March: Worlds Within Worlds
The end of February marks the peak of winter tedium in the Northern Hemisphere, and, this time around, an entire year of pandemic conditions has heightened the monotony. Our worlds have narrowed to the same homes, the same people, the same outfits, the same feelings coming up again and again. We are longing for fresh worlds to emerge from the constriction of our current one. But even if we want to grow, our passage through emergent conditions can be disorienting.
“Worlds within worlds” is a phrase that can repeat endlessly, with dizzying effects. It could speak to anxiety or ecstatic communion. It could spin us deep into the heart of these dahlias until we’ve reached their cell structures and atomic nuclei—or, we could spiral out into the macro connections between plants and humans and biospheres and planets. In either direction, we’re working with infinitely nesting worlds and countless layers of connection.
Working With this Spell
This month’s image is a technicolor vortex. The energy it’s bringing is dynamic, alive, and unfurling. Working with this spell, we accept that there is no solid ground in experiences of growth and change. Instead, we move with the vortex energy and study the different ways we interact with it.
In a vortex, the mind spins, encountering multiplicity, velocity, connections that twist and move. Nothing can be pinned down and the speed of thought becomes exhausting. This energetic and somewhat chaotic mental activity can occur when we’re excited, nervous, or inspired—when we’re synthesizing and integrating stimulating information. But circular thinking is also one of the hallmarks of anxiety. When there is fear in the body, the mind can spin around and around looking for an anchor. The heart embodies vortex energy differently. Experiences of joy, wonder, and love, bring us to the center of the whirlwind—where we may experience a kind of knowing that anchors us through the storm. The only catch is, we can’t stay there. Not always. We can learn to stay connected to our hearts, but life is full of surprises that inevitably shake us out of experiences of communion and belonging.
Working with this spell, we allow for emergence and its chaotic conditions. We track our mental energy and, if it starts to feel out of control, we bring our awareness into our hearts and simply allow the chaos to swirl around us. And, even as we take refuge in the centering power of our hearts, we remain alert to when our mind may try to co copt the heart’s energy in order to dodge the swirling complexity of our human lives and dwell evermore in experiences of “love and light.” Love and light will absolutely guide us as we transform our world into a better one, but for our world to heal, we need to learn to be with the hurt that needs healing.
Meditation:
For this meditation, please find a very comfortable place to rest your body. At first, let there be a natural tension in your muscles and whatever activity is in your mind. Let it all be just the way it is; and notice what you notice. Perhaps you bring awareness to the world outside your body and all the ways you come to know it. Its colors and temperature, your location and the many associations you have to being alive and aware in this outer world. And then, consider how your senses process all this information about your outer world and make it a part of your inner world. An experience. Your experience.
Next, see how your breath is moving. Spend a few moments riding along your breath, as it travels in and down and up and out. Filling your low belly, your chest, and upper lungs, and then emptying out again, an easy release. Begin wondering about your inner world; if it feels good, you can breathe into places in your body that you are wondering about. Think of how air swirls as it moves, like water does, and see if you can feel your breath swirling into your lungs, swirling through the places where you are sending your breath.
If you’d like to, imagine your resting body, holding the smaller worlds of organs and cells, molecules and atoms. Imagine your resting body being held by bigger worlds—buildings, family, ecosystem, mythology and culture. Imagine your life and your body, how small we all are at the beginning… remember how you emerged from another life and body, who emerged from another, and back and back until your vision gets blurry…
Let your breath call you back to this moment. Let your breath bloom inside your body, bloom down in your feet, bloom inside your heart, let it bloom behind your eyes. Let your life be held by your body and your body be held by your life. And, whenever you’re ready, let your senses remember the world around you. The colors, light and shadow. To close this meditation, feel free to move back into your world, however that feels good to you.
This month:
We got 2021 calendars in stock and on sale! Woot woot!
For more fun with vortex energy, listen to the accompanying podcast for this blog here.
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