I'm Mary Lou.
I'm a writer,
Yoga and mindfulness meditation teacher.
I work with ancient Egyptian goddess energy to show women over 40 how to find more body confidence.
Find a comfortable place to sit and lie down where you know you'll not be disturbed.
Make any final adjustments and let the spine express its length.
If you're seated,
Take some time to invite the shoulders to melt away from the ears.
Fit bones forming a firm foundation,
The crown shining towards the sky.
Begin to notice the breath arriving and leaving in its own time.
Bear witness to the breath just as it is,
Without judgment.
This guided meditation is an invitation to tap into the goddess powers latent within you through an invocation of the goddess Tefnut.
Remember by calling in ancient Egyptian goddess energy,
You are allowing yourself to turn up the volume,
The empowered layers of your being.
You're deepening your relationship with symbolic language,
The language of the soul.
Each of us holds a sun aspect as well as a moon aspect to our nature.
When in balance,
We are in a state of wholeness,
Out of balance,
It can be difficult to know how to come back on track.
Have you been finding it hard to follow tasks through,
Overdoing it,
Maybe even fearing burnout?
Are you rushing through life,
Never tasting fully the fruits of your own making?
If you're feeling restless,
Dissatisfied,
Or having to have things your own way,
Tefnut in her cat form calls to you.
We'll be working with this powerful ancient Egyptian goddess in one of the animal forms she inhabits in her myth as we see her journey home to Egypt,
Where she will once again restore peace and harmony.
Maybe upon the wind or internally,
You might whisper and hear this invocation.
If your eyes are closed,
Keep them closed for the duration of this meditation.
If you prefer to keep them open,
Find a soft gaze through the eyelashes,
Perhaps keeping the eyes open 10% so that you can start to gaze inward.
View the inner landscape,
The saying whispering inwardly,
All out loud,
I hear and respond to the messages which Tefnut holds for me.
I hear and respond to the messages which Tefnut holds for me.
So there's the option to keep your arms resting by your side,
Palms facing sky or somewhere on your body if you're lying down.
If you're sitting in a chair or a meditation cushion,
Bring together the tips of the ring finger and the tips of the thumb on both hands.
Place your left hand just underneath the navel and the right facing down so that the tips of the ring fingers nearly meet.
Now to invoke the qualities of the receptive,
Feminine and creative,
Tune into the gentle flow of the breath once again.
Watch the breath as it arrives.
There might be some associated movement in the body with the breath arriving and the breath leaving.
This might be at the belly,
In the back body,
In the side body,
Expanding on the inhale and a gentle dropping back on the exhale.
Keep watching the gentle flow of the breath.
At the end of the next exhalation,
I invite you to take a deeper inhalation down into the bowl of the pelvis and with your mind's eye follow the breath all the way down into the base of the spine,
Into the bowl of the pelvis.
On an exhale follow the breath all the way up the spine and out through the nose.
Deep long inhalations or complete exhalations.
Riding the soft and gentle undulation.
Release this practice at the end of the next exhalation.
Come back to a natural breath,
Keep the eyes closed or softly open.
We'll work with the breath to tune into the moon side of the body.
This time on an inhale I invite you to follow the breath with your mind's eye from the base of the spine,
The coccyx,
Home of the root chakra,
Up the left side of the body and into your left lung.
Expand the left lung.
On an exhale follow the breath back down through the left lung back to the root of the spine once again.
Wait for the inhale to bubble up.
Take this breath from the root of the spine up the left side and now follow the gaze up the body and to the third eye.
Hold at the top of the inhale and then exhale follow the gaze from the third eye down the left side of the body and back to the root of the spine.
This time as you inhale we'll travel a little bit further with the mind's eye.
Watch the breath enter your body,
Expand the left side following the gaze and the journey of the breath from the root of the spine of the left side.
To the third eye keep the journey going to the tip of the nose.
At the top of the inhale hold your attention to the tip of the nose.
Hold the breath.
Exhaling follow the gaze back to the third eye down the left side of the body to the root of the spine.
When the inhale bubbles up take this journey again from the root of the spine up the left side to the third eye to the tip of the nose.
On the inhale hold and exhale.
When you're ready from the tip of the nose plus the third eye down the left side of the body back to the base of the spine.
Keep working in this way modifying the cadence of the breath according to what is comfortable for you.
Remember that where the attention goes that's where energy flows.
At the end of the next exhalation wait for the inhale to bubble up.
Now it's time taking the journey from the root of the spine of the left side of the body to the third eye between the eyebrows,
The seat of intuition where the third eye chakra resides and back down the left side all the way to the root of the spine.
Next inhale draw the inhalation up into the left lung hold it here,
Exhale release down through the left lung and into the root of the spine.
We'll come back to a natural breath.
Release the hands,
Release the mudra if you've been holding this mudra.
Either to land softly beside you,
If you're lying down and you have come through the mudra or back to the knees palms facing up in an attitude of receptivity.
Notice the changes in the body,
The mind perhaps recognizing a deeper union between mind,
Breath and body.
Any subtle changes you can discern within and around you.
You might experience this as a sense of coming in closer to your own self,
A sense of aliveness behind any doing,
Maybe a sense of inner flow.
Maybe that you have a specific question for Tefnut in her cat form.
You might ask her how can I move more fully with flowing and receptive energies I hold?
How can I more fully value the lunar soft creative energies already present in my life?
From the myth,
You know that Tefnut is found at the outset of the myth,
Far from her homeland of Egypt in the form of a Kushite cat,
Modern-day Sudan.
She's being called back with urgency and longing by the moon god Thoth in the form of a dog ape or baboon.
Thoth has been sent by Tefnut's father,
Rhi,
The sun god.
If you have observed cats,
You know that they move with grace and know how to look after themselves.
They seem to find the best places to rest,
Know how to stretch,
Ask for what they need.
They know when it's wise to lay low for a while,
Reset.
Tefnut in this form demonstrates to us that we need our yin,
Our moon,
Our feminine side if we're going to take our needs seriously.
Tefnut,
As cat,
Helps us to tune into how we really are,
To employ creativity,
To make space for our inner voice,
To let the world around us to shape itself.
To tune in with nature,
Her rhythms,
So that we might better enter the flow of life once again.
Affirm inwardly,
When my solar and lunar energies are in balance,
I'm in tune with my highest potential.
When my solar and lunar energies are in balance,
I am in tune with my highest potential.
When you're ready,
Begin to tune back into the support beneath you and gently open your eyes,
Discerning colors and shapes.
Now you are ready to move forward into the rest of your day,
Having invoked the powerful aspect of Tefnut in her cat form.
You
