Saturday, March 28, 2009

Visualisation exercise

Visualisation is one of these skills everybody has – but it needs practise. Reading books, daydreaming, planning for the future are all activities that employ and hone your visualisation skills. The exercise given here is meant to practise visualisation without any further goal associated with it.
Each day this week, pick a fruit – apple, orange, grape, kiwi, cherry, whatever. It is best if you have that fruit within reach, especially for the first days. Explore the fruit – look it over completely, rotate it in every direction, take in the form, the colours, the texture, the little flaws where the fruit is not perfect. Touch it, feel the firmness, the softness, the texture.
Then put the fruit away and close your eyes. Picture the fruit in your minds eye. See it rotating in front of you, see the colours, the size, the texture, the little flaws... Take your time. Then imagine holding the fruit, moving it, feeling its firmness, its surface... Take your time. Then imagine taking the fruit to your nose. Smell it – does it smell? Take it to your mouth, imagine taking a bite. Hear the sound you make chewing on it, taste it, taste the sweetness, the flavour. Enjoy it. (Of course, if necessary, imagine peeling it first. Again, imagine the feeling, and enjoy the smell.) Try to involve all of your senses in the experience, and take your time.
Pick a different fruit each day. After the end of the week, imagine a bowl holding all the fruits you visualised during the week, and perform the visualisation with this bowl. Visualise creating a fruit salad from it, and imagine the taste, and the feeling of the different parts of your fruit salad.
This is an exercise that allows you to practise your visualisation skill. It is interesting to do for a time, especially if you manage to include as many senses as you can. The exercise should teach you how to do visualisation, and what difference it makes to include more than one sense.

Visualisation

One of the most fascinating abilities of the human being is the ability to visualize something: to see it in his minds eye as clearly as if it as before him. That ability is a prerequisite for making plans for the future, for engineering something, for creative work, for a lot of things. Incidentally, it is also a component of magic and of some meditation techniques like pathworking.
Visualisation means to create something in your mind – to see it, to hear, taste, smell and feel it. Often, our strongest senses are our eyes – that is why it is called visualisation. However, the more senses you can include, the more life-like your visualisation will be – and that will make it more successful. Therefore, this week includes a classical visualisation exercise that tries to engage all of your senses.
Visualisation can be used in a variety of different contexts. If you want to draw a picture, you visualize it before you start. If you want to create a machine, you visualise its different parts working together to see how it would work. That is not what I am going to be talking about. As you probably realized already last week, visualisation is necessary to do pathworkings. In pathworkings, visualisations are used to bring you – your mind, your spirit – into a position, a situation where you can make an experience. For example, in the guided meditation from two weeks ago you were brought to a place of safety, a place that allowed you to experience safety. Typically in a pathworking, you are controlling your surroundings, visualising everything in the beginning. Then, at some place/situation, you let go of that control and begin to register what is coming towards you, to receive answers, parts of the experience. A typical example is when you are led to meet somebody, ask him/her a question and "listen" for the answer. You do not actively visualize the answer, but receive it from somewhere. Now, the "where" is an interesting question. Probably most of the time it will come from your subconsciousness or higher consciousness. However, it might come from separate entities, from guides or even the Gods. Whatever your own theory is, be sure to be open to the answers you get.

A different application for visualisation is working with your body, your subtle body, or with energy: you can actively effect change using visualization. A classical example is autogenic training for working with your body, or grounding exercises for working with energies. This topic will hopefully be covered in more detail later.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Spring equinox

This week is the time of spring equinox. Day and night are of equal length. The sun is strong enough to conquer the dark. In nature, it is early spring right now: the first spring flowers can be seen, and there is a certain smell of expectation in the air. In the cycle of the God, this is the time when he grows into a young man and starts courting the Goddess who returns his attention as the spring maiden.

Pathworking Spring equinox
Make yourself comfortable. Take some deep breaths and relax. Let go of stress, anger, anxiety.
Close your eyes and go to your safe place. Turn around and look for a door. It is there, quite unobtrusive, with an eight spoked wheel engraved.
Open the door. It is day on the other side, with the light filtering through the huge trees of the forest. Before you, there is a path through the spring forest. The trees are budding, and there are the flowers springing to life everywhere.
Follow the path. It leads you through the forest, among huge budding trees. Everything is quiet and peaceful.
The area is hilly, and your path leads you downwards, getting steeper...
You reach the bottom of the descent, and the trees give way to a wide open meadow, sprinkled with crocus and tulips. You can see a young man with golden hair collecting a bouquet of flowers. He whistles to himself and selects each flower carefully.
The maiden comes out of the woods. It seems as if the trees open some extra leaves where She walks, and flowers open to greet Her.
He sees Her, and hurries towards her. She laughs as He bows deeply and offers Her the bouquet, but she accepts it gracefully, and draws him closer to start a dance. Out of nowhere, probably out of the woods, a flute sounds and accompanies the dance. The God radiates light, and laughter comes from both of them. You can just watch their joyful dance, or you can join in, if you feel like it.
...
Their dance ends, and they sit down. It is time for you to go. You turn towards the path that leads you home and return, up the hill, and through the spring forest, until you stand before the door once more. You open the door and return to your safe place. ...
From here, return to your body. Take some breaths to return and readjust. Count from 10 to 1. Open your eyes. Welcome back.


You have met the Lord and the Lady. Now, go outside and look around for Their influence in the budding trees, the flowers, the warmth of the sun.

The sun God: The Wheel of the year

Different mythologies can be found for the wheel of the year, the seasonal cycles. Two of them are most prominent in Wicca: The Sun God, who is born in winter, grows with the sun in strength, courts the Goddess, grows old and dies only to be reborn again, and the mythology of the two Gods who rule for half a year and do battle at the equinoxes. For this meditation series, I will stick with the mythology of the Sun God. We will meet Him eight times around the wheel.
At the winter solstice, he is born, the sun child, the promise that the light will return, that life will be fruitful once again. The winter solstice is the longest night, and from now on, the days grow longer again. At February Eve, or Imbolc, this influence can be felt, and the days are much longer again, yet it is still winter. He has grown into an adolescent by now. At spring equinox, He is a young man. Day and night are of equal length, and the return of spring can be felt. At Beltane, He is courting the Goddess. Their love brings fertility to the land, and He begets his son. At summer solstice, He is at the peak of His strength, just like the sun on the longest day of the year. From now on, His strength decreases slowly, until the harvest festivals. The first one is August Eve, or Lugnasad, when the harvest starts. The next one is autumn equinox, when day and night are again of equal length. The God ages, and looses his strength until Samhain, the last of the harvest festivals. Now He dies, and the days grow even shorter, until winter solstice, when His child, the sun child, is born once again and begins the cycle anew.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Pathworking "Safe Place"

The following is the first guided mediation or pathworking that will help you to find and explore a safe haven. The place will be your starting point in future pathworkings, so take the time to build it up and explore it. Record the following text, making appropriate pauses and speaking slowly ("appropriate" meaning rather long. They will not feel as long once you actually do the meditation.) Alternatively, you can simply memorize it before starting.

Preparation:
Choose a quiet place where you will not be disturbed. Switch off the phone. Make sure you have enough time. Make yourself comfortable, but not too comfortable to avoid falling asleep. Again, I recommend sitting, either on the floor or in a chair.

Exercise:
Take a deep breath and relax. Feel all your anxiety, stress and tension fade away as you exhale. As you breath in, you are filled with calm. As you breath out, you let go of any tension... Breath in calm... Breath out ... Breath in ... Breath out... Breath in... Breath out ... Breath in...
Close your eyes. Picture a path that leads away from where you are standing. You follow that path, walking along it. It makes some twists and turns, so you cannot see where it is leading. However, you feel comfortable on that path and you enjoy your walk.
Then, after what was probably the fifth turn, you walk through a kind of doorway and you feel immediately at home. The place you enter can be a forest clearing, or a beach, a mountaintop or a secluded place beside a waterfall, a cottage or a cave. What is it? Look around yourself. Where are you? The important part is that there is noone else here, only you, and that you feel completely safe, as if you had just come home.
Look around yourself. What do you see? Explore! Or simply be in that safe place and enjoy the feeling of safety and the relaxation you experience there. (If you record the text, leave time for exploration).
Now it is time for you to return to everyday reality. Take a last look around, then go towards the doorway where you have come in. If the doorway closed or vanished after you crossed it, it now reappears and opens. Go through the doorway, and follow the path that lead you there. With every step that you make, every turn you are taking, you leave that world behind and come back more and more into your physical body... The path and its surroundings slowly vanish, as you become more and more aware of your body. Feel where you are in touch with the ground or the chair. Experimentally move your fingers, your toes. Finally, open your eyes. Welcome back.

Repeat this pathworking time and again. Your safe place should be something you can reach easily and fast. You should know it and be comfortable there. It will be a starting point for the pathworkings that will come later on.
Always return to the same safe place. Stick with one such place. That will make it easier to get there reliable and fast. If you feel uncomfortable there, of course you can switch to a different safe place, and then stick with the new one. Repetition helps you to make it really easy to get there.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Breathing Meditation II

Our breath is something that accompanies us all the time. It is a prerequisite for life. However, most of the time we are not aware of our breathing in the least. In this meditation, we will focus completely upon our breath.

Preparation:
Choose a quiet place where you will not be disturbed. Switch off the phone. Make sure you have enough time. Use a clock if you have to be finished at a certain time; this will make you more calm during the meditation. Make yourself comfortable, but not too comfortable to avoid falling asleep. I recommend sitting, either on the floor or in a chair. Put a pen and some paper nearby, perhaps a journal.

Exercise:
Close your eyes if that is comfortable. If not, look on something blank – the floor or a white wall, for example. Shift your attention towards your breath. Watch as it flows in, feel the air flowing through your nose, filling your lungs, raising your abdomen and flowing out a again. Do not try to influence the flow of air, just follow your natural breath with your attention. If other thoughts come into your mind, accept them, note them, and let them float away again. Do not cling to them. If they appear, allow them to disappear again. Just watch your breath.
Start counting your breath. At every exhale, count your breath. Whenever a thought interferes, start again at "1". Do not be disappointed if you repeat "1" for nearly the whole first meditation. This is not a bad sign, it means you are aware of your thoughts and that is an important prerequisite for letting them go.
If you want to, take notes after your meditation. Allow yourself some minutes to "get back" into your everyday state of mind before starting something else.