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by Patricia Lynn Reilly Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is a woman. A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories. Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life. Imagine a woman who trusts and respects herself. A woman who listens to her needs and desires. Who meets them with tenderness and grace. Imagine a woman who acknowledges the past’s influence on the present. A woman who has walked through her past. Who has healed into the present. Imagine a woman who authors her own life. A woman who exerts, initiates, and moves on her own behalf. Who refuses to surrender except to her truest self and wisest voice. Imagine a woman who names her own gods. A woman who imagines the divine in her image and likeness. Who designs a personal spirituality to inform her daily life. Imagine a woman in love with her own body. A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is. Who celebrates its rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource. Imagine a woman who honors the body of the Goddess in her changing body. A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom. Who refuses to use her life-energy disguising the changes in her body and life. Imagine a woman who values the women in her life. A woman who sits in circles of women. Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets. Imagine yourself as this woman. Part Two Imagine a woman who is interested in her own life. A woman who embraces her life as teacher, healer, and challenge. Who is grateful for the ordinary moments of beauty and grace. Imagine a woman who participates in her own life. A woman who meets each challenge with creativity. Who takes action on her own behalf with clarity and strength. Imagine a woman who has crafted a fully-formed solitude. A woman who is available to herself. Who chooses friends and lovers with the capacity to respect her solitude. Imagine a woman who acknowledges the full range of human emotion. A woman who expresses her feelings clearly and directly. Who allows them to pass through her as naturally as the breath. Imagine a woman who tells the truth. A woman who trusts her experience of the world and expresses it. Who refuses to defer to the perceptions, thoughts, and responses of others. Imagine a woman who follows her creative impulses. A woman who produces original creations. Who refuses to color inside someone else's lines. Imagine a woman who has relinquished the desire for intellectual approval. A woman who makes a powerful statement with every action she takes. Who asserts to herself the right to reorder the world. Imagine a woman who has grown in knowledge and love of herself. A woman who has vowed faithfulness to her own life. Who remains loyal to herself. Regardless. Imagine yourself as this woman.
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Come to a comfy seat and prepare yourself for a guided meditation.
As you sit here, letting an image form in your mind’s eye, of the most magnificent or beautiful mountain you know or have seen or can imagine…, letting it gradually come into greater focus… and even if it doesn’t come as a visual image, allowing the sense of this mountain and feeling its overall shape, its lofty peak or peaks high in the sky, the large base rooted in the bedrock of the earth’s crust, it’s steep or gently sloping sides… Noticing how massive it is, how solid, how unmoving, how beautiful, whether from a far or up close…(pause) Perhaps your mountain has snow blanketing its top and trees reaching down to the base, or rugged granite sides… there may be streams and waterfalls cascading down the slopes… there may be one peak or a series of peaks, or with meadows and high lakes… Observing it, noting its qualities and when you feel ready, seeing if you can bring the mountain into your own body sitting here so that your body and the mountain in your mind’s eye become one so that as you sit here, you share in the massiveness and the stillness and majesty of the mountain, you become the mountain. Grounded in the sitting posture, your head becomes the lofty peak, supported by the rest of the body and affording a panoramic view. Your shoulders and arms the sides of the mountain. Your buttocks and legs the solid base, rooted to your cushion or your chair, experiencing in your body a sense of uplift from deep within your pelvis and spine. With each breath, as you continue sitting, becoming a little more a breathing mountain, alive and vital, yet unwavering in your inner stillness, completely what you are, beyond words and thought, a centered, grounded, unmoving presence… As you sit here, becoming aware of the fact that as the sun travels across the sky, the light and shadows and colors are changing virtually moment by moment in the mountain’s stillness, and the surface teems with life and activity… streams, melting snow, waterfalls, plants and wildlife. As the mountain sits, seeing and feeling how night follows day and day follows night. The bright warming sun, followed by the cool night sky studded with stars, and the gradual dawning of a new day… Through it all, the mountain just sits, experiencing change in each moment, constantly changing, yet always just being itself. It remains still as the seasons flow into one another and as the weather changes moment by moment and day by day, calmness abiding all change… In summer, there is no snow on the mountain except perhaps for the very peaks or in crags shielded from direct sunlight In the fall, the mountain may wear a coat of brilliant fire colors. In winter, a blanket of snow and ice. In any season, it may find itself at times enshrouded in clouds or fog or pelted by freezing rain. People may come to see the mountain and comment on how beautiful it is or how it’s not a good day to see the mountain, that it’s too cloudy or rainy or foggy or dark. None of this matters to the mountain, which remains at all times its essential self. Clouds may come and clouds may go, tourists may like it or not. The mountain’s magnificence and beauty are not changed one bit by whether people see it or not, seen or unseen, in sun or clouds, broiling or frigid, day or night. It just sits, being itself. At times visited by violent storms, buffeted by snow and rain and winds of unthinkable magnitude. Through it all, the mountain sits. Spring comes, trees leaf out, flowers bloom in the high meadows and slopes, birds sing in the trees once again. Streams overflow with the waters of melting snow. Through it all, the mountain continues to sit, unmoved by the weather, by what happens on its surface, by the world of appearances… remaining its essential self, through the seasons, the changing weather, the activity ebbing and flowing on its surface… In the same way, as we sit in meditation, we can learn to experience the mountain, we can embody the same central, unwavering stillness and groundedness in the face of everything that changes in our own lives, over seconds, over hours, over years. In our lives and in our meditation practice, we experience constantly the changing nature of mind and body and of the outer world, we have our own periods of light and darkness, activity and inactivity, our moments of color and our moments of drabness. It’s true that we experience storms of varying intensity and violence in the outer world and in our own minds and bodies, buffeted by high winds, by cold and rain, we endure periods of darkness and pain, as well as the moments of joy and uplift, even our appearance changes constantly, experiencing a weather of it’s own… By becoming the mountain in our meditation practice, we can link up with its strength and stability and adopt them for our own. We can use its energies to support our energy to encounter each moment with mindfulness and equanimity and clarity. It may help us to see that our thoughts and feelings, our preoccupations, our emotional storms and crises, even the things that happen to us are very much like the weather on the mountain. We tend to take it all personally, but its strongest characteristic is impersonal. The weather of our own lives is not be ignored or denied, it is to be encountered, honored, felt, known for what it is, and held in awareness… And in holding it in this way, we come to know a deeper silence and stillness and wisdom. Mountains have this to teach us and much more if we can let it in… So if you find you resonate in some way with the strength and stability of the mountain in your sitting, it may be helpful to use it from time to time in your meditation practice, to remind you of what it means to sit mindfully with resolve and with wakefulness, in true stillness… So, in the time that remains, continuing to sustain the mountain meditation on your own, in silence, moment by moment, until you hear the sound of the bells… Stay present for each step of the journey. we don't go from one place to another in a gigantic leap. We get there in increments, by going through each feeling, each belief, each experience one step at a time.
Sometimes when we pray for miracles, what we're really praying for is help in skipping steps, for shortcuts. The simple act of acceptance, of returning to each step of our path, can often bring us the miracle we need. Then we see the truth. The real miracle is one always available to each of us: it's the miracle of acceptance. We can go where we want to go, one step at a time. Stay present for each step of your journey. Trust each stage. Many things are possible for you if you accept that the fastest way is on step at a time. The Spring Equinox is a powerful seasonal day, celebrated by ancient peoples all throughout human history. (Read more about the power of this sacred day, here.)
I really encourage you to find some time around the Equinox to pause & celebrate this meaningful seasonal shift. Here are a few simple ways you can celebrate this sacred day: Wake up at DawnSpring is associated with dawn & new beginnings. After the Spring Equinox the light overtakes the dark, the sun is now more powerful than the night. Plan to wake up & watch the sunrise. Toast the growing sun on this sacred seasonal day. Look for signs of SpringPlan a special Spring Equinox walk to look for signs of spring. In my family we like to do “Finds.” See who can find the most signs of spring as you walk. Or, like an egg hunt, see who can find things first. What are your favorite trees, bushes & flowers blooming right now? Take note of all the beautiful things budding in your neighborhood. Continue walking & watching them throughout the spring, see how things morph & change. Open a WindowI have a tradition of leaving the window open on the night of the Spring Equinox. I love hearing the birds chirping when I wake up in the morning. I love to smell the fresh, damp smells. It lets me know spring is here! Do an Egg HuntLet’s be real, most of what we celebrate at Easter is really in acknowledgement of spring–the bunnies, the eggs, the pastel colors. These are all elements of Spring & the Pagan holiday Ostara. So, why not hold your egg hunt on the Spring Equinox instead of Easter? It will provide you with an awesome opportunity to talk to kids about the significance of this sacred seasonal day. Replace the traditional Easter basket with a hidden nest filled with crystals & flowers and other earthly delights. Plan an Ostara Meal Traditional Ostara meals celebrating this sacred seasonal day include (what else …) eggs! Make a quiche or some other egg-centric meal for dinner. Take turns saying what you’d like to see blossom & grow in your life & in your family. Make some fun plans for the upcoming months of spring & summer. Send energy into the world to help manifest your wishes. ~ The Seasonal Soul~ This is a call to the colorblind
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AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
May 2022
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