Meditation -- Dec. 15, 2024

White sage burning and a candle in the Buddha’s lap,

I start the sacred procession by breathing in, breathing out,

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focusing only on the air filling my lungs, then easing out again.

Thoughts slip in and out of the field of consciousness. I let them pass,

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trusting the breath to guide me deeper and deeper into the unknown,

seeking the Eternal Present Moment, elusive, clouded by memory

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and its attendants: shame, grief, regret, fear most of all. Powerful

emotion shaped by mistaken assumption and wrongheaded examples.

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The breath in and out, easy and natural, regulates the body

and the mind, guiding me through the Shadows, recognizing them now

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as allies born to help protect a fearful child, and thusly honored, freeing

them to disintegrate back into the swirl of All That Is – their duty fulfilled.

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Their memory now, still present, no longer carries the dangerous

emotional charge, reemerging as Wisdom hard won, a gift from old trials.

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I am no longer that boy. I am no longer that man. I embrace the reality

that I am an Eternal Soul living a human experience, a strand of Light

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within a great quantum field, and embracing that reality, all the facades

slip away, leaving only my soul’s connected flame. I am No Thing, No One,

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No Where, outside the realm of time. An element of Love, Higher Intelligence,

Awareness, Consciousness, Creativity, both receptor of those gifts and a part

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of that energy. And from that awareness, I can feel only gratitude, and begin

the sacred recitations:

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I am grateful for perceiving my fear through the Teacher of Love.

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I am grateful for focusing my attention on the Love all around me,

and expecting miracles.

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I am grateful for stepping back, surrendering, and letting Love

lead the way.

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I am grateful for the visions of the life I desire to lead,

in the last act of this incarnation.

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The count up to consciousness begins, pulling me back

to the physical level of existence, energized and connected.

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My heart pumping slow and steady at 44 beats to the minute

reminds me it was real, more real than this physical illusion.

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Smoke from the stick of time, nearly completely ash now, wafts

around me as I extinguish the Buddha’s candle.

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I have won the morning. I have won the day. May I be used

for the Highest Good in all things.