Today I was driving through and saw many, many crows.  In fact, this murder of crows was so large, I actually pulled over and got out of my car to look at them.  In a copse of trees, almost every single branch was full of crows.  While crows are one of my spirit animals, I couldn’t help but think a bit about Hitchcock’s The Birds simply because there were so many.  More and more crows flew in to join the others as I sat and watched and listened to them caw to each other from seemingly all directions.  When I stopped looking at the crows in the trees, I noticed that just over a small hill there was a black field full of crows.

I couldn’t count them all.  I can’t even guess how many there were.  I know at the very least hundreds, and I would wager maybe even thousands.  This was the biggest, most impressive murder of crows I’d ever seen.  If Crows have regional meetings or multi-state conventions, this was the convention ground.

I wish I’d thought to take a picture, or that I’d had someone else to witness this huge and wonderful collection of crows, but alas I was alone, too in awe to take a picture and have only memory.  For some reason, I feel much happier knowing that there are huge groups of crows out there, blackening the landscape.

Try, for a bit, though it’s futile, to see things from God’s perspective.
Think about God, and all the implications.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: God kills everybody in the end.
Everybody who has ever lived, and everybody who has ever died, and everybody who will ever live and die, God kills ALL of us.
He kills us in the womb, in the crib, in our schools, in our cars, in our yards, in our homes or abroad.
He kills us with accidents, illness, and genetic flaws.
He kills us with cars, with cancer, with guns and with claws.

God would kill us with a fox.
God would kill us in a box.
God would kill us here or there,
God would kill us anywhere.

When you come right down to it, as I have said, God kills every single one of us.
I can’t seem to drive this point home hard enough, because people still keep focusing in on specific examples, like Soddom and Gomorah, like the firstborn of Egypt, like the Holocaust.
But every single one of these examples pales to the overall issue; God created death itself.

Citing specific examples of God killing people doesn’t make much sense to me, because of that fact;  God created death.
The sons of Egypt weren’t the first innocent people to die; that would be Abel.
If you want to point fingers at God, start pointing there because God stood right by and let Cain murder his own brother. God helped, in fact, because God created the very laws of reality that allowed Cain to do the deed.
God invented blood, and God invented bloodshed.

Granted, I’m coming at this all from a deterministic point of view (actually, from a compatiblist point of view). Those of you who are big on Free Will being the end-all be-all of creation are probably taking issue with me putting things as strongly as saying, “God kills everybody.”
Don’t worry; we don’t agree on that, but I got your backs.
Because if you’re big on Free Will, then you’re probably big on the notion that God let Adam and Eve fall from grace out of an unwillingness to interfere with their Free Will decision to disobey him.
And THAT is where death really started, at least for humans.
Up until the Fall From Grace, Humans didn’t die- they ate from the Tree of Eternal Life.
So when you get right down to it, you can pin it all back on humanity.
Sure, God invented Death, but he told Adam and Eve the rules; if they ate from a certain tree, they would die.
And they did eat.
And they did die.
Because they chose to.

Which is the same ultimate reason why the sons of Egypt died; because Adam and Eve just couldn’t resist listening to that talking snake.

Anyway, back to my less Free-Will-oriented view of things:
Alright, so God created us all, every living thing that lives, that has lived, and that ever will live, just so He can kill us.
That must make him the ultimate villain, right?
I mean, he’s worse that Hi-…. uh, worse than some evil dictator who killed a lot of people.
He created evil dictators.
That must mean he’s worse, right?

Nope.
Not necessarily, anyway.
It all boils down to the philosophical Problem Of Evil:
“Why would a God that is all-powerful and all-good create a world in which there is evil?”

It’s a good question for people to think about.
Seriously.
But ultimately, it’s not a question that we can answer.
(I don’t buy the whole Free Will bit)

The only way in which we could ever get a meaningful answer to why God would create a universe that had Evil in it would be if we knew why the hell He built the damned thing in the first place.
Why would God, a perfect being, need or want a universe?
Heck, aren’t “need” and “want” loaded terms that ultimately stem from human failings?
If you’re perfect, you shouldn’t need anything.
You shouldn’t want anything.

So why DO anything, especially something as interesting as creating a universe?
Don’t bother to answer; you don’t know.
Neither do I.

The point is that the question of whether or not God is a bastard (metaphorically speaking) depends entirely on what the reasons are for His actions in the first place.
Just because we don’t know what His reasons are doesn’t mean He doesn’t have any.

But getting way, way, WAY back to the original conversation that I’m interjecting into:

Was it harsh of God to kill off (insert example of God killing one of the effectively infinite number of His victims)?
Is God Harsh?

Well, “Harsh” is a relative term.
Obviously, things could be much more pleasing for us.
Obviously, things could be a lot less pleasing for us.

I agree that a lot of His actions certainly seem harsh.
As my father has been getting older, I’ve been thinking more and more about his mortality and the fact that he’s going to die some day.
The fact that God is going to kill him.
It sure feels harsh to me; my father is a great guy, and it makes me angry that anybody would want the guy dead. Even God.
Especially God, since my own father will be just a drop in the ocean of corpses.

But then again, the level of harshness depends on what exactly death entails.
All we know is that it’s a cessation of life in this plane.
It’s unpleasant. Usually for the people who die, and even more often for those left behind.

But then again, if the whole resurrection bit is true, if we all get to go to Heaven or another eternal life, then it’s not that big of a deal.
The price of one death in exchange for eternity?
Not very harsh at all.
It just seems that way to us, right now, because we’re the ones in line to pay for the tickets.
Once we’re in the door to The Big Show, it’s not going to seem harsh at all.

(Unless, of course, those who believe in Eternal Damnation in a fiery Hell are correct, in which case death is pretty darned harsh after all, at least for some people.)

Ultimately, like most philosophical/theological questions, whether or not God is Harsh comes down to factors we simply do not know and can only guess at.

I believe that in life the little joys are often the purest sources of happiness. Looking out of the window and seeing those tulips, or my rosebushes makes me smile. Knowing that every year those tulips are going to sprout in the backyard is comforting on some very deep level. Tiny joys keep us going.

As I was going outside to take pictures of the tulips, I noticed that while the leaves and stem were there, the flowers were gone. I was hoping that maybe I was looking at them from the wrong angle (my brain handles disappointment with strong denial as a first response), but once I got close enough, it looked very much like someone had taken scissors and clipped my joyful tulips.

I am not a big flower cutter. I believe that flowers and plant life have feelings and I try not to do things to kill or upset the plant life. This is such a strong belief that when I gave a friend an aloe plant and saw that it was dying in her home after 2 months of no sun, I asked for and received the aloe plant back. I take my plant life pretty seriously, and unless I need flowers to dry for herbs, I try really hard not to pick flowers – I just take a camera. When I do cut flowers or herbs for use, I always make sure to do so with respect and reverence, as well as appreciation.

The tulips would have lived much longer in my backyard than they would in a vase, and while I enjoy receiving flowers as gifts, I am always sad when they wither and die. The passage of time can often be one of the sadder life experiences and cut flowers just seem to show the withering time deals to all of us.

Therefore, when I discovered that my tulips were cut, not by me, out of my own backyard, I was upset. Probably slightly more upset than I really should have been, but I just could not believe or accept that someone would go into my backyard and cut these flowers that bring me such joy and happiness. My thought was that it was probably a kid, but how many kids carry around scissors to cut flowers with?

In times like these, technology often comes to my aid. I bemoaned on Facebook the evil of the world, the wickedness of tulip thieves, and let the world know of my heartbreak. After all, while they come up every year, tulips are fleeting. They stay for such a short period of time and that time was cut even shorter.

As in most situations in my life, my friends came to my rescue. People were upset and outraged on my behalf, another friend of mine from the Murphysboro area said she actually caught kids stealing her tulips from the front of her yard, which left me with tons of questions. Who are these marauding gangs of tulip thieving children? Where are their parents? What parent receives a bouquet of tulips and does not tell their children that they aren’t to pick flowers from another person’s yard?

Then one of my friends told me to search YouTube for the video of the rabbit opening a letter. Apparently, rabbits are really good at chewing straight lines. So good in fact, that some of the pictures online of tulips stolen by rabbits looked eerily familiar.

I think that was when I remembered that my backyard doesn’t really belong to me. It belongs to the birds and the animals (who may eat tulips) and the insects and the rest of nature. The flowers I thought had been so callously stolen from me never belonged to me – they were a spring rabbit delicacy. Knowing that the incredibly cute bunny in the backyard – who could very well be the Easter Bunny – was the likely culprit helped me look at the situation in a much more favorable light. Instead of thieves, it was just bunnies.

This was one of those situations where what initially caused me great distress has actually brought me joy. I like bunnies and while I would prefer they leave my tulips alone, at least I know it wasn’t thoughtlessness it was just bunny-ness.

In addition, I am now going to be planting some flowers. Those tulips came with the house and while I immediately wanted to plant more, my husband eventually plans to raise the level of the backyard and would prefer I not plant anything he will inevitably kill. However, due to my tulip grief, my wonderful husband, who really tries his best to make me happy, is going to help me transplant some daffodils from his mother’s daffodil field (seriously, she has a huge field of them – it is simply amazing) to some of our planters. He is also planning to help me plant more tulip bulbs in the planters, as well. After all, we need to help feed growing bunnies.

The phrasing of the question usually means the person asking it either thinks I am a fraud/con artist or that they think I am a superstitious whack-job.  Also, this question is always the first line in what is going to be an argument.  As I never say no to this question, because I do have a belief system and I am not a con artist, I am always pelted with follow up questions designed to show me the error of my ways.  In my early 20′s I would argue vehemently about why I believed my beliefs and the various ways and means I came to believe them, but in my late 30′s, I usually choose not to play this little game.

The thing is, when dealing with someone who asks this question, nine times out of ten the person is not  seeking actual answers or explanations, but rather to further their own disbelief at my expense.  I’ve never really understood this knee-jerk need in people to say, “I don’t believe in anything and you shouldn’t either!”   My father was an atheistic, but he felt that if religion or spirituality brought people peace or comfort, then good for them.

This question is part of why I no longer bring my tarot cards to parties or gatherings of friends.  I love to read for my friends and help them out, but inevitably, my friends want to “show me off” to someone new in the group (what can I do? my friends think I’m awesome) and I end up reading for someone who is not exactly open to the experience.  They start off with The Question during the beginning part of the reading – this means that I am already defensive and irritated.  While I have tried to quell this, when I read for people who are openly hostile towards me, I tend not to care at all about their reading.  I throw my cards down, say whatever comes to mind, and talk fast to get the experience over with quickly.

My attitude is usually along the lines of “I’m not your little monkey – I do not have to dance if I do not want to do so.”  I’ve been reading tarot for a long time – I no longer feel the need to prove myself to anyone.  The up side of this is that these readings usually end up being really accurate because I do not filter what I say to spare the person’s feelings.  When doing a reading for someone, you don’t want to tell them the really bad news without cushioning it a bit.  People should feel better and lighter after a psychic reading.  However, when I am reading tarot for free at a party and I am forced to deal with someone who obviously thinks very little of me, I am comfortable telling them whatever comes through the cards unfiltered.  The really annoying part is that these readings are usually the most accurate.

If you ask most professional psychic readers what their biggest challenge is in giving an accurate reading, they will tell you that it is getting out of their own way.  There are many times during a reading where the words that I am saying or the perceptions of the cards I have make absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.  However, if I stop trying to make it make sense to me and just say what I am seeing, it almost always makes sense to the client.  My own perceptions and my own reality have nothing to do with the client’s reality, so it only makes sense that the information I am given will have very little context for me.  That said, it is still very difficult to tell someone something that from your perspective makes little to no sense.

The good news is that through reading at parties for a friend of a friend who is openly hostile, since I do not bother to pull my punches or filter anything I say, my readings are usually right on the money.  The hostile person usually is a little bit disarmed by the reading, but still being skeptical will want to know if they are being conned – is this an elaborate practical joke?  My friends are awesome, so they are usually on hand to say, “I didn’t tell her anything – I swear!”

Every time this scenario occurs I feel a little bit guilty.  In these situations I do not try too hard to do an accurate reading because I am offended that someone – someone who is getting a totally free tarot reading – is not only being hostile towards me, but thinks that they have a right to make me prove myself to them.  I rarely feel the need to prove myself to people I like and respect – endeavoring to win the approval of a person who is contemptuous of me has always felt like a huge waste of time and effort.  Why bother?  They already have contempt.  Might as well go read a good book.

I try to keep in mind that all life situations are learning opportunities.  After many parties with many hostile people, I’ve come to understand that during a reading, I need to get out of my own way.  I’ve also come to realize that many people who start off hostile towards me actually want to believe, but they have no reason or proof for doing so.  Maybe spiritual belief has kicked them around some or maybe they are just cynical or afraid of disappointment.  It can be a hard life sometimes and that difficulty shakes spiritual faith, but once an accurate tarot reading has been given, the tone of the questions change from open mockery to that of a more seeking nature.  The questions of seekers often lead to really great conversations, even if they go back to being cynical disbelievers the very next day.

The Women’s Gathering:

An Annual Women’s Retreat

Soul Journey: Finding Your True Self

When: May 13-15, 2011

Where: Lake Murphysboro Camp Grounds, Murphysboro, IL

Cost: $20 per attendee when prepaid by May 1; $25 if paid after or at the gate.

Spaces are limited, so participants are encouraged to register early.

What: Our goal for this year’s gathering is to connect to the Goddess and our Sisters through workshops, discussions, meditations, and personal exercises in order to build our understanding of our strengths and connection to the Feminine Divine. The Soul Journey will give each woman a chance to learn and grow in the knowledge of their personal, spiritual selves, thus connecting to the Feminine Divine while surrounded and supported by other women on the same quest. The Soul Journey is a journey inside to discover our personal power and faith, and to emerge renewed.

Who: This year’s gathering is hosted by WomanBEing, an eclectic Women’s Spirituality discussion and study circle that concentrates on empowering and emboldening women, regardless of their personal belief systems.

For more information or to register, contact firefox712002@yahoo.com or join our yahoo group at thewomensgatheringcommunity-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

For a while, I tried to be less judgmental.  Ah, the people pleasing days of my 20′s – I’m so glad that phase of my life is over.  The problem I had with this appraoch – other than I failed utterly and completely at it – is that most of the time, my judgment was correct.   For example, I had one friend during this time who was always late – and by late, I don’t mean a few minutes, I mean hours to days late.  She wouldn’t call to tell you she wanted to cancel plans or that she was going to be late – she just let you wait and wait and wait.  I lost count of how many evenings I sat around waiting for her to show up – this was back in the day before cell phones.  I eventually decided to stop making plans with this person because she was obviously unreliable.  I caught nine kinds of hell from her for being so “judgmental” about her any time I would mention that her unreliability hurt my feelings.

This is one of the many occasions where accuracy has been defined as being overly judgmental.  You see, if you accuse someone of being judgmental instead of taking responsibility for your actions, then you don’t have to improve your behavior.   I call this the “standing on the train tracks” analogy.  There have been so many times in my life where I can see that a friend or loved one is standing on the metaphorical train tracks and the train is coming.  You tell the person, “Hey, get off the tracks, that train is going to hit you!”  They not only don’t listen to the warning, but they argue with you about the existence of the train right up to the point where they go splat.  They often tell you that it is their right to stand on the tracks and your concern for their welfare is judgmental and condescending.

The truth is that often people deflect by calling others judgmental.

I do recognize that being judgmental can bring problems.  I have issues with lots of judgmental people: homophobes, racists, misogynists,  anti-abortionists, and all of those who spew hate in the name of judgment.  When you dislike someone who has never  harmed you or interfered with your life, you have some serious issues to address.

That said, I do think that a certain amount of judgment is required in order to live life.  As in the example of the friend who was always late – after many wasted hours, hurt feelings, and fury, I decided to just end the friendship.  When someone does not take your time or feelings into consideration enough to simply call you and say, “Hey, I am running late” or “I’m sorry, but I can’t make it tonight” it is time to make a break.  Friendship without respect or consideration isn’t friendship.

I’m not a relative moralist – there is good and there is bad and there are shades of gray, but good and bad are not arbitrary lines that change depending on the perspective or culture of the person.  What changes is our tolerance or acceptance of good or bad and the excuses we make for it.

That said, I do believe that the majority of the people out in the world are doing what they can to get by.  This isn’t the easiest of worlds to live in and most of us do our best and screw up along the way.  Hopefully, we learn from those mistakes, and better ourselves as we go.

What I am trying to shoot for at this point in my life isn’t being devoid of judgment, but rather, changing my standards of judgment.  To that end, I am trying not to judge people harshly for mistakes I’ve made.  Why should someone else be held up to standards that I cannot live up to?  This is the problem I have with many legislators – they want to legislate punishment for people “sinning” while they go out at night and “sin” up a storm.  This is unacceptable.  Don’t make laws you cannot live by and don’t judge others on criteria you fail to meet.

My biggest challenge seems to be road rage.  I drive with a great deal of fury.  I don’t like other cars on *my* roads and the people out there who just leave their brights on at night make me want to commit murder.  However, it is easy to make mistakes when driving.  I think I’ve made them all at one time or another.  What I am trying to do is instead of judging other drivers by the rules of the road (or even common sense) I am trying to see them as flawed beings like me.  I’ve accidentally cut people off, I’ve accidentally gone the wrong way down a one way street, I’ve forgotten to turn off my brights (but only that one time – I just forgot they were on in the first place), plus a plethora of other driving errors that have probably annoyed other drivers.  Since I’ve committed these egregious errors, it is more than a little bit hypocritical to get mad at someone else for making the same error.  Judgment tempered with empathy and compassion can really help your perspective of the world.

We all need our judgment.  I think that the world is beautiful but potentially dangerous.  Judgment helps us navigate the world so that we may enjoy the beauty and avoid the dangers.  It is also important to remember that simply calling someone else judgmental is you making a judgment call.

Still, even with the conspicuous sheep shortage, Imbolc will be celebrated here as a time of celebration of the coming of the spring.  We’ve survived a long December, where we finally saw darkness start to roll back and light take over.  Then came the incredibly cold and snowy January, which still has a week to go and promises even more snow and cold.  January can be a bit of a bastard.

Yet even with the cold and the snow still covering the ground, I’m starting to see signs of spring.  The light is lasting appreciably longer.  The cold doesn’t seem as harsh.  Very soon, the more suicidally optimistic jonquils will be poking up out of the snow, telling the snow to bugger off because it’s jonquil time.

On February 2nd, we’ll pull the chubby rodents out of their holes and make proclamations.  We’ll head outside in the cold and listen for the birds we haven’t heard in a while.  We’ll look for the rude and early jonquils.  We’ll see that the sun is taking longer and longer to set.  We’ll wonder where the time went.  We’ll laugh at how quickly things change.  We’ll begin to dream the new spring.  Brigid will heal us body and soul, give us the opportunity to reforge ourselves in her fire, and teach us to write the poetry of our lives.

Who needs sheep anyway?  Spring is the thing.  It’s jonquil time!

These unresolved feelings lead to a massive amount of resentment and anger that festers the longer we hold onto it.  I earlier spoke of the amount of time strife wastes in our lives.  The first step in getting rid of this unwanted and heavy emotional baggage is forgiveness.  If you do not forgive the people who have caused this emotional baggage, it is impossible to cut the ties because the anger and resentment will keep the ties fresh and strong.

I really hated hearing that I needed to forgive people in order to move on.  I’m not a forgiving person and once someone has my ire, it is really hard to shut it down.  However, I am selfish enough that I eventually found forgiveness helped me move past situations that occurred over 10 years ago.  Why bother getting furious all over again at situations and stories from youth?  After all, if our lives are about learning and growing, each of these situations propelled us forward.  Sometimes the only thing you can take from a bad situation is a lesson well learned and some tools to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Unfortunately, we often take the lesson as well as a ton of anger along with us.  The lesson is good, the anger is bad.  Especially if you carry the anger for years.  Even knowing all of this, the first time I did a forgiveness meditation, I started very small.  I started with situations I knew that I was well past caring about.  If you are not ready to forgive someone for a certain thing, don’t let that stop you from forgiving the other transgressions in your life.  If nothing else, you can do this forgiveness exercise to forgive yourself for the mistakes you’ve made, the wrongs you’ve committed (whether to yourself or to others), or simply for embarrassing yourself at certain times in your life.

Forgiveness Meditation

The first time I did this meditation was through WitchSchool as it is part of their initiation ceremony, so I would like to give them full credit for writing the original meditation.  Since that time, I have condensed the exercise into a variety of meditations, but this one is my favorite.

As with all meditations, find a quiet and relaxing place.  Turn off your phone so you are not interrupted.  I often listen to classical music or other meditation-friendly music through noise reduction earbuds – this helps to drown out the mundane world.  I live in a house with three cats, so I try to remember to shut the door.  For the human members of your household, it isn’t overkill to put a sign on the door – “Please do not disturb, meditating.”

Find a comfortable position.  I usually meditate sitting in a comfortable chair, with my feet flat on the floor.  I am not capable of meditating while lying down as I inevitably fall asleep, but find whatever position works best for you.

As with all meditations, begin by focusing on your breathing.  Allow the first several minutes of the meditation to be simply breathing and clearing your mind.  Sometimes I have wanted to do a meditation for a specific purpose, but the breathing and the clearing of the mind end up being the entire meditation.  This is fine.  Sometimes we need the calming and quiet of simple meditation without the extra work.  If you have never meditated before, start out with 5 minutes a day of simply breathing through your nose, out through your mouth, while you strive to clear your mind completely.  Don’t jump into this exercise unless you have some meditation experience.  Learn to walk, then you can run.

Once you feel calm, you are ready to begin the forgiveness meditation.  I usually start by visualizing myself walking down a flight of steps.  Once at the bottom of the steps, I walk through a door.  This door takes me to the home of the Goddess.  You can substitute Goddess for God, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whatever higher power you believe in.  When I walk through the door, I walk into a beautiful meadow ringed by the woods.  In the original meditation, you travel through the heavens to the source of creation.  I prefer a meadow to outer space, but feel free to improvise locations.  Goddess will appear regardless of your setting.

Once you have gone through the door and into the meadow, you will see the Goddess waiting for you.  Approach Her, and explain why you are there.  Stating your intent is always important – it fixes the intent in your mind as well as communicates your needs to the universe.  I usually state my intention of forgiving those who have harmed me, and I ask the Goddess to take the burden of anger, resentment, hurt, etc. from me during this process.  I also ask her to help me heal from these hurts and harms so that I may move on from them.

Now comes the tricky part.  Forgive everyone.  Name the people in your life and the situations they are connect with that still cause you pain, or that you have been carrying with you.  I name those I want to forgive one by one.  I visualize each person and circumstance as a bundle or a brick that I’ve carried with me, and then I lay them at the feet of the Goddess.  I give Her the pain bricks/bundles.  Some are huge – the size of boulders, others are small like legos.  I lay them all at the feet of the Goddess, much like you would any kind of offering.

Be specific.  Name not only those you want to forgive, but why they need forgiveness in the first place.  It isn’t enough to ask that you finally forgive Alice – you have to forgive Alice for stealing your car and sleeping with your boyfriend.  This is an emotional process, but it is very cathartic.  If you need to dwell for a minute or two on each wrong or hurt, feel free to do so, but make sure that you release it in the end so that all of the pain connected to the person and circumstance ends up in a bundle or brick or boulder at the feet of the Goddess.  Put all of the pain into what you offer the Goddess so that the pain is no longer a part of you, just as the weight of anger is no longer a part of you.

Remember to forgive yourself as well.  Let yourself off the hook for past mistakes – you are only human.  Also, forgive Deity, Fate, Goddess, God, Flying Spaghetti Monster – oftentimes we hold resentment for the trials and tribulations we have to endure.  Forgiving the Powers That Be helps.

Once you have laid down all of your bundles, ask the Goddess to give you the strength to forgive everyone and ask her to take these burdens from you.  You will then see these bundles disappear as the Goddess takes these burdens from you.  Ask Her to transform your past pain into healing and joy.  Ask Her to heal you from these hurts, ask Her to help you accept the healing (this is important because sometimes we don’t accept the healing offered) and finally ask her to help you integrate this healing into your life and your psyche.

It is also helpful to ask the Goddess to help you connect with the parts of yourself that have been blocked due to anger, hurt or pain.  Ask her to heal the parts of you wounded and ask that the energy blocked by your various bundles be given back to you as part of the integration process.  Visualize yourself filled with light, suffused with light, as you are healed and cleansed of the burdens.  You continue to be filled with the light of Goddess as you allow yourself to be healed and for the energies once blocked to begin flowing again.

Finally, Thank Goddess for helping you release these burdens.  Now it is time to say goodbye to Goddess and to walk back through the door.  On the other side of the door is the staircase, as you walk up the steps you become more and more aware of your surroundings, with the top of the staircase representing your fully conscious, awake and aware self.  As this was a fairly lengthy and emotionally draining meditation, start off by wiggling your toes and fingers, then opening your eyes.  Don’t jump up too quickly.  Feel free to stay in your meditation position until you are fully back to the real world.

For me, a meditation like this leaves me ravenous.  One of the best ways to ground yourself back into reality?  Eat some food.  I usually choose something healthy like hummus and veggies, but fix whatever works best for you.

The first time I performed this meditation, I was amazed at how happy and light I felt afterwards.  When you talk of releasing burdens, you don’t realize how heavy and taxing it is to carry around all of those burdens – but the spring in your step afterwards really does highlight how much they weigh you down.  While it seems impossible, many situations that used to cause me pain became just funny anecdotes after performing this meditation.

Feel free to leave any questions in the comments section.