot of emotion then you may well respond as if you were in that situation currently. Something in the present a situation triggers or brings up that old picture complete with all the old emotions and there you are; the scared 3 year old or the angry teen, looking through that colored lens and responding with all the energy of the past instead of a clear choice in the present. With practice, as you may already know, you can notice the button being pushed and what comes forward with that; and on the spot make separations, let go, breath, and make new choices. But it is much easier in real life to do that, if you have practiced with tools and techniques that work for you to slow things down, be more present, and work with creating change. What you may encounter as you begin or return to focus on spirit includes Joy, resistance, anger, fear, peace, bliss, clarity. You are spirit and you have a body, the body maybe or may have been use to being in charge. It may be angry at you the spiritual being showing up and taking more control or it may feel relief and gratitude. Here the analogy of the car on automatic pilot may apply. Knowing the landmarks and way sides and how to get back to the familiar. The familiar often being routine, habitual, based on what is assumed and unspoken, family patterns. When you are traveling on unfamiliar roads you know the feeling of needing to be more present, a bit more open, taking in all kinds of information, road signs, new landscapes, open to surprises, being really awake and alert behind the wheel. You may feel more acutely the weather. Heat or cold; the wind or lack of it. The difference of smell. Coming home from Portland when I drive Hwy. 30 there is one place coming down the hill after Longview or Rainier where I notice it cools down and the air is lighter and the city energy is left behind. For me there is this ah and relaxation. Almost home went with it when I lived in Brownsmead, sometimes now that last stretch seems long but still almost home in that relaxation of coming home. The relaxation and opening up is a key in coming home also with in myself as spirit into my body. Since early in childhood things have happened to disappoint us, startle us, or hurt us and one way we react is to freeze up, withdraw from the discomfort, and other ways of not feeling that can result in tension or pain and the situation gets stored as pictures and information with in the aura or energy system and often with in the tissues and cells of the body. So working with your body as part of your spiritual path includes re-owning the body, being responsible for clearing what has been stored there so more of you the spiritual being can abide in it and shine through it. You as spirit are vast, all pervading, immortal, timeless, unbounded, joyful, creative, un-manifested potential. While the body operates in time and space, has physical properties of mass and density, experiences birth, old age, sickness and death. It is a miracle of breath, circulatory systems, digestion, and all the processes that keep it functioning. One of the ways to interpret the passage in the Bible of Jesus saying, Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, is to look at the camel going through the eye of the needle. The usual emphasis I believe is on the rich man getting into heaven. But the Camel is a large animal that transports people and goods and was so important to survival in that time and place. The eye of the needle is something small and with definite and distinct boundaries. Our bodies are small and separate distinct individual places for us to focus and bring our unique vibrations as spirit into and through our physical manifestation. That higher frequency of spirit with its vast potential and unlimited qualities being brought through the eye of the body. Your body is the place in this reality where you as spirit get to focus. It is when you are in present time, grounded and focused that you have your power and ability to create. So close your eyes for a few moments. Feel your body on the chair and your breath going in and out, relax your shoulders and feel your feet on the floor. Feeling your feet on the floor and connecting with the earth can be a great way to bring yourself back if you are having one of those days where wearing the T-shirt out of body, back in five minutes would be appropriate. Tune into the aspect of you that has mass, density, lives in time and space, in this world of physical reality. Breath and let go. Give your self a moment to just be aware of your body. Imagine a pool of water in your pelvis allow it to cascade over and flow down to the center of the earth, helping you to ground and let go. Feel or see that water flowing away from you down to the center of the earth where it collects and creates a pool way down there. Now bring your attention to above your head. Allow a ball of your energy to collect above your head. Where ever you focus as spirit you will be there. Let yourself be above your head. This gives your body an opportunity to experience you the spiritual being and your unique vibration. From above your head be aware of yourself as spirit, you may see yourself as light or a color. You are spirit unbounded, beyond time and space, eternal, a bright spark of God. (Give space) You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men. (Matthew 5 14 -16) Now begin to bring a thread of that energy into the center of your head. Bring in only as much as is comfortable in the present moment. You are a higher vibration than the body and it takes time for the body to adjust to the increase in energy from having more of you present. You are spirit and you have a body. Be in the center of your head and feel yourself surrounded by your body. You have a right side, a left side , a front and a back, your feet on the floor and your head at the top. Allow your self to take up space and fill it with your presence. You are in this world and not of it, enjoy both. Open your eyes bend over and dangle your head and shoulders to release energy and then stand and join me in singing this Little Light Of Mine.