Plugging In To Impersonal Energies + Expansion

Before we can get into any sort of processing, it's helpful to "plug in" to the energies available to us. I think of this practice as a simple way of grounding, by inviting Earth energy to come up through the bottoms of the feet, and of opening ourselves to cosmic energy by allowing that to come down through the top of the head. From there, we expand our consciousness outwards. We begin, as always, by bringing our awareness into the physical body and end with expanded non-dual awareness.

Transcript

So this is a meditation to help us connect to the energy of the earth and cosmic energy, One way that I refer to as plugging in to the energy beyond our own individual personal energy. So what I'll have you do is take a moment to turn your awareness inside your body. Almost give a shout out to the internal landscape, Any physical sensations, Emotions, The breath, And to drop a little more intimately into connection with the breath, We might bring awareness to the breath of the nostrils and follow that breath down to the belly. If it feels right for you, You might put one hand on your stomach and just feel the gentle rise and fall of that hand with the breath, Not forcing the breath or doing the breath, But instead coming into contact with the breath as it already is. From here, I invite you to bring awareness to the bottoms of your feet. Wherever they are, If they're making contact with the ground, You might start to sense or imagine earth energy flowing up into the bottoms of the feet. And then slowly allowing that earth energy to flow up through the ankles, The legs, Calves. If you're seated, Feeling the contact of the backs of the legs on your seat, Sitting bones. And simply allow that earth energy to pool in the bowl of the pelvis. Now I would invite you to bring your awareness to the top center of your head, Imagining an opening at the top center of the head into which the cosmic energy can pour down. Just letting that cosmic energy pour down through the top center of the head, Can sense or imagine it flowing down through the torso, Through the spine, Until it mingles with that earth energy. Could sense or imagine giving it a stir so that earth energy and cosmic energy are combining. And then with your awareness, You could coax that mixture up the front of the torso. Anywhere that you're encountering blocks or hiccups or places where you feel the energy is flowing less swiftly, You just slow down, Bring your awareness there. And you can start over as many times as you need to tracing the awareness through that area. Never forcing, Never doing, Just instead working with the flow of the energy as it wants to flow. And then once that energy comes all the way up to the top center of the forehead, For many of us where the hairline would be or the crown, You can imagine that almost like a fountain, 360 degrees around the body. Wonderful. And so now from here, We're going to expand out. And so if you have a sense perhaps of oval or egg shape, We want simply to expand this awareness further out into space away from the physical body. So one method that you can use is to kind of imagine yourself in the room that you're in and see if you can let your awareness find more spaciousness by taking up the space of the whole room that you're in. Working with the breath such that each in breath you're bringing in more spaciousness, More expansiveness, Breathing out contractedness, Tightness. And then you might imagine the room that you're in, You might put that kind of either visually or conceptually within the building. Put that building in the city or town. Put that city or town within geographic larger place. For instance, I'm in Juneau, Alaska, So I'm putting Juneau, Alaska in the state of Alaska. And then I'm putting the state of Alaska in North America. And I'm putting North America in the world. And I'm imagining the world in the solar system. Beautiful. Just take a moment to get used to that expansion. And from here we'll move on to the next possibility which is to focus in on an area either of our body or our mind or our emotional life that's calling for a particular attention that wants to be worked with.