Meditation Variations

When I was a little kid, I had allergic asthma.  I couldn’t eat dairy without running the risk of not being able to breathe.  I was put on a medication to help my breathing – Theo-Dur – which was a central nervous system stimulant.  In my head I always called it Theodore, you know, like in Alvin and the Chipmunks.  As with most of my childhood memories, I do not know how long I was on this medication, but it feels like it was years.  I do know that I was on this medication when I was supposed to be at an age where I got lots of sleep, including naps.

I did not get lots of sleep while taking a central nervous system stimulant.  One of the side effects is even insomnia.  However, my parents did put me to bed with the hope that I would sleep.

Instead, I sang, read books with a flashlight, worried about the monsters in the closet or under the bed, and generally stayed awake.  At one point, either my father or my mother told me to clear my mind and think of nothing.

Sure.  While I do that, go sit in a corner and do not think about a white elephant.  Be sure to let me know how that works out for you.

I spent hours upon hours lying in bed, hopped up on this drug, thinking about nothing.  I would try to think about nothing.  Then I would think about how if I was thinking about nothing, I was still actually thinking about something, and I would try to blank my mind.  I would then spin out into infinity, thinking about thinking about nothing, while thinking about thinking about nothing, forever and ever.  Eventually, I got to the point where I was able to chase these thoughts of thinking about thinking about nothing to infinity away.  I was able to let them go.  Release them into the void.  I would be able to blank my mind and find that calm.  I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but I was able to find a bit of rest.  The nights I successfully let go of the thoughts of thinking about nothing, I did get to sleep much easier than the nights when I sang or read books or tried to discern what the monster in the closet wanted.

What I did not realize at the time was that I was meditating.  As an adult who does not wittingly consume caffeine, I am able to meditate quite easily.  From the many books and articles I have read on the subject of meditation, the hardest part in learning to meditate is the clearing of your mind.  Thinking about nothing.  However, the process of learning to think about nothing, even including spinning out into infinity, is training your brain how to reach that place of meditation.  Many people try meditation for a while and give up on it after they do not think about nothing successfully.  “I could never clear my mind completely,” people have told me.  However, as with so many things, they are focused on the destination, when the journey is so much more the point.  It is the exercise, not the goal of the exercise, that really matters.

Beyond that, simply sitting and thinking about nothing, clearing your mind, breathing deeply, may work for some people, but it is not necessarily going to work for you.  Luckily there are many ways in which you can achieve a meditative state.  I am still a big proponent of taking five minutes out of your day, sit quietly, take cleansing breaths, and clear your mind.  As thoughts rise up, acknowledge them and then let them go.  Just five minutes will give you great results after a month.  If you can up it to ten minutes, you are a rock star.  Lately, I have been shooting for a goal of 25-35 minutes.  I have a vitamin D deficiency so I have been going outside, sitting in the sun, and meditating.  I figure if I need to be in sunlight for 30-40 minutes a day, may as well kill two birds with one stone.  It is still a challenge on some days to clear my thoughts, but I always feel better afterwards even when I am not totally successful.

Focus on the path, not the destination.  The journey is the majority of your time anyway.  Might as well enjoy it.

That said, there are other really great ways to meditate.

Full Body Meditation

Lately, I’ve been going to yoga classes.  There is nothing better for living in the moment, feeling the now, and inhabiting your body fully than yoga – at least in my experience.  I am usually so focused on myself, how my body feels, and living in the moment that none of the other stresses in my life intrude upon me.  One of the first exercises our instructor had us perform was to stand on a yoga block.  Yoga blocks are rectangles of a sturdy foam-like material.  The whole point was to balance on the yoga block.  Once we had accomplished this, she had us close our eyes and balance on the yoga block.

This was much more difficult.  Eyes closed, balancing on this block was an exercise in living in the moment.  The meditation was simply one of keeping your balance.  No other thought was in my mind.  This was a great way of clearing my mind and an exercise I still do at home when I am feeling too stressed and want just a brief moment of not having to carry the worry of the day with me.

I have talked with people who do a variety of body meditations similar to yoga.  Finding an exercise that works for you is just a matter of finding the body movements you feel clear your mind best.  There are numerous exercises that can create that mind clearing, trance-like state of being that you seek through meditation.  Dance (whirling dervishes, anyone?), tai chi, running, walking – the possibilities are as diverse as humans.

I have one friend that finds working a carpet shampooer to be very meditative.  This is a particularly cool one, because you can meditate and clean at the same time.

The point with full body movement is to not be self-conscious, be focused on the body, and to let go of thought as you move.

Sound Meditation

If sitting silently and clearing your mind is not your cup of tea, there are a wide variety of guided meditations out there.  These are usually spoken meditations that take you through the relaxation and meditation process.  I love guided meditations.  Not all of them are created equal, and I have found a few unpleasant or annoying enough that I have turned them off, but for the most part, guided meditations are lovely as they take most of the thinking out of your hands.  You listen, follow the instructions, and voila – you meditate.

For guided meditations, a good, free way to start is to search online for podcasts.  There are a lot of people out there who host guided meditations via podcast, blogtalk radio, and other online venues.  Try out a sampling of these free guided meditations before spending money on CD’s.  Also, keep in mind that just because you like an author’s books does not mean you will like an author’s voice.  While there are some great books out there with companion CD’s to listen to, there is one prolific author who makes a click noise at the end of each sentence.  Drives me right out of the meditative state.  Listen to samples, if you can, before you buy something.

Chanting is another way to meditate via sound.  I am not saying sit at home, in lotus position, saying “Om…..” to yourself (although if that works for you, that’s awesome).  I personally cannot get into lotus position as it makes my knees angry.  However, for those who have done meditations using mantras, they are very helpful.  One of my favorite mantras/chants to meditate to is to Ganesh – “Om, Gam, Ganapatye, Namaha”.  Traditionally, you would repeat this mantra to Ganesh 108 times.  The sounds resonating through your body when you chant do help induce meditative states of various kinds, depending on the chant or mantra you are using.

As with guided meditations, check out free sources online first.  YouTube has a wide variety of chants and mantras to choose from.  Everyone is different and what appeals to me is not going to necessarily appeal to you.  Check around for something that you can sing or say to yourself that resonates and helps get your mind into the meditative state.

In addition, there is classical music, singing bowls, chimes, and many other sounds that may help you in achieving a meditative state.  Experiment with sounds and see what you like best.

Visual

I don’t know about you, but if you sit me near a fire, it’s over.  I am gone.  Fire transfixes me.  I may get up and play with the fire to get it rolling more, but for the most part I am totally zoned out if there is a camp fire to look at.  Or a bonfire.  I have even created the same effect with a single candle although it is less intense.

Some people can meditate upon flowers, trees, a picture, or other visual aid.  For me, there are two pieces of artwork that can cause almost effortless meditation – Van Gogh’s Starry, Starry Night, cliché but true, and John Martin’s Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion.  The latter picture is at the St. Louis Art Museum, and as a child and an adult that has been the highlight of visiting the museum for me every time.  While I know what that painting is about, I do not care as my own stories for it are better.  Also, the tiny man in the vastness of nature always made me happy.

Some people have had much luck with meditating on various screen savers.

Basically, as with the other avenues, find something that you like, that inspires you or quiets your mind.  The possibilities are endless.  It can be a moving visual such as screensaver or fire (although I recommend fire, but that is because it works for me).  It can be a still image such as a painting, or even an object you are drawn to.  Experiment and find something that works for you.

What types of meditation work best for you?  What methods of meditation have you loathed?  Feel free to share in the comments section!

Forgiveness Meditation

If you live into adulthood, you know that it is impossible to please everyone or for everyone to like you.  People hurt us, anger us, betray us, etc.   We are often left holding onto these feelings without closure.  Many times when friendships end, people are not told why.

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.

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Religion vs. Spirituality – We Each Have Our Path

I think that once you realize that all religions provide a construct or a pathway to the Divine things become a bit easier.  Once you eschew religion for spirituality, things become easier still.

Once upon a time, I interviewed for Nightlife Dr. Paul Mundschenk, a professor at Western Illinois University in the Religious Studies program, who was giving a lecture titled “Spiritual, but Not Really Religious: Help for the Nation, Hope for Humankind” where he tackled the difference between spirituality and religion.  His thought, and I agree, is that religion divides, but spirituality unites.

One of the examples Mundschenk used was in reference to a child coming out to his parents about his sexual orientation.  The family disowns the son but upon discovery that he is dying of AIDS, the family reconciles with their son shortly prior to his death.  Obviously traumatic for the family in question, this type of over-adherence to a specific religious ideology caused a rift that actually went against the heart or spirituality of this family.

Part of being human is the ability and desire to ask questions about our existence, and religion helps answer these questions.  According to Mundschenk, religion allows for a source outside of ourselves to help provide answers to these questions.  In this way religion can be beneficial, but the problem in religion comes when religions start adhering to a policy of exclusivity.   Spirituality is different in that ideally, spirituality shows us to be connected to each other, each of us part something greater.  This type of spirituality does not need to be found in a remote monastery, but can be found sitting on a park bench or anywhere else.

With spirituality, there is a feeling that we are all in this together, we are all brothers and sisters, regardless of religious ideology.  Mundschenk’s hope for humankind is that in the centuries to come, a meeting of spirituality and religion can help overcome religious exclusivity.

To that end, I believe that those of us who believe in a greater power, the Divine High Muckety Muck, God, Goddess, any higher power, are on a path to connect with that Grand High Poobah.  Sometimes we walk our path with others, sometimes we walk our path alone, sometimes we have to backtrack our way on this path and veer off in alternate directions, and sometimes we have to take out our machete a hack a new path.  The path chosen is a very individualized and very personal thing.

It has taken me years to realize that the path I should follow cannot be decided by anyone else.  People may guide you, they may walk with you for a time, but even the best intentioned friend may have ulterior motives for their advice, so ultimately, the path you travel has to be one you decide upon.  Otherwise, you end up unhappy, having to backtrack, or completely lost in the world.  While I have made fun of people who have gone out “to find themselves” (the jokes here are endless) I do think there is a germ of truth in that idea.  Sometimes you must leave everyone behind in order for the noise and chaos to subside.  In the quiet, the Path often becomes clear.

One of the things I have noticed lately is a certain disdain people show for others who happen to be on different paths.  I think people’s inherent biases and prejudices are often shown in how they respond to the paths of others.  Many on the pagan path have anger at those on the Christian path.  Often this is because during childhood they were force fed dogma that killed their spirit instead of freeing it.  However, there are many, many Christians who happily live their lives while walking their Christian Path who are not dogmatic, unfriendly, or close-minded.  Yet they get lumped into this category of “unacceptable” because of the scars left from others classified under this huge umbrella term.

If you think about it, this is the equivalent of hating a particular race because one member of that race beat you up once.  If you hated all people of a race for something a few people did, then you are called a racist, and rightfully so.  Hating an entire religious group for the oppression or damage of a specific church or upbringing is much the same thing.

While Christianity is always the go to example for something like this, what prompted me to write about this is the disdain pagans often feel towards each other.  As if we don’t have enough crap to deal with from the mainstream.  I’ve heard complaints about the Gardnerians/British Traditional Witchcraft (sex perverts), Dianics (ball busting lesbians), Asatru (racist neoNazis), Eclectic Wiccans (lazy/flaky) and the list goes on and on and on.  Why?  Why tear down each other when so many people outside of our umbrella term of pagan are more than happy to do it for us?

Part of the reason many people choose a branch of paganism is because they were turned off by the dogmatic religious upbringing of their youth.  For others it is the path that makes the most sense to them.  However, oftentimes people are merely exchanging one set of dogmatic beliefs for another.  My best example, one that I’ve heard a million times from a million different sources, is the dogmatic disdain many pagans hold for Dianics.

Much of this disdain is sexism – anytime a group of women get together and exclude men, the bitching and whining commences.  It doesn’t matter what the rationale used is, or what the bitching comprises, the core issue is that women supporting women without the need or desire for the help of men is always going to cause problems.  I’ve heard that Dianics hate men (I’ve told my happily married Dianic friends that they are doing it wrong, but they just reply that they love their husbands), or they are unbalanced (after all worshipping only the Goddess makes you unstable, but all of those monotheists out there worshipping God apparently are fine, my personal theory here is that maybe the vagina causes some sort of inner ear disturbance that can only be solved with a penis), or any number of crazy or outlandish things.

Most of the disparaging comments I’ve heard about Dianics involve this idea that Dianics are somehow unbalanced through working with only the feminine aspect of the divine.  This is dogma.  Believing that another person is wrong in how they approach communing with the divine simply because it does not adhere to what you think, believe or have been taught is religion coming in and shutting down spirituality.

What if the Dianics provide balance in the world?  After all, how many millions of people are praying to one male deity through monotheism?

What if in a past life a Dianic was male, spent their life living in a monastery with other men, and believed and prayed to a male god exclusively?  Maybe they are Dianic this time around to balance out their spirit.

What if they lived in a male dominated society, where the male gaze was all important, where there had never been a female president due to sexism, where women were paid less than men for the same work, where women’s rights to reproductive health are constantly challenged?  Maybe living in such a world is balanced out through their belief system.

Maybe it doesn’t matter if another person’s religion is balanced in your view.  Maybe it is each individual’s right to believe how they choose.

Another person’s spiritual path depends upon so many things – from how the person was raised, to their past lives, to their spiritual experiences, epiphanies and revelations, to many other factors.  Humans are complex creatures.

I think as pagans we should stop looking at the world and each other through the lens of religion and more through the eyes of spirituality.  While I may not want to participate in a skyclad ritual around a bonfire, I understand the need for others to express themselves in such a manner.  Just because some practices or beliefs are not my cup of tea does not mean that I do not see the benefit of it for others.

The next time you hear one pagan bashing the practices of another pagan, try to remember that religion divides and spirituality unites.  My common response is often, “Well, it works for her, so who am I to complain?”

Ganesh

For our next full moon we are working with Ganesh and Lakshmi.  Here is a mantra to Ganesh:

I’m still doing research on Lakshmi and have to find a similarly short mantra for her, but when I do, I will post it.

SIACAP and Lightworkers

Many people have talked of late about a large awakening process underway in the world. More and more people are being put on the path of the lightworker. I’ve noticed this explosion of people becoming more in tune with their spiritual selves in my own area of rural, Southern Illinois. When I say Southern Illinois, think more Kentucky and Missouri – where I live is below the Mason-Dixon line and not near major cities.

Region is important because up until recent years, most progressive spiritual practices seemed to take place on the east or west coast of the nation, but for a rural area to have this explosion of people learning about Reiki, or tarot or a host of other lightworker tools is remarkable.Yesterday, I went to an all day Reiki Healing Retreat put on by SIACAP – The Southern Illinois Association of Complementary and Alternative Practitioners. With four 45 minute healing exchanges throughout the day, we broke into small groups of four and took turns healing each other through various modalities. There were two lovely guided meditations, and vendors who read tarot, took aura photographs, sold massage supplies such as eye pillows, and much more.

SIACAP’s mission is “to promote alternative healing modalities through teaching, sharing, and practicing and to promote community health through outreach programs and classes in various modalities.” The modalities?

· Acupuncture/Acupressure

· Chi Gung

· Cranial Sacral Therapy

· Crystal Healing

· Dowsing/Kinesiology

· Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

· Exercise Physiology

· Feng Shui

· Flower and Gem Essences

· Guided Imagery

· Healing Touch

· Herbal Modalities

· Homeopathy

· Hypnosis

· Massage Therapy

· Meditation

· Psych-K

· Recreational Therapy

· Reflexology

· Reiki

· Shamanism

· Tarot reading

· Total Body Modification

· Tai chi

· Yoga

Just to name a few. SIACAP membership is $20 and members who pre-register for the all day retreat get in for $5, even if they are vendors. Not a member? That’s ok, the retreat costs only $10 for non-members if they preregister. As SIACAP is a non profit organization, registration at the door is not that expensive, either. Members who haven’t pre-registered it is $10 and nonmembers who register at the door are only $15. These retreats happen 3 times a year, and the cost at the door is to pay for the location costs, and eventually, guest speakers and teachers.

Why do I bring up the price of a retreat? Because it illustrates that people are getting together to help each other spiritually, not for money, but because it is needed. Once upon a time, to become a Reiki Master you needed $10,000. Now, people are passing on Reiki attunements for $20. This doesn’t mean that Reiki has become an undervalued system, it means that people are recognizing that the world needs as many healers and lightworkers as it can get. There are even some Reiki Masters who pass along attunements for free simply so that people have this skill and can help the world with it.

I think that certain people are instrumental in training more lightworkers. During yesterday’s retreat, all of the Reiki Masters were asked to meet together so that people could get to know each other. As we made our introductions, almost all of us could trace our beginnings on this path back to the SIACAP founder and president, Lorie Allen. Through her continuing education classes at a local Community College, we all first learned how to use our talents and focus our skills on healing touch or Reiki. This one lone woman taught us and then brought us all together and my bet is this is part of her life’s purpose – she is one of those souls who are meant to train and awaken large groups of people. http://www.touchingpaws.com/ is her website, although she is so busy with classes and clients, the class page hasn’t been update in a while.

Women and men like her are out there, helping others put their feet on the path of healer and lightworker. Organizations like SIACAP are forming and gaining members because lightworkers are growing in numbers and banding together to share talent, share knowledge, and help others. Have you ever asked yourself why someone didn’t start something like this in your community? Maybe, just maybe, you are the person who is supposed to start the group. If you build it, people will come.

For my own personal journey, finding Soul’s Journey online (www.soulsjourney.com) helped plug me into a network of caring people, much like those people who are part of SIACAP. For Soul’s Journey and SIACAP to both come into my life around the same time says to me that something profoundly wonderful is happening. Lightworkers are coming together more and more and together we are finding the support and care we need to help others in meaningful ways. Isn’t that what being a lightworker is all about?

Interested in SIACAP? Go online at http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/SIACAP/ to join the online listserv or go http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=475959990576&ref=ts to see the Facebook group – although many of our members are not very interested in computers, we do have a bit of online presence should you like more information.

Saulé Meditation

While many people see deities as falling under a Solar God / Lunar Goddess dichotomy, there are multiple mythologies in which the Sun is feminine. If you wish to worship a sun deity and bring solar energy into your life, but also prefer worshipping goddesses to gods, you may be interested in Saulé.

Saulé is a Latvian solar goddess who rides her golden chariot across the sky every day before bathing her horses in the sea each evening and then retiring to her castle behind the silver gates at the very end of the great waters. She is understood to be motherly and incredibly powerful. She is the warmth of the sun, the giver of light and of life. A protective deity as well, Saulé can be meditated upon if you wish to suffuse yourself with her positivity and feminine solar energies.

Get into a comfortable position and begin the meditation by focusing upon your breathing. You want to take slow, even, steady breaths until you feel yourself relax into a state of peaceful ease.

Once you are relaxed and breathing deeply and evenly, you should close your eyes and focus your awareness on the darkness. Do not see anything but the blank, black void in front of you.

Then imagine a small golden dot in the distance, growing larger as it draws nearer to you. As it comes closer, it illumines your surroundings and you find yourself in whatever natural setting will bring you the most comfort and pleasure, perhaps a clearing in a forest or a beautiful garden. The golden orb continues to approach, bringing its light and warmth. The heat and the brilliance are comforting, and not overwhelming.

When the orb is close enough, you are able to distinguish in the great shining light the form of a woman in a horse-drawn chariot. She is Saulé, the sun. Her chariot draws near and alights on the ground nearby where you are seated. She gracefully climbs from her chariot and comes to you. You greet one another as she sits before you.

Now is the time when you may speak with Saulé, ask her for guidance or blessings. Allow your imagination to take hold and allow as much time to elapse as you need in order to commune with this goddess.

When you and Saulé have finished conversing, you say your farewells and she returns to her chariot. Her horses carry her back into the sky and she leaves you, continuing along her path and flying in the opposite direction from whence she came. You may turn your head to watch her orb disappear into the distance.

As the light fades with her passage and the dark returns, you are happy in the knowledge that you may come to this place and await her return whenever you feel the need to see Saulé again. When finally you are again surrounded by perfect darkness, you bring your awareness back to your physical body. Take your time in doing so; focus once more on your breathing to help you return to your present surroundings. When you are ready, open your eyes.

You may find that for meditations like this to be most effective, you will want to write down your experiences. Record what you saw, how the goddess appeared to you, and what words of wisdom she had to share. That way, you can consult the message that you got in the meditation later if you feel the need to reexamine the details for further interpretation.

Yule and Tarot: The Year in Review

I love this time of year. Maybe it is because at heart, I love the cold or because I am somewhat nocturnal when left to my own devices, but as the days grow shorter and winter becomes more apparent, I am happy. I love walking (or if it’s in the single digits, driving) around my neighborhood looking at the festive lights. Decorating for the holiday season is also a source of fun and joy.

Yule is a time that many people become introspective, as they analyze the year past. While we, as Pagans, celebrate the new year at Samhain, most of us were raised with the notion of New Year’s day being the true start of a new year – something that mainstream society also supports with articles and television shows that are basically reviews the highs and lows of the past year. It is hard to buck a lifetime of calendars starting January 1st. This year in review mentality, plus the cold cause many of us to search inward as we think about the past year.

Introspection is a double-edged sword – examining life can help us grow, but over analyzing our past year can lead to displeasure.

This tendency to review the previous year makes Yule and New Year’s a great time to perform tarot readings for the upcoming year. As we review our successes and failures from the previous year, we plan for our upcoming year to be better in all ways. We seek guidance and reassurance that this upcoming year will bring us better times. For years, I’ve gifted many of my friends with a 12-month overview for Yule.

The 12-month overview is just what it sounds like. Drawing 12 cards, one depicting each month. The best approach to this kind of reading is to find a comfortable place to sit. Candles often help us. Much like batteries power devices, candles help power our magical mind. Incense helps me get into a good mindset for readings, but that is purely a personal choice as incense can also be an allergen.

I like to think of the person I am reading for while I shuffle the cards, letting my energy and thoughts flow from me into the cards. Getting a good mental picture of the person you are reading for, especially if they are not there, helps focus your mind and energy on the work at hand.

When laying out the cards, choose the cards one by one, shuffling and thinking of each month as individual pockets of time. For example, if you are doing a 12-month overview for Jane, shuffle the cards for a while thinking of Jane’s upcoming year, then think of January in Jane’s life. While thinking of this, shuffle the deck and pull out a card. Then, think of February in Jane’s life while shuffling the cards again.

When you feel that the cards are humming with February energy, pull out another card. Continue this process for the rest of the months in the calendar. As with most things in life, the thought and energy you put into the reading are important – you will get out of it what you put in to the reading.

These kinds of readings require pen and paper – especially if it is a gift. I like to use a notebook to record personal readings as well as readings for friends and clients. Keeping good records of tarot readings helps the reader learn and grow, and it also helps the client know where they have come from and where they are going. In year overviews, keeping records becomes a fun exercise as you traverse the year, because you can go back to the reading time and again.

Another aspect of keeping a record of this reading involves planning for the next year. After all, once we’ve seen where we’ve been we can then decide where we are going. As friends and clients review their year, a record of the past year’s 12 month tarot reading will mean a great deal. As people think about what they have learned and how they have grown over the year, they can go over the reading they were given and see how their year played out in relation to the cards.

This can be an especially fun exercise between reader and client, as together, they explore the year with the knowledge of hindsight. Many times, tarot readings help us prepare for the future, but they can also help us understand the past. While dwelling in the past is not desirable, reviewing the past year with the aid of a 12-month spread can really help us to learn from our mistakes as well as triumphs.

Tarot, by its very nature, speaks to many of life’s lessons and it also helps us see ourselves through the lens of human nature. While our life experiences are unique and personal, it is also comforting to discover that others have felt the same and gone through many of the same experiences. When clients have had a particularly trying year, discovering that they are not alone in their experience helps greatly. After all, we are all connected to each through human experience and this connection helps us to feel like we are part of a larger and greater family – the family of humanity.

For the gift aspect, I take great pains to write detailed descriptions of the cards and what they represent for the month in question. As I am a bit of nerd, I also like to play with different fonts so that the reading looks nice on the page. Top this off with special paper, whether you choose parchment paper or paper in a client’s favorite color is up to you.

After printing off the reading, I roll the paper into a scroll and tie with a pretty ribbon. This makes for an attractive and useful gift, one that only costs time, energy, thought, and some paper and ink. In this economy, having a truly thoughtful and worthwhile gift that costs less than $5 in paper and ink can really be a blessing.

I hope you have a Blessed Yule full of joy!
Rev. Jennifer Bull

Meditation and Imagination

It’s almost always the case that before I begin a goddess meditation—guided or not—I have an idea of what that goddess looks like. I have a preconceived image of her in my head. I absolutely love it, though, when she surprises me by looking nothing like how I had imagined her. My best example of this comes from meditations I have done on the Roman goddess Venus. She is most commonly thought of as a goddess of love and beauty, but those are only a couple of the things that fall under her purview. Romans worshipped a multiplicity of aspects of Venus, including those who ruled over motherhood, female power, and even battle.

As you would expect, when I imagined Venus pre-meditation, I pictured her as very closely resembling most traditional, Classical artistic representations of her—long, loose, flowing hair and a white robe. Pretty standard, clichéd even. But when I did my first meditation with Venus, I was walking along a beach and when I finally arrived at the spot where she was waiting, I was pleasantly surprised to see a woman wearing a white retro bikini, large sunglasses with white frames, and her hair up in a ponytail. She looked kind of like a model from the 1960s, and she was lounging on a fold-out beach chair. Not at all what I expected, but somehow very fitting.

Anyway, I bet if you do enough goddess meditations, you too will find the goddesses challenging and transforming your expectations about what they are like, from appearance to personality. And I think that meditating with goddesses is a great way to get in touch with how you imagine female divinity. Even if you’ve never done it before, give it a try. I wasn’t so successful the first few times I tried goddess meditations—I think I was too skeptical and inhibited—but once you get used to it and are able to relax and let your imagination take you wherever it feels like going, it becomes a really enjoyable experience.

Pele Meditation

Take steady, deep, relaxing breaths.  In, and out.  In and out.  In and out.  You are swimming in the ocean, just as the sun is setting behind you.  You feel your arms and legs gliding through the water, which is neither too warm nor too cold.  You are not hurried, but quite relaxed as you feel the waves lapping at your body and the powerful rhythm of your strokes.  You are swimming toward the shore, and you know with perfect certainty that you will reach it without problem.  Stroke, stroke, stroke.  You are closer.  Stroke, stroke, stroke.  You can see the sand of the beach, and palm trees before you.  Stroke, stroke, stroke.  You are there.

With your feet on firm sand, you begin walking up the shore.  You take note of the vegetation before you, sparse at first but growing thicker as you walk.  You approach a large mass of trees, but there is a path cleared that will lead you through this forest.  You know that you want to follow it.  You walk, unhurried, taking note of the life teeming around you, the bright, tropical flowers, the hanging vines, the strong, healthy trees.  You continue walking, and as you go further down this path you see a large, dark gray mountain taking shape before you.  But this is not just any mountain.  It is smoking, and you think you can see a glowing light emanating from the top of it.  It is a volcano.  You know that although this volcano is active, it will not erupt while you are here; you are confident that you are in no danger.  You continue walking toward the volcano, by imperceptible degrees feeling yourself more and more warmed by its fire.

Finally, you arrive at the very base of it; it looms large before you.  You kneel at the volcano and feel at peace.  You reach out your hand and feel it, taking note of its solidity, its texture, its temperature.  You know that you will gain some great insight or knowledge at this volcano.  As you wonder what that will be, you feel a presence behind you.  You turn your head to look over your shoulder and you see a woman standing behind you, watching you.  She accepts your presence here and trusts you not to take a rock from her volcano.  Slowly you stand and turn to acknowledge her.  She has something to tell you, if you will listen.  Or perhaps, you have something to tell her, or to ask her.  You can sense that she is willing to commune with you.  You may do so.

When you are finished speaking with Pele, you say your goodbyes and, reaching out one last time to feel the steady warmth of the great volcano, you begin walking back through the path from which you came.  With each step you feel yourself coming more and more to your own body, your own consciousness, in this room.  You feel yourself returning to this time and place, but you know that you will remember the message that you received from Pele today, whether it be in the form of words, images, or feelings.  When you are ready, open your eyes.

Blodeuwedd

This spring we did a couple of rituals with Blodeuwedd, Celtic Goddess of spring and death. With an alternate shape of an owl, Blodeuwedd was a very interesting goddess, mainly because so much of what I discovered about her was unexpected. For some reason, the Goddesses and Gods I am drawn to have a darker nature and are usually death oriented.

When we first decided to work with Blodeuwedd, I didn’t know very much about her and figured that she would be a happiness and light goddess, after all she was created from flowers, so how much happier and light can you get? I figured that a spring goddess who was created out of flowers would be very much about fertility and light and growth, and while all of this is true, since she is also a goddess of death and transformation, she had a much darker feel to her than I thought she would.

The basic story of Blodeuwedd is that she was created to be the wife of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, but after some time she fell in love with another and conspired to kill Lleu Llaw Gyffes. She was partially successful, but Lleu Llaw Gyffes turned into a bird and existed in that form instead of dying outright. Lleu Llaw Gyffes’ uncle(maybe father), Gwydion, shows up, restores Lleu Llaw Gyffes. Lleu Llaw Gyffes kills Blodeuwedd’s lover and Blodeuwedd is then cursed by Gwydion, “You are never to show your face to the light of day, rather you shall fear other birds; they will be hostile to you, and it will be their nature to maul and molest you wherever they find you. You will not lose your name but always be called Blodeuwedd.”

Thus cursed into the shape of an owl, she then becomes a goddess of not only spring, but transformation and death.

Prior to our ritual with Blodeuwedd, I did a meditation with her. As I wasn’t sure how to call/invoke her during ritual I asked her about it. She told me that I should call on “the owl faced Goddess of Spring, Goddess of Death and Goddess of transformation.” During the meditation I found her to be a very interesting Goddess, but one that wastes no time. She is not one for idle chit chat or for praises. She wants you to tell her or ask her whatever it is you are there for and then she wants to be done with things.

On a personal note, I always find it difficult to go on faith in meditation. How do I know that it isn’t just my own thoughts telling me things I want to hear? Prior to the meditation with Blodeuwedd I would express these thoughts/doubts to whatever goddess we were working with. However, Blodeuwedd was not open to this discussion. She said in no uncertain terms that this type of speculation was a waste of the god’s time, annoying, and either I should believe what I was told, or I should stop doing these types of meditations. I enjoyed this no nonsense, right-to-the-point kind of conversation, even if I did feel a bit foolish.

I found my interactions with Blodeuwedd very interesting and enjoyable, but I am impatient and don’t mind a verbal kick to the head on occasion. During the ritual, I used the invocation she gave me – which was short and sweet – and her presence was very felt. Others in the group had similar experiences in meditation with Blodeuwedd as far as her temperament went, but I will allow them to tell you about their interactions with her.

This Goddess was great to work with and I hope to work with her again. I learned to stop doubting myself and I also learned that prior to HPing a ritual with a specific goddess, working with them solo in preparation goes a long way toward making the ritual a successful endeavor.

~Autumn