Spirituality Chakra 1, Week 3 Creating Conditions for
Spirituality Chakra 1, Week 3
Artwork from Will Zero.
Chakra 1 asks us to create a body that is ready to be filled. Last week’s email contained ways of grounding our bodies utilizing yoga, dance, exercise, and massage, and we encourage you to continue ways of strengthening the foundations that support your life. Many of us know the value of time devoted to spiritual nourishment. This month’s chakra 1 focus offers us an opportunity to firm up structures that work for spiritual well-being and sustain us in our journey upward through the higher chakras.
Creating Conditions for Spiritual Practice A good place to start is to become realistic about schedules and demands. Determine what works specifically for you regarding time and space for your favorite forms of spiritual practice. Are mornings or evenings more appropriate for you? Look at the coming week and choose a time in your calendar for a practice that feeds you. Below we have described a few methods of meditation. You can choose from these or your own method, but specifically decide what you will do that makes holy your spiritual time of nurturing. Let others in your life know that this is your time and you will be unavailable. You might close the door, not answer phones or emails, and create any create other necessary boundaries so you are truly in a time/space that is safe for your inner-directed focus.
Connecting with Nature Spirits Go outside to your back yard, a nearby park, or your favorite place in nature. Sit quietly and ground, allowing everything within you to settle into stillness. Extend your awareness into the fields of energy around you. Take in the smells, the sounds, the sights, the textures, even the taste of the air. Feel how alive everything is, shimmering in the sunlight. Imagine you are the consciousness of something nearby: a tree, a plant, a rock, an animal. How do you experience this place? How do you experience the person sitting in meditation? Let your consciousness shift to different things in your environment, as if you could experience its awareness. An acronym for this
experience you might like is SAFE (Sit And Feel Everything). Thank the nature spirits around you for this experience and for whatever messages you may have received.
Walking Meditation: This is a practice often used during silent retreats that brings us into our ground and in contact with the earth. You can do this in 5 minutes or for up to 30 or more minutes. Indoors is acceptable although outdoors is preferred. Choose an area about 10 feet long and stand so that you feel the earth beneath you, and the pull of gravity. As you stand, soften your gaze. Feel your breath coming and going from your belly and prepare to walk. Hands can be behind your back or alongside your body relaxed. Walk at a pace that is slow enough to stay connected with an embodied experience of walking. With each step, mentally note 3 parts of the process: lifting, shifting, placing. You can breathe in conjunction with the walking: breathing in for the lifting and shifting, breathing out on the placing. With your easy gaze, see the world around you, feel the earth beneath you, and breath in and out relaxation.
Chakra 1 Sacred Attitudes: Continuing to look at what brings a strong foundation to our lives might lead us to notice where we are most inattentive. If our finances are a mess, or our closets and drawers very disorganized, our energies will be pulled there because something in us senses a scatteredness. Each place of incompletion in your life is draining your life force. A way to shift this is to identify an area where you want to ground your experience. You might choose something that you notice is dissipating your energy like an unbalanced checkbook or double booked appointments and decide to bring sacred focus there. Choose something this week that will become sacred by spending some time cleaning it up, deleting email from your inbox, or organizing.
Taking Refuge A concept from various spiritual traditions is called “taking refuge” which simply means finding sources of sanctuary and support. At a time when the world often seems speedy, stressful, and even scary, knowing what your reliable sources of safety, strength, wisdom, and renewal are—is a wonderful thing. All over the world, people have created or discovered “places of refuge.” From churches to the sheltering woods, those fleeing for their lives could come there and be sheltered and forgiven. In our own lives, we all need everyday refuges from challenges, sorrows, and the occasional craziness of the world. Otherwise, you get too exposed to the cold winds of life, and too drained by the daily round; without refuge, after awhile you can feel like you’re running on empty. Refuges include people, places, memories, and ideas, or simply quiet space—anyone or anything that provides reliable sanctuary and protection that’s reassuring, comforting, and supportive, so you can let down your guard, and gather strength and wisdom. A refuge could be curling up in bed with a good book, having a meal with friends, or simply making a todo list to organize your day. Or going to church or temple, immersing yourself in scientific knowledge,
remembering your grandmother, feeling the strength in your body, talking with a trusted friend or counselor, having faith, or reminding yourself that while you’re not rich, you’re financially OK. In Buddhism, traditional refuges are the teacher—both the historical person the Buddha and the good qualities that are already inside you (whether you know it or not)—the teachings, and the community of the taught.
You can “take refuge” in several ways: • • • •
Something you go to Something you come from Something you abide as Something you work at in your life
When we eat hurriedly, we miss the sacred aspect of food and being connected to the living earth and living beings. You can choose to create a sacred relationship with the preparation of food by feeling gratitude to the celery or carrot as you chop it. Or sanctify your eating by saying a prayer before you eat or tasting the first bite with mindfulness. This week, make a written or mental list of at least a few things that are refuges for you. And if you can, take a moment each day to consciously take refuge in one or more from this list. Try to do this every day, as soon as you remember to do so. It only takes a few minutes or less. You can even do it in the middle of traffic or a meeting. Once you have finished taking refuge, sense the good feelings and thoughts sinking deeply into you, filling you up, and weaving themselves into your being—a resource and inner light that you will take with you wherever you go. Pick one thing that will gives you refuge and focus on that this week.
Empowering Ourselves and Each Other May your week include a specific way for you to firm up your foundation. Next week you will get an email about the first chakra and environment/activism.
Artwork from Will Zero.
Chakra 1 asks us to create a body that is ready to be filled. Last week’s email contained ways of grounding our bodies utilizing yoga, dance, exercise, and massage, and we encourage you to continue ways of strengthening the foundations that support your life. Many of us know the value of time devoted to spiritual nourishment. This month’s chakra 1 focus offers us an opportunity to firm up structures that work for spiritual well-being and sustain us in our journey upward through the higher chakras.
Creating Conditions for Spiritual Practice A good place to start is to become realistic about schedules and demands. Determine what works specifically for you regarding time and space for your favorite forms of spiritual practice. Are mornings or evenings more appropriate for you? Look at the coming week and choose a time in your calendar for a practice that feeds you. Below we have described a few methods of meditation. You can choose from these or your own method, but specifically decide what you will do that makes holy your spiritual time of nurturing. Let others in your life know that this is your time and you will be unavailable. You might close the door, not answer phones or emails, and create any create other necessary boundaries so you are truly in a time/space that is safe for your inner-directed focus.
Connecting with Nature Spirits Go outside to your back yard, a nearby park, or your favorite place in nature. Sit quietly and ground, allowing everything within you to settle into stillness. Extend your awareness into the fields of energy around you. Take in the smells, the sounds, the sights, the textures, even the taste of the air. Feel how alive everything is, shimmering in the sunlight. Imagine you are the consciousness of something nearby: a tree, a plant, a rock, an animal. How do you experience this place? How do you experience the person sitting in meditation? Let your consciousness shift to different things in your environment, as if you could experience its awareness. An acronym for this
experience you might like is SAFE (Sit And Feel Everything). Thank the nature spirits around you for this experience and for whatever messages you may have received.
Walking Meditation: This is a practice often used during silent retreats that brings us into our ground and in contact with the earth. You can do this in 5 minutes or for up to 30 or more minutes. Indoors is acceptable although outdoors is preferred. Choose an area about 10 feet long and stand so that you feel the earth beneath you, and the pull of gravity. As you stand, soften your gaze. Feel your breath coming and going from your belly and prepare to walk. Hands can be behind your back or alongside your body relaxed. Walk at a pace that is slow enough to stay connected with an embodied experience of walking. With each step, mentally note 3 parts of the process: lifting, shifting, placing. You can breathe in conjunction with the walking: breathing in for the lifting and shifting, breathing out on the placing. With your easy gaze, see the world around you, feel the earth beneath you, and breath in and out relaxation.
Chakra 1 Sacred Attitudes: Continuing to look at what brings a strong foundation to our lives might lead us to notice where we are most inattentive. If our finances are a mess, or our closets and drawers very disorganized, our energies will be pulled there because something in us senses a scatteredness. Each place of incompletion in your life is draining your life force. A way to shift this is to identify an area where you want to ground your experience. You might choose something that you notice is dissipating your energy like an unbalanced checkbook or double booked appointments and decide to bring sacred focus there. Choose something this week that will become sacred by spending some time cleaning it up, deleting email from your inbox, or organizing.
Taking Refuge A concept from various spiritual traditions is called “taking refuge” which simply means finding sources of sanctuary and support. At a time when the world often seems speedy, stressful, and even scary, knowing what your reliable sources of safety, strength, wisdom, and renewal are—is a wonderful thing. All over the world, people have created or discovered “places of refuge.” From churches to the sheltering woods, those fleeing for their lives could come there and be sheltered and forgiven. In our own lives, we all need everyday refuges from challenges, sorrows, and the occasional craziness of the world. Otherwise, you get too exposed to the cold winds of life, and too drained by the daily round; without refuge, after awhile you can feel like you’re running on empty. Refuges include people, places, memories, and ideas, or simply quiet space—anyone or anything that provides reliable sanctuary and protection that’s reassuring, comforting, and supportive, so you can let down your guard, and gather strength and wisdom. A refuge could be curling up in bed with a good book, having a meal with friends, or simply making a todo list to organize your day. Or going to church or temple, immersing yourself in scientific knowledge,
remembering your grandmother, feeling the strength in your body, talking with a trusted friend or counselor, having faith, or reminding yourself that while you’re not rich, you’re financially OK. In Buddhism, traditional refuges are the teacher—both the historical person the Buddha and the good qualities that are already inside you (whether you know it or not)—the teachings, and the community of the taught.
You can “take refuge” in several ways: • • • •
Something you go to Something you come from Something you abide as Something you work at in your life
When we eat hurriedly, we miss the sacred aspect of food and being connected to the living earth and living beings. You can choose to create a sacred relationship with the preparation of food by feeling gratitude to the celery or carrot as you chop it. Or sanctify your eating by saying a prayer before you eat or tasting the first bite with mindfulness. This week, make a written or mental list of at least a few things that are refuges for you. And if you can, take a moment each day to consciously take refuge in one or more from this list. Try to do this every day, as soon as you remember to do so. It only takes a few minutes or less. You can even do it in the middle of traffic or a meeting. Once you have finished taking refuge, sense the good feelings and thoughts sinking deeply into you, filling you up, and weaving themselves into your being—a resource and inner light that you will take with you wherever you go. Pick one thing that will gives you refuge and focus on that this week.
Empowering Ourselves and Each Other May your week include a specific way for you to firm up your foundation. Next week you will get an email about the first chakra and environment/activism.
