What follows . . . I often call it a meditation in the Sanskrit or Tibetan sense of the word, which primarily means ‘union’.\u00a0 What are we unifying with?\u00a0 In the larger sense, our divine nature, now engaged in awakening to itself thru the play of Creation on this planet.\u00a0 More specifically we are unifying with the impulse to radically self-transform, the same urge that crystals, flowers, butterflies, birds, angels, and other such radiant beings surrender to, and find themselves revealed and reborn as higher vibrational expressions, as ‘ascensions’, of their former selves.\u00a0 For us this means dispelling the dream of separation which has for so long defined the usual human experience, so that we may birth into our maturity as a species, into the promise of Self-realization, the Whole becoming conscious of Itself.<\/p>\n The groundwork for this self-transformation has been laid in the karmas, or ‘merits’, of our other incarnations, bleed over from timelines of parallel lives, and activate in how we live this life;\u00a0 in such things as how we fertilize the soil of our incarnation (vitality practices), tend the garden of our relations (love thy neighbor, and thyself for that matter), attend to the weather of our emotions (surface and clear), improve the climate of our mind (imaginal hygiene<\/a>), and keep the seasons in balance (mindful equanimity).<\/p>\n Such tending the temple of the world, of living life as ceremony, deepens the roots of our self-awareness and quickens the flowering of its creative potentials.\u00a0 This is in a feedback relationship with the human collective, the earth itself, the myriad extra-celestial, and other-dimensional beings here to engage their own development in this work, all to the purpose of breaking a new dawn of conscious co-creation upon this planet.\u00a0 This meditation can therefore do much to help you participate more effectively in this great evolutionary adventure!<\/p>\n I suggest you go thru this in a seated position, cross-legged if you can, upright and comfortably planted on a cushion, with your eyes closed or unfocused whenever possible.\u00a0 It is a very internal process, a path thru an imaginal world that you both make and follow.<\/p>\n Though I draw on a wide variety of therapeutic and spiritual traditions to progress this experience, Taoism is a major influence in the beginning, in areas relating to the physical form and the life force that animates it.\u00a0 Those familiar with\u00a0tai chi chuan, chi gung<\/em>, TCM (traditional Chinese medicine), should therefore find familiarity.\u00a0 For example, we will use the concept of\u00a0tan\u00a0<\/em>(pronounced ‘dahn’)\u00a0tien<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0Tan tien<\/em>\u00a0means ‘elixir field’, and describes a locus of energy concentration in the body.\u00a0 In the Taoist cosmology there are three, the lower\u00a0tan tien<\/em>, located just below the navel, the middle\u00a0tan tien\u00a0<\/em>in the center of the chest, and the upper\u00a0tan tien<\/em>, found above and between the brows, at the ‘third eye’.\u00a0 They correspond to a number of traits, including the physical, emotional, and mental bodies, and instinctive, intuitive, and insightful ways of knowing.\u00a0 The latter part of our journey brings in more of the Vedic and Buddhist traditions, in the forms of mantras, nondualistic perspectives,\u00a0metta\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0bhakti<\/em>\u00a0(heart-based) practices.\u00a0. .<\/p>\n . . . Begin . . .<\/em><\/strong> Filling the sea of ‘chi’<\/strong><\/em> Face work<\/em><\/strong> Another way to activate the internal eyes, and to clear and charge the external (physical) eyes, is as follows:\u00a0 Begin by inhaling thru your external eyes.\u00a0 Bring your head back, let your eyeballs rest in their sockets, and sink the energy down to your lower\u00a0tan tien<\/em>, and yet further into the ground.\u00a0 Then, with reverse momentum, exhale and allow the energy to bounce back up and out in an intense, wide-eyed glare.\u00a0 After a few rounds of this open-eyed charging, vary it by now closing your external eyes as you breath out thru them.\u00a0 This will help you to feel out your internal eyes, thru which you will begin to exhale and ‘open’ with some deep blinking.\u00a0\u00a0 You then fully switch to breathing\u00a0 in and out thru closed external eyes, further activating your internal eyes and getting you used to looking at the world thru them.<\/p>\n Following the eye work, drop your hands and begin to massage your cheekbones with the heels of the hands in circular motions.\u00a0 Slowly and continuously move them apart to the temples, then across the forehead to the brows, and back down the sides of the head to the jaw joint and together to the chin.<\/p>\n You can if you wish do a second round with the following variation:\u00a0 Drop your hands, rub and heat them up again, and now place your left hand over your lower\u00a0tan tien<\/em>\u00a0and with the palm of your right hand, gently rub your nose, your\u00a0chi<\/em>\u00a0antenna.\u00a0 After a few seconds, bring your hand down and rub the space between your upper lip and nose with a back and forth motion, using the inside edge of your horizontal right palm (index finger to the root of your thumb), and keeping your elbow out away from your body.\u00a0 Repeat this on the area just below the lower lip.\u00a0 Then with the backside of the hand, rub the area between your chin and neck, back and forth.\u00a0 Again, keep your elbow out.\u00a0 Then go to your ears, and with both hands, pull on your earlobes, and the edges of your ears.<\/p>\n Finish with a vigorous shaking of the hands, arms, shoulders, and upper body in a release of energy, like shaking off water.\u00a0 Now is a time to shake off a few things, such as where you think you’ve been and where you think you’re going, to better allow you to be here, in the moment . . Now.<\/p>\n Opening the Body Tube<\/em><\/strong> Eventually, you may get a sense that a deeper face is wanting to emerge, one more real, more conducive to the expression of your more authentic, or Higher, self.\u00a0 This birthing is signaled by the sense that the skin of your face is getting to tight to contain the movement underneath it, that something pink, shiny, and new is pushing to surface.\u00a0 When you get this feeling, summon the primordial molting response we all carry, and like a snake writhing out of its skin, ‘shed’ your external face.<\/p>\n You’ll likely find that this shedding action defines a bilateral split down the center of your face.\u00a0 Move into this opening with symmetrical expansive movements, especially as coordinated by the mouth.\u00a0 You in fact want the mouth to energetically extend up the center of your face, awakening a latent whole-face orifice function.\u00a0 Once you’ve contacted this, move your face as an orifice, as a ‘topside anus’.\u00a0 Release thru it, as an opening to move out psychic detritus, and draw in thru it, as a portal of life force.\u00a0 In and out, in and out, releasing and absorbing, ‘deixa o mal sair, deixa o bem entrar<\/em>‘, ‘out goes the bad, in goes the good’, breathing with your whole face.\u00a0 Allow this rhythm to extend to your throat, which spreads wide like a cobra, and then down into your torso, into your hip joints, and lower anus, thus effecting an undulating motion that opens up the hollow tube, or worm-like structure (fleshy canal open at both ends) of your physical form.\u00a0 Once this tube is activated, the undulations become full-body peristaltic and enact yet deeper absorption, assimilation, and release, yet greater opening and clearing of the tube.\u00a0 At an energetic level, this has the effect of exercising the ‘pranic tube’ that extends thru us vertically, and of thawing the frozen light known as ‘matter’, releasing the force of an inbody, or internal radiance.\u00a0 Once contacted, we can creatively shed and molt, let go and surrender, our various densities and resistances before the Shine of this light.<\/p>\n Head Clearing<\/em><\/strong> To loosen and flush the brain, further ‘wring the sponge’ with some prolonged full-faced winking and squinting, alternately compressing both sides of the head, and moving it from side to side in a kind of defecating action out each ear.\u00a0 This uses the orifice function of the ears to reverse their usual role as receivers to eject what often comes into them in the first place.\u00a0 So back and forth you go, shaking the head sometimes to dislodge stuff, working the aural sphincter, breathing thru it all, occasionally letting out grunts, and out it goes, bad radio, messy arguments, boring lectures, government lies, impacted attachments and avoidances of all kinds . . . and so on.<\/p>\n Going deeper into mental constructs, you might find large knots of stringy information, the long cause-and-effect kind that is usual to academic education.\u00a0 When we study books to pass tests and so on, especially under duress, we often stuff our heads full of this kind of information, to the point where energies kink, bind-up, and nothing ‘digests’ well.\u00a0 Years of feeding ourselves in this way can create mental constipation.\u00a0 This, by the way, is often confused with high intelligence, a common occurrence in universities, and wherever their graduates migrate en masse, such as corporate management, and various tiers of government agencies.<\/p>\n After a good head dump, your brain-mind should feel light, spacious, and even fluffy like a cloud.\u00a0 At this point imagine anything left in your head to dissolve into a clear blue sky.\u00a0 Extend this clear blue sky thru your entire body and being.<\/p>\n Breathing Heaven and Earth<\/em><\/strong> Oh Great Spirit, help me to transform all resentments, anger, fear, guilt, and selfishness in the light of self-understanding Begin by looking up into the sky with your internal eyes, seeing the stars, planets, comets, and such, and then ‘swallow’ these forces thru the head-top with a long inhalation.\u00a0 Feel free to reach up with your hands as though pulling a rope down thru the center of your body (aka pranic<\/em>tube). \u00a0Then with an exhalation, and possibly a push with your hands, release the breath down, down, down to the center of the earth, to the crystalline core of light. \u00a0 From there, inhale up the earthly forces, the magma, minerals, fertile soils, and such, up thru your hollow body, and exhale from above into the sky.\u00a0 Now inhale from both directions, above and below, bringing the two energies into the lower tan tien<\/em>.\u00a0 There they meet, merge, circulate, and are released in an exhalation that extends out 360 degrees.<\/p>\n Now\u00a0reach to the sky, and breath down and stream the colors of the upper chakras, the blues, purples, and indigos.\u00a0 Then with an exhalation, release the breath down to the center of the earth. \u00a0 Now breath up the reds, golds, and oranges of the lower chakras. \u00a0 You then breath in from both directions, from both ends of the rainbow spectrum, and allow the two streams of colors to meet in the middletan tien<\/em>, where they merge and become as white light, and exhale this all around, giving space to dissolve a bit in this luminosity. \u00a0 Now\u00a0inhale a purifying (choose your color) flame of ascension down from the center of the galaxy, breathe it thru, touch in with the center of the earth, and then up and out \u00a0thru the head top. \u00a0 The two aspects of the flame from both directions are then breathed into the upper tan tien<\/em>, the third eye, and their union is then exhaled all around. \u00a0 Feel free to vary the meeting point(s) of these polarities in the body. \u00a0E.g., you could do just one, or all three, thru just the heart area.<\/p>\n Playing the Three-Hole Flute<\/em><\/strong> Begin with a deep inhalation, expand the chest, and snuff or sip more air in to give maximum drive to the tone.\u00a0 Then go to your belly, and let out the deepest low-end bass tone you can for as long as you can.\u00a0 Rest.\u00a0 Then take another breath, stretch the sternum, and repeat with a middle tone. \u00a0Rest. \u00a0Then an upper tone.\u00a0 Really flare the nostrils to get a good rebound thrust to the sonic bloom of this area.\u00a0 People will have different sounding tones, but what is importance is the depth, clarity, steadiness, and length.\u00a0 These are qualities that develop over time.\u00a0 Tones not only clue you into the range of your voice and how to parse out the breath, but get you used to feeling your body as a musical instrument.\u00a0 A good tone can also act as a ‘spindle’ upon which to straighten out tangles in your energy field.<\/p>\n After toning each\u00a0tan tien<\/em>, you can move up and down the scales.\u00a0 For example, with one breath start with a middle tone, move high, then low, and end in the middle.\u00a0 I usually finish with a rising tone, one that sends the breath down into a low-end tone which rebounds up the body in increasingly higher pitches until its released in a whoooosh out the top of the head, which then completes a thorough reaming out of the flute-tube of the body.<\/p>\n Soning (aka free-form voicing)<\/em><\/strong> Soning begins with the usual long, deep, further snuff or sip-deepened, inhalation.\u00a0 You might want to imagine inhaling up a great wave of energy, down which you surf with an extended exhalation, developing sonal skills by riding high and straight, or criss-crossing, or in complex flourishes that include: rapid or extended stops and starts, ups and downs thru the sonal range, and creative last minute use of unexpected reserves of air\/vitality.\u00a0 Similarly, the breath may take on the dimensions of a controlled avalanche down which you can slalom, each time turning on a diamond and sending up glistening sprays of energy.\u00a0 However you work it, it is useful to sone with your whole body, to stretch your face, gesture with your arms, move your torso, open your hip joints as energy releasers, even get up and walk around.\u00a0 The goal is to become voiced by your body.\u00a0\u00a0 Practice at this allows the development of rhythmic symmetrical movements (‘body mudras’) that add power and grace to your voicing.<\/p>\n You are free to work off anyone else’s stronger or weaker riff if you wish, and an entire group harmonic may spontaneously arise, however remember that this is largely for you to explore your voice in (relatively) unimpeded circumstances. \u00a0Be open to the socially unacceptable sounds, the intestinal roilings of the vomit daemons, the guttural gnashing of unrelieved distress, the keening of despair, of grief, and so on.\u00a0 In fact angelic melodies often follow such sounds, as life force formerly trapped in associated judgments, can become acknowledged, redeemed, to rejoin one’s incarnational presence as a kind of ‘soul gain’.<\/p>\n Often soning mutates into inter-dimensional dialogue, a conversation, or declaration, in what can be described as spirit or star language.\u00a0 I’ve also called this ‘tribal talk’.\u00a0 Done well, it is the art of being very articulate in speaking words with no meaning, i.e., no apparent meaning, for all the nuances of intonation, phrasing, timing, the give and take of speaking and listening, etc., all that makes for good conversation, are highly present, for they carry the stream of meaning.\u00a0 This allows space for these ‘words’ to birth into greater definition, a play of the genesis of languages.\u00a0 Tribal talk is evocative of novel frequencies of communication, allows other beings to converse with us and thru us, and best of all is good, mystical fun!\u00a0 And one wonders . . . is there an infinitude of languages, or just one language with an infinitude of expressions?<\/p>\n As you continue to sone on, at some point, anywhere from 4 to 8 minutes is the usual range, it is time to bring the diversity, or chaos, into order, into unity.\u00a0 The facilitator moves into a single sone, voices it repeatedly with increasing strength, draws the other voices into this sphere of focus, and then begins to rise it in pitch.\u00a0 I often use the sacred syllable ‘om’ for this, and sometimes (just my preference) the sound ‘song’ (pronounced ‘sohng’), with a strong nasal action to it.\u00a0 This latter syllable in Mandarin Chinese can mean ‘aliveness with no tension’, and is often used to describe the ideal state of your body while engaged in\u00a0tai chi chuan<\/em>, and in everyday life for that matter.<\/p>\n When the single sone climaxes in pitch, it is released in a series of deep, full-body breaths, sometimes rapid-fire, sometimes slow rhythmic pumping.\u00a0 Feel free to move to intensify and deepen the breaths, to really go off with this and shatter what’s left of derelict or overly rigid energy patterns.\u00a0 Use the opportunity to breathe the body openings created by the work so far, to infuse and charge them, to express and knead them.\u00a0 A minute or so of this is good, and then come to rest.<\/p>\n Birthing the Creation-Body<\/em><\/strong> Notice that each cell of your body has now awakened to its own inner light, its star nature. \u00a0 This lead us to possibly our first song ~<\/p>\n StarLight is our Home<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n See each cell as a star in the galaxy of the body-mind.\u00a0 Become this galaxy, and abide in its utter vastness and potent emptiness.\u00a0 Now breathe open the universe, so that each cell becomes a galaxy.\u00a0 As the universe, connect with the cosmic intelligence and its rhythms. \u00a0Allow yourself to be extinguished with each inbreath, recreated with each out-breath ~<\/p>\n Every Moment<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n A final exhale creates this universe, and you become a streaming outburst of primordial elemental star matter, doing its swirling, fissioning, forming, exploding, imploding, and re-forming dance of molecular creation!<\/p>\n Breathe as this primordial developong star matter, and allow the elements in your body to connect with their origins, to refresh, revitalize, and reknow themselves.\u00a0 Allow the focusing, concentrating power of the will to act as gravity, pulling the starlight into a vortex that coalesces into a glowing sphere, a star, a sun.\u00a0 Absorb and partake of its brightness, its warmth.\u00a0 Reanimate yourself with its power.\u00a0 Charge your cells.\u00a0 Continue to breathe until it condenses yet further into the solidity of a planet, into the form of the planet . . . earth.<\/p>\n Drop the earth, this ‘smoky rock’, or later ‘blue-green jewel’, into your belly-womb.\u00a0 With this you have the opportunity to be as a creator God\/Goddess, one given the sacred task to protect and nurture all emerging life on this planet, to attend to the myriad evolutions into greater self-awareness that collectively flower the earth into its rendevous with Oneness.\u00a0 You feel as all these beings, realize them wrapped and encoded in your DNA, each a gene of the planet revealing itself thru you, dreaming your existence, awakening you to their stories, awakening you to yourself.\u00a0 Breathe this richness of life, breathe its fecundity of purpose. And as you do the earth condenses yet further into a sacred seed (or egg if you wish to do an animal-originated Creation story, or a spore . .\u00a0 ).<\/p>\n From this seed germinates the inherent Power, the ‘medicine’ of our being.\u00a0 It is the seed of our spiritual life, our awakening, of the Buddha nature, the Christ light, within each of us.\u00a0 It grows as a tree of life, branches into the depths of our communion with the world, blossoms into wisdom and compassion, fruits into divine sweetness, and re-seeds itself as works of selfless service.\u00a0 In the Vedic tradition, it is the\u00a0soma<\/em>\u00a0plant, that which sprouts spiritual awareness in humanity.\u00a0 This seed contains the spark of the divine which seeks to come home to itself in the Sunlight of the opening human heart.<\/p>\n What follows is the story of its cultivation in the garden of the divine family of Creation, its growth beneath and ultimately as, this Light of the heart.<\/p>\n Singing Alive the Creation-Body<\/em><\/strong> To spark this initial germination, we may call upon Great-Grandmother-Growth with simple melodic invocations of manifestation \u00a0Such as ~<\/p>\n Ma Hey Hee Hum<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n We may call upon the Vedic deity of transformation Shiva, as\u00a0Shivoham\u00a0<\/em>(I am Shiva), segueing into\u00a0Dasoham<\/em>\u00a0(I am a servant), to deflate ego identifications, or\u00a0Shima,\u00a0<\/em>meaning mother in Navaho, love in Hopi.<\/p>\n Here are more sprouting \/ birthing songs ~<\/p>\n Sprouting the Buddha<\/a> You can also invoke the spirit of a plant, to resonate with specific qualities you wish to have as you grow, such as the strength, wisdom, and fragrance of a cedar tree ~<\/p>\n Cedar Tree Song<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n And a couple songs to remind us of the trails of glory we tread into incarnations ~<\/p>\n Return Again<\/a><\/em> This is a song sung by the devoted mother Madalasa, chronicled in the Vedic literature, to her sons in the cradle to develop their spiritual awareness ~<\/p>\n Suddhosi Buddhosi<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n After each song, it is good to take a breath and exhale with a soft\u00a0shhhhheeewwwwww\u00a0<\/em>sound.\u00a0 This sends the song to spirit, and cleanses the vibrational palette (and palate) in readiness for the next melodic expression.<\/p>\n Let us now take some time to feel into the internal landscape.\u00a0 Visualize the rocks and mountains of the bones, the rivers, seas and rains of body fluids, the breezes, gales, and still air of breath, and the fires of spirit that warm and animate this world within.\u00a0 And give this garden of ‘Inden’, the space, the permission, to express its native metabolic intelligence, to transform, flow, and find balance with the heartbeat of Creation. . .<\/p>\n As the seed sprouts, allow it to drop your weight.\u00a0 This is also a time to let problematic emotions and life issues drop into the earth as well.\u00a0 Make compost!\u00a0 Some of the best compost comes from dropping judgments about the sins of empire, the transgressions of modern civilization, the poisons of politics.\u00a0\u00a0 To do so, move into expansive perspectives. \u00a0Examples include: holding the paradox of needing to right an injustice, yet recognizing that all is as it should be; \u00a0seeing both the illusory nature of dualisms, of good and evil, right and wrong, and their reality in the world; \u00a0knowing that without illness there can be no healing, without a fall from grace there can be no redemption. \u00a0Here are a couple songs to decompose and release some of that pent up life force trapped in identities of self-importance. ~<\/p>\n Taking Root<\/a><\/em> Now feel the seed sending roots down thru your body and into the soil below you.\u00a0 Feel it come home, feel yourself come home as it connects with the great Gaian innernet and the many kin-doms that both compose it, and communicate thru it.\u00a0 Its good to really ‘dock’ with the earth by stretching open the hip joints to facilitate the connection. \u00a0With an extended inhale, draw these forces up and thru your nervous system, your meridians, which then light up with a streaming of the terrestial hive mind and its cultural life. \u00a0Now more receptive to the Gaian dream, know it as your dream, and suffuse yourself with its guidance, its ‘original instructions’, and the power that upwells thru it. \u00a0A feeling of gratitude begins to activate, and you release this feeling down as nourishment to the earth.<\/p>\n Now allow your spirit to rise wth an exhalation, an expansion up and out, surrendering to the skyward polarity, and touch into the starry cosmos, to the star tribes. \u00a0Then inhale this communion down thru your head-top, and into your nervous system, meridians, and feel the circuits light up with this info-energy. \u00a0You then respond with a buoyant sigh of appreciation, of thankfulness, and radiate this frequency upwards, in a circulation of open-hearted harmonics.<\/p>\n This opens up an opportunity for a gratitude song ~<\/p>\n Thank You for it All<\/a><\/p>\n <\/em>and\u00a0a song for working the heaven \/ earth polarities~<\/p>\n The Grounding Song<\/a> As you work the polarities, allow yourself to stretch and grrooowwww.\u00a0 Feel into a ‘spirit fiber’ running vertically thru your being.\u00a0 Allow this fiber to conduct these forces and strengthen itself, yourself.\u00a0 Move with the support of this fiber, with the bend-but-don’t-break qualities of a supple sapling.\u00a0 Feel the ‘power of the green’ stir within your loins, your ‘hara’, and explore your flexibility by circling and swaying from this pivot ~<\/p>\n Flower Power<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Allow this new found freedom to help loosen the egoic hold on your sense of self, your self-perception. Tap into some primordial shedding and molting functions, and move to give more space for this power of creation. \u00a0 Test the waters of trust and surrender, and feel the current run\u00a0thru your vertical axis, the ‘pranic tube’ ~<\/p>\n The Power of Creation<\/a> At this point we may want to invoke some fertilizing energies. \u00a0 For example, the elephant-faced boy, little Ganesha, may appear walking over to us from a distance. \u00a0When he arrives, he graciously drops his purple silk pantaloons, squats down, and gifts us with some Holy Dung. \u00a0We may then dig the dung into our ‘soil’, to fertilize our Kundalini coil, while singing ~ <\/em>We can also nourish ourself with a kind of ‘rainfall of blessings’. \u00a0We do this by thinking of people who have wished us well in this life, those who have helped and supported us. \u00a0 We thereby cultivate appreciation for those who have so loved and cherished us. \u00a0We can raise the level of appreciation by bringing in those people or situations that have challenged and even disturbed us, for what is problematic at one level of awareness often catalyzes positive change at another. \u00a0Furthermore, we can embrace yet more players in this game by revisiting our decision, if we have so made it, that the universe is a friendly, benevolent place. \u00a0 If so, then the universe if always on our side, and you can then be appreciative of EVERYTHING \u00a0~<\/p>\n Blessings All Around<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n The\u00a0soma<\/em>\u00a0within by now has grown stronger and sturdier, wider and taller.\u00a0 What variety is it?\u00a0 It could be anything, though I have found that it often becomes some sort of ‘tree of life’.\u00a0 Practice will likely identify a totem plant within, which you will come to know and work with.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, here are some ‘medicine songs’ to connect the plant within to plants without. \u00a0The vegetative community is elder to the human, and carries much guidance to help us thru our current adolescence as a species.\u00a0\u00a0 These songs honor the teacher plants, the\u00a0maestros<\/em>, those with a special affinity to humans.\u00a0 They offer this guidance as ‘healing ways’. ~<\/p>\n Gran \u00a0Espiritu<\/a><\/em> Plant Medicines, the original ‘greenprint’ of all that we today call medicines, work by natural laws of healing. \u00a0 E.g., their therapeutic action will often surface dis-orders in order to fully clear them from the system. \u00a0In such situations, things tend to get worse before they get better. \u00a0This worsening, a \u00a0journey of self-purification, is necessary for the plant within to get access to higher octave nourishment it needs to flourish. \u00a0This is a song of encouragement during such times, to keep faith in these Ways, the Ways that nourish our roots with truth, so that our soul may rise and flower. . ~<\/p>\n Faith in these Ways<\/a><\/p>\n <\/em>and to let go of all that no longer serves \u00a0~<\/p>\n Letting Go<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Somewhere in this stage of our story, the plant within becomes increasingly aware of the rhythms and cycles of the world, and the potentials of conscious entrainment with them. \u00a0We can embody and further active this awareness by breathing thru the seasons. \u00a0And so ~ with an inhalation spring arrives.\u00a0 The energies ascend, sprouts emerge, sap rises, some early flowering is happening, bees are buzzing, and there is freshness in the air, an awakening.\u00a0 With an exhalation it is summer.\u00a0 The energies expand, branches extend and leaf, roots spread, birds come to nest; \u00a0it’s the height of growth, of the\u00a0yang <\/em>energy aspect, and sunny days light the ways.\u00a0 With an inhalation it is autumn.\u00a0 Energies withdraw and concentrate, fruits ripen and drop, leaves turn color and fall, grain grows heavy, frost is on the ground;\u00a0 its time to reap what we sow.\u00a0 With an exhalation it is winter.\u00a0 Energies descend, the roots receive and store, and all comes to rest and is silent. \u00a0 It’s the depth of the\u00a0yin <\/em>aspect:\u00a0 cold, dark, wet, waiting, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming . . \u00a0its time again for spring. . .<\/p>\n Earth is Turning<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n It is good to move with these rhythms, to raise and stretch your arms \/ branches, to fan your fingers \/ twigs, to open and extend your legs \/ roots, and wiggle your toes \/ rootlets.\u00a0 Feel into your bilateral symmetry and get a stretch down the center of your torso, especially at the sternum to allow deeper, expansive breaths from that place, and to let the light of the internal sun shine yet brighter.<\/p>\n And so we breathe a few times around the seasonal circuit of vitality.\u00a0 This can be varied by engaging the many correspondences suggested by this circuit.\u00a0 For example, inhale to the east, its dawn and a time of freshness, of new beginnings;\u00a0 exhale to the south, its midday, a time to get things done, to be active;\u00a0 inhale to the west, its sunset, a time come in, to repose;\u00a0 exhale to the north, its night, a time to sleep and dream, dream, dream \u00a0. . . \u00a0we are a human again, and inhale into birth, exhale into adulthood, inhale into the elder years, exhale into death, and dream, dream, dream we are . . .<\/p>\n This world is but a dance of the elements in ever novel choreographies of creation.\u00a0 Our rhythmic breathing and movements have entrained us with this dance, and like a spiritual compass they lead us deeper into the realm of the elements, to the sylphs (air) of the east, salamanders (fire) of the south, undines (water) of the west, and gnomes (earth) of the north. \u00a0I encourage you see these forces as beings, as Devas and elementals, and to imagine their faces, sizes, and shapes, their activities and purposes.\u00a0 This to help you befriend them, to know their personalities, and qualities of intelligence. ~<\/p>\n Fairy Directions Song<\/a> Here are some well-traveled element songs. ~<\/p>\n Air it Flies<\/a><\/em> We can now go thru breathing and visualization practices with each element, often (depending on time and inclination) accompanied by a song.\u00a0 For example, to begin with water, we introduce the rivers, rain, lakes, mist, and so on, often with their associated deities, such as Yemanja or Oxum. ~<\/p>\n Grandmother Ocean<\/a> This world flows with many river songs . . . ~<\/p>\n Stand in that River<\/a> We may want to let the sunny heart effect some alchemy by ‘evaporating’ water from the sea of the belly.\u00a0 This is then drawn up the spine with an inhalation.\u00a0 Now allow it to cloud up in your head, possiby storm with the lightening of creativity, and then release as rain down the front of your body with an outbreath, running thru rivers and waterfalls to return once again into the great ocean of abdomenal\u00a0chi\u00a0<\/em>.<\/p>\n The following songs address this water cycle ~<\/p>\n Sister River Giver<\/a> The metaphorical richness of the elements reveals various correspondences with the human life experience.\u00a0 For example, air is good for the activation of such things as lightness, touch, inspiration, gestures, clarity, and reasoning powers . ~<\/p>\n Breath Here Now<\/a> We may want to create a cleansing and clearing current of air and blow it thru our inner landscape.\u00a0 As this wind sweeps and aerates, you’ll likely run into areas of resistance, and hard-to-get-to places of stagnation.\u00a0 There dwell, among other things, judgments, guilts, grudges, feelings of victimization, and addictions to the beliefs that affirm such things. \u00a0We may then call upon the winds of forgiveness to soften the defenses surrounding these areas, to allow them to more easily release and let go.<\/p>\n Ho\u2019o pono pono<\/a>\u00a0<\/em> An ‘earthquake’ created by some radical yogic opening, complemented by breath, could also be of assistance in breaking apart some of those energy fixations.<\/p>\n All this vigorous air circulation has also fanned the fires within. \u00a0 Fire is the premier agent of transformation.\u00a0 It has aspects of the digestive fire, which allows the growth and maintenance of the physical, and the sacrificial fire, which encourages spiritual growth by destroying our attachments.\u00a0 Fire transitions us.\u00a0 In acts of surrender, it burns up everything that stands in the way of Nature’s abundance, all that inhibits us from living well on the flowing edge of life.<\/p>\n From deep within the groin we can touch into this fire, and from there we inhale it up the spine, and throw into its flames all that we wish to let you of. \u00a0 Cleaning out the closets and trunks, the garages and back yards of our lives, we can let it all go: negative karmas, worn-out relationships, compulsions, traumas, dramas, and such.\u00a0 These then become as ash, which then falls down the front of the body with an exhalation.\u00a0\u00a0 This becomes as earth once again, fertile soil from which we can grow new experiences, fruit potent insights, and feed yet deeper relationships ~<\/p>\n Holy Fire<\/a> You might . . . at sometime during this journey of growth, notice some clouds gathering in your minds sky. \u00a0 These soon begin to obscure the sunlight of the heart.\u00a0 You may feel a resistance to this, and a resultant change of mood.\u00a0\u00a0 If so, feel yet deeper into this shift and you may realize a reactive pattern at work.\u00a0 Bring self-inquiry to this pattern.\u00a0 Ask yourself how much this is a reaction stemming from past conditioning, from social influences.\u00a0 Bring discernment to bear on the inquiry, a\u00a0self-honesty.\u00a0 Such investigations lead, invariably, to the bare-boned spiritual principles that underlie Creation. \u00a0In this case, the great teaching ‘all things must pass’ may suggest itself. \u00a0 This might allow a ray of light which beams to us the feeling that, ah yes!, clouds are the mother of life gifting rain.\u00a0 This insight, like the rain, then washes away our pain, cleansing us, and the power of the storm helps us to be reborn.<\/p>\n Spirit of the Rain<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n You might then ask to deepen your respect and reverence for what you ‘see’ around you, to move into a wiser and more empathetic relationship with the society of Nature, the garden within and without.\u00a0 Here are two songs to help cultivate this deepening:\u00a0 a\u00a0Namaste\u00a0<\/em>song (Namaste<\/em>\u00a0is a Vedic greeting which bows us to the shared Light in all beings), and a Hebrew ‘Golden Rule’ song \u00a0~<\/p>\n Namaste<\/a><\/em> The wonderworld of the Creation-body flourishes as we continue our conscious cultivation of the\u00a0soma\u00a0<\/em>within, for in this spiritual ecology everything is transparently connected. \u00a0We may notice our body as a landscape of ancestry.\u00a0 Organs may reveal their lineages with planets, colors, flavors, and animals;\u00a0 emotional tendencies their history in the climate changes of our past; \u00a0family disorders as swampy miasms of unresolved conflicts passed down thru the generations.\u00a0 We begin to better understand the genealogy of the great kin-dom of Life we embody, both within and without our skin-enclosed self.\u00a0 We tune to the body intelligence, and its amazing powers to flourish despite the confusing signals we often give it.\u00a0 We can see how Nature raises us as family if we allow her to do so.\u00a0 She teaches us the ways of the world, and of our destiny to continue her creative work in increasingly conscious ways.\u00a0 Here is a song that sings of these understandings ~<\/p>\n The Teaching Song<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n And where do these teachings lead?\u00a0 No where else but the wellspring of Nature, the creative Source of All, the essence we’ve all been Oming for, the God within and without!\u00a0 Sooner or later, we all hear it, the call Home, and the longing for Union that it kindles in our lives.\u00a0 We are always being called home, we just need to open the door, and listen! ~<\/p>\n Oh My Lord<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Now is a time to sing deeper devotional and heart-opening songs, especially invoking the divine mother, as the impulse to flower is nigh ~<\/p>\n Beautiful Mother<\/a><\/em> And some heart suns ~<\/p>\n Long Time Sun<\/a> We might also shine down some celestial clarity from the third eye star of the Christ light, maybe with a chant like ~<\/p>\n Pineal Power Prayer<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n We may at this point notice a concentrating of life force in the ambient space around us, and further, a curious synergizing of this force into suggestive sparkings of manifestation.\u00a0 This has been generated by our work of vibrational purification.\u00a0 As the impulse to grow ‘physically’ has by now matured into an internal process, a raising of frequency, we feel moved to permeate ourselves with this higher hum of energy, to draw it into the core of our being.\u00a0 To do this, we partake of the plant’s ability to respirate thru its pores by breathing thru our pores, thru the external, or ‘third’ lung, the skin. \u00a0In this way, a full-bodied inhalation takes us deep into the center of our bones, the physical endpoint of such a breath.\u00a0 It is there, in the crystalline caves of our marrow, that we draw in and anchor the vital forces around us.\u00a0 As these energies flood the marrow, the crystals pulse, shimmer, flush, flash, and radiate a rainbow of colors.\u00a0 We breath in and out in this way, charge ourselves, work the creativity that comes of this charge, molt and shed yet more egoic armoring, and prepare the vehicle for its surrender before the emergence of a higher octave version of itself, a flowering.<\/p>\n For such a momentous and holy task, it is wise to ask for assistance. \u00a0We therefore call upon the lineage of such self-transformation that runs thru the tribes of Creation in the forms of crystals, flowers, butterflies, birds, dolphins, angels, and such.\u00a0 The following songs call upon this ecology of beings ~<\/p>\n Butterfly People<\/a> It is now time to connect with and exercise the primordial instinct we all carry to ‘flower’, to rebirth oneself out of the bud of the lower vibrational self and into a subtler (yet still physical) form.<\/p>\n This process can be aided by the following practice:\u00a0 Stretch out your arms and legs as stalks and branches in front of you, then open the face, palms, and soles as five gateways of life force, together called\u00a0wu hsin<\/em>\u00a0in Chinese.\u00a0 These become as buds, blossoming portals, and you stretch open the fingers and toes as flower petals, with those on the face existing in the astral.\u00a0 Breath thru these five areas as energetic body ‘orifices’.\u00a0 Inhale, draw the arms and legs towards the body, close the finger and toe ‘petals’ until they come together and touch, and scrunch the face inward. \u00a0Energy sinks into a brief nighttime resting. \u00a0Then dawn breaks, exhale and extend everything out in front of you, opening wide the petals, and\u00a0 . .\u00a0 BLOSSOM! \u00a0 In and out you go with each breath, pumping the process, sometimes fanning the petals, sometimes shaking the pollen off the nose, wiggling the stamen of the tongue, brightening and enlivening the face, and always dilating the wu hsin<\/em>‘orifices’.<\/p>\n Here are four Garden song to tune us into the world of flowers ~<\/p>\n Night Garden<\/a><\/em> And a rose song.\u00a0 The rose carries some of the highest, most heart resonant fragrances of the flower kin-dom ~<\/p>\n Light of the Rose<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n When it is time to flower, stretch open and breath deeper into your five budding portals.\u00a0 Open your chest and feel the sunlight of your heart grow more radiant as it attracts a descending stream of compassion from above, an ascending flow of wisdom from below.\u00a0 Allow these two forces to merge with a deep abiding trust in the Universe. \u00a0Feeling an expansion rise thru you, reconfigure to accommodate it, and unfurl before the power of Creation. \u00a0\u00a0Gloria in Excelsis Deo<\/em>. \u00a0 Infuse your being with the essence 0f this flowering. \u00a0 Witness the delicate contours of form transparent to a strong, pulsing, underlying energetic. \u00a0With internal eyes behold the pristine, vibrant colors. \u00a0 Sense the\u00a0fragrance of virtues waft thru your being. \u00a0 Strengthen with the generative power of this Vibration, and rise with its buoyancy.\u00a0 Bask in these qualities. \u00a0Allow them to permeate your cells, so that each cell flowers, and you surrender yet further into blossoming bliss.\u00a0 You may feel the big bud of the brain open its petals to higher function and purpose, your speech transform into honeysuckles of clarity, poetry, and helpful words, your traumas become mud out of which the lotus of forgiveness blooms, and\u00a0soma<\/em>\u00a0on.\u00a0 As your body opens before these expansive forces, be careful to attend to whatever crumpled parts of the flower(s) remain by moving and breathing into those spaces.<\/p>\n Here are a couple Buddhist offerings to help yourself release before the power of the flower, to let go of attachments to the un-flowered (uncomfortably comfortable) self still hanging on to egoic identities ~<\/p>\n Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha <\/a>~\u00a0(when all is gone, gone, gone, only ultimate wisdom remains)<\/em><\/p>\n
\n‘He who does not imagine in stronger and better light than his perishing mortal eye can see, does not imagine at all’. \u2013 W. Blake<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>is a journey thru the Creation-body, aka the microcosmic earth (Gaia) within each of us, as its exists in the nested patterns of resonance that compose our universe.\u00a0 This journey culminates in a flowering of consciousness beneath, and inseparable from, the Sunlight of our opening Hearts.\u00a0 It is a gesture of mythic renewal in a time when many of our meaning stories have become depleted, dis-ordered, and even toxic.\u00a0 I call it a Creation-song as it allows us to rewitness our essential bio-lineage, our evolutionary heritage, thru sound;\u00a0 to know the potentials of this heritage thru the feelings, inspirations, imagery, and embodied understandings that are evoked by chants, songs, breathing practices, spirit-languaging, prayers, and such.\u00a0 We do this to recall the arts (shamanic, yogic . . )\u00a0native to this lineage, to then utilize them to build visionary experiences strong enough to manifest the great personal and planetary transformations necessary to navigate us thru these challenging times.<\/p>\n
\nby placing your right palm on your head top, and showering yourself with divine grace.\u00a0 Allow this grace to radiate out from your body and into the world.\u00a0 After 15 seconds or so, drop your hand, and begin breathing from your abdomen.\u00a0 Feel your verticality, your uprightness.\u00a0 Allow your weight to drop, spirit to rise;\u00a0 weight to drop, spirit to rise.\u00a0 Feel yourself stretch a bit from the pull of heaven (sky) from above, the pull of earth from below, as you let go to levity, let go to gravity.\u00a0 Feel an expansion of space open between your vertebrae.\u00a0 Allow your chest to expand with the openness of a clear blue sky, your heart to beam as a noonday sun.<\/p>\n
\nNow begin a deep inhalation.\u00a0 Audibly draw air in, fill the lungs, and expand the chest.\u00a0 You should feel this as a stretch thru your sternum and out your ribs, drawing the shoulders back in a kind of ‘roostering’.\u00a0 When you have reached your apparent capacity, begin to snuff, or sip, even more air in.\u00a0 When you have reached a yet further capacity, hold your breath, swallow, and drop the energy down to your lower\u00a0tan tien.<\/em>\u00a0 The lower\u00a0tan tien<\/em>\u00a0is often described as a ‘sea’ of chi, a reservoir of life force.\u00a0 Fill this sea until you feel it drive the turbines of your solar plexus, then allow it to overflow into and thru your meridians (channels of\u00a0chi<\/em>), to irrigate and charge your entire body.\u00a0 You need to greatly relax and release your abdomen for this, so round it out.\u00a0 When you feel this influx of life force has permeated your body, exhale thru your mouth and squeeze out as much breath as you can.\u00a0 Repeat this breath cycle at least three times.<\/p>\n
\nBriskly rub your palms together until they are well heated.\u00a0 Place your palms over your closed eyes, and gently press in.\u00a0 Relax your eyeballs, and allow them to sink into their sockets.\u00a0 You might even want to thank them for all the work they do.\u00a0 Allow them to relax and release to the point where they begin to ‘melt’ down your face.\u00a0 This makes space for us to blink, blink, blink, open internal eyes, aka ‘etheric discs’, those that endow the physical eyes with vitality and fire, yet can function independently, and are able to perceive the subtleties of the imaginal journey to come.<\/p>\n
\nWith hands at rest, begin to move every muscle in the face that you can find.\u00a0 This means working the plasticity of the face, scrambling identity patterns held there, getting past all the English language (or whatever language(s) you speak) fixations that inhibit us from the using the diversity of facial muscles we have available.\u00a0 As you work this, you may be aware of self-limitations keeping you from fully expressing your face’s potential, conditioned inhibitions about looking weird, crazed, or funny.\u00a0 Ignore them.\u00a0 Remember your eyes are closed and so are everyone else’s, and who cares anyway.\u00a0 Lips, cheeks, tongue, eyebrows, chin, temple, on and on, crackling the cartilage, moving everything, including things your didn’t think you could move before.\u00a0 You might get into a face dancing enjoyment during this.<\/p>\n
\nAfter the face begins to give way and open, you have easier access to the inner head, and can more easily move the palate, inner ear, skull joints, and brain.\u00a0 You begin head clearing by bringing an invisible hand(s) thru the skull, and down and around the brain.\u00a0 There you gently massage this ‘head marrow’.\u00a0 Feel how the stimulation moves thru the nerves and conduits of the bones to lightly electrify the rest of the body.\u00a0 Slowly begin to squeeze the brain, as if wringing dry a sponge.\u00a0 You may feel areas of hardness or heaviness, lumps and impactions in this medium of brain-mind, often drawn to the left side due to the usual dominance of that hemisphere.\u00a0 This is mental garbage, not unlike unevacuated residuals found in the intestines.<\/p>\n
\nNow see yourself as completely hollow to contain this sky.\u00a0 Be a vertical tube like bamboo, bendable yet strong.\u00a0 From each end, open to the sky (heavens) above, and to the earth below.\u00a0 The goal is to breath these two polarities thru the hollow body.\u00a0 This allows the great organizing forces of heaven and earth to sweep the vehicle clear of petty human-centered concerns and obsessions, dramas and traumas, and reconnect us with larger evolutionary forces, processes and perspectives.\u00a0 I sometimes preface this with the following ‘hollow bone’ prayer from the Lakota:<\/p>\n
\nHelp me to remove from my day all thinking that stands in the way of my usefulness to you
\nGrant me Your peace, and make me a hollow bone so your power can flow thru me.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nAfter the above breathwork, stop and imagine the three\u00a0tan tiens<\/em>\u00a0as glowing, radiant spheres suspended within your body, charged and well-balanced with the marriage of heaven and earth.\u00a0 Now its time to tone these spheres, not unlike playing your body as a three-hole flute.\u00a0 A tone is a long, extended, steady, single sound.\u00a0 Be aware of the hollow spaces in your body that align with each\u00a0tan tien<\/em>, the intestines and stomach, the heart and arteries, and the nasal cavities and sinuses, as these are resonant chambers that can more fully capacitate your tone.<\/p>\n
\nNow its time to move into ‘soning’, the wild, wonderful, whirled that exists between toning and singing.\u00a0 Soning is a free-form expression of voice, a primordial broth of sounds, of melismatic syllables, languages twists, melodic thoughts, audible breaths, animal utterances, plant whisperings, and elemental fluctuations.\u00a0 It is a composting of language, and provides great nourishment for the Creation-body.\u00a0 Practice with soning excavates deeper layers of coding in language and culture, surfaces intuitions and bodily understandings, clears blocks, cleanses the vibrational palette, and gets you on the ‘felt’ wavelength of communication shared by all of Creation.<\/p>\n
\nAs you come to stillness, allow the stirred-up energies to fall softly to earth, like drifting, sparkling snowflakes.\u00a0 Exist in an expectant stillness.\u00a0 Bring your awareness to your lower\u00a0tan tien<\/em>, and breathe from there.\u00a0 Get a sense of activating the umbilical breath, like an infant in the womb.\u00a0 Feel a primordial wave-like motion rise up from within, and allow it to slowly rock your body in gentle, fluid motions. Back and forth, an ebb and flow of vitality lapping the shores of Being . . then Nothingness, Nothingness . . then Being.\u00a0\u00a0 Undulate like kelp in a sea swell, and create a breath which travels these undulations thru the length of your hollow body, so that you are breathing thru both ends, your anus inhaling and exhaling in concert with your mouth.\u00a0 Earthly yin energies are pulled up from below, heavenly yang energies brought down from above, and they are together breathed into and out of the lower\u00a0tan tien<\/em>.\u00a0 There they repeatedly draw closer to one another, build in attraction, and then, like two live wires, touch, complete a circuit, and let off a spark.\u00a0 Fan this spark.\u00a0 Grow it, brighten it, until it illuminates your entire body with, and as, a pure, cleansing, white light.\u00a0 Breath as this light in soft pulsations.\u00a0 Radiate.<\/p>\n
\nJust as the voice now evolves\u00a0more fully into singing, and human language, so the seed of spirit now awakens, and begins its journey of growth into the world within and without, into the cultural life of the society of nature.<\/p>\n
\nBengali Birthing Song<\/a>
\nSeed Song<\/a>
\n<\/em>Belly\/Bella Mama<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
\nAs Old as the Universe<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
\nThe River is Flowing (New Millenium version)\u00a0<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n
\nEarth and Sky Harmonize<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/em>
\n<\/em>We may at this time want to put some attention into brightening the sunlight of our heart.\u00a0 To do this we reach up into the sky and inhale down some starry luminosity and shine the heart with an extended ahhhhhhhhhh<\/em>.\u00a0 Reaching down into the earth, we inhale the subtle light of the Fairy realms up and into the heart and shine out with another extended ahhhhhhhhh<\/em>. \u00a0 The little plant within is drawn to light of the heart, and the heart is likewise drawn to it. \u00a0Feel into this magnetic attraction as a force that guides our narrative, as a gradual coaxing of potential into expression.<\/p>\n
\n
\nHoly Dung<\/a><\/p>\n
\nIcaros Sunarye<\/a><\/em>
\nMedicine Hymn<\/a><\/em>
\nCura Cura<\/a>
\nFlores en mi Camino<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\nLos Cuatro Elementos<\/i><\/a>
\nCircles of the World<\/a><\/em>
\nEarth and Ocean<\/a><\/em>
\nOne Spirit<\/a><\/em>
\nI Come From the Spirit<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
\nKai Kai Kai Yemanja<\/a>
\nMama Jurema<\/a>
\nOshun Bailo<\/a>
\nOxum<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\nDown to the River to Pray<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\nWheels in the Water<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\nBreathing the Earth<\/a>
\nBreathing Love and Peace<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\nHawaiian Forgiveness Song<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
\nFire of Love<\/a>
\nBurn Fire Burn Bright<\/a>\u00a0(aka) The volcano song
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\nHareini Mekabel<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
\nSanctuary<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
\nWe are the Rising Sun<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\nMardi di di (calling) Icaro<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n
\nWe All Come from the Garden<\/a><\/em>
\nGardens of Bliss<\/a>
\nFeeling very Open<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n