|
Starting the Day Full, Focused, and Connected with Easy Morning Practices
The first light of the day is known as the "hour of power" in the Andes and elsewhere. It is a fruitful time for insight, focus, and shifting from dream rhythm to waking. When you honor this time, clarifying phrases related to a project, or wonderful images related to your intent, may come to consciousness just as you wake. For example, the thought that our bodies can be lightning rods and rivers, receiving and transmitting gratitude to the earth, came to me this week. Another time, I heard "Light helps us regenerate our bodies, like lizards," giving me much metaphorical food for thought!
Here are some suggestions for activities to enhance your focus and connection first thing in the morning (or at any other time that works for you).
Working with Images
Images from dream, journey, and meditation are extremely potent at this time of day. Much of our transformation and our ability to connect in new ways comes from non-verbal, experiential perceptions--what some might call "raising vibration," or "entering new dimensions." It's very important to learn to embody the images we are given--that come to us--as we transition with our changing planet.
For example, an image of "stepping into the fire of wisdom" became important to me. Each day, for a while, I re-experienced entering the fire and becoming gold light as a way of exploring and deepening both metaphorical and practical impacts of the image. I experienced sensations of light and fire in my body, and kept observing what was transforming and floating away as ash.
Words for what an image "means" are not important; rather, focus on your embodied experience:
Choose one image from dream, journey, or meditation, and let your body feel into it deeply. Fully experience it before you rise. Repeat daily as long as the image is potent.
Swallowing the Sun
This practice helps us begin our day as a being of light, connected with the sun itself, and with the rhythm of the day. It's especially nice to do as the weather cools and we wake to morning chill; people in the mountains swallow the sun as an aid to getting warm!
Do this at sunrise to take the light and power of the sun into your body and all your cells:
Facing the sun, tip your head back and open your mouth so the sun hits the roof of your mouth. Swallow the sunlight four times, feeling and seeing the light and heat spreading through your whole torso and into all your cells.
Setting Protection
If we are not paying attention to our own energy and the energetic fields around us, we are usually walking around energetically unprotected. This means, especially if we are sensitive and empathic, that we unconsciously take in, or take on, other people's heaviness--their sadness, rage, depression, and so on. To change this, and intend to receive what's appropriate for you and not take in anything that doesn't belong to you (like someone else's anger projection or sadness), you can use a powerful Chumash (early peoples from Central California coastal regions) practice:
Visualize a blue light around your whole body. See it filling your energy field top to bottom, front to back. Feel the membrane protecting you, yet not keeping out any love or connection that you want to receive. Notice how far the light extends from your physical body, and how big your aura is today.
Say "I intend to keep out everything that does not belong to me, and let in only what does belong to me."
In this way, you set an intention to allow someone's appreciation or love for you, but keep out the anger or frustration that is theirs, not yours. Setting this protection does not keep out the pain of the world, or the pain in our own lives. Rather, it helps protect us from energetic invasions that sap our strength.
Releasing Psychic Hooks
All of us, unconsciously, may hook into other people--when we want something from them, when we envy a quality they have and we don't, when we feel needy, or when we are afraid they will leave us. A "psychic hook" is, essentially, an unwanted psychic or emotional connection. It does not help either person, but acts as a kind of invisible burden on the relationship.
When we scan for and release psychic hooks, we are disconnecting from what is not ours--does not belong to us--and releasing the hook back into the universe. There need be no judgment or blame involved; like working with other kinds of energy, we are not naming it, just letting it go. Our intent is key.
At least once a day, close your eyes and scan your body for anything that feels like a hook. Unhook it. See it rolling away on a cord, rolling through a door. Shut the door. See a rose on the doorknob if you want, indicating that you mean no harm: you are simply releasing what does not belong to you.
Scan your body again. If the hook is still there, repeat the process until you feel "clean." If you find other hooks, roll them away and close the door on them.
Give Yourself a Break: Stretching and Meditating in Bed
Because my mind is still quiet, I do stretching exercises in bed before I get up. This allows me to totally focus on my muscles and core work. It also guarantees that I do the stretching; whenever I say "Oh, I'll do them later," I never follow through.
I also meditate in bed before rising. The connections I have woken with--dreams, images, and the nature of the day--feed and strengthen my meditation. This is when I consciously experience gratitude and send blessings to suffering places and beings, students, and family. This is when I connect with the web of life and the heart-fields of other light workers. I may also integrate energy-shifting practices if I feel cranky or upset.
Starting the day with a clear, clean energy body makes a huge difference in my day. It will work for you, too, if you just try it!
Meg Beeler/Earth Caretakers
Copyright � 2013
 | | Gratitude Despacho, in process, summer solstice |
| 
