Blessing Two
Dear All,
We had a great beginning-of-blessings practice yesterday. Something about the mix of people or the alignment of the stars was particularly conducive to improvisation-within-familiarity.
It became, not normal meditation at all, but rather a series of mini-discussions and mini-orientations that led to a collaborative field of blessing.
First, we talked about moments of being blessed. People shared specific incidents from their lives. These included being “bopped” hard on the head by Ram Dass, being embraced by a surreally still seascape of sporting whales, stumbling upon a Greek goddess, and meeting to give and receive spontaneous interpersonal blessings in the context of human tragedy. The accounts were so various, but included some of the characteristics of what we then constituted among ourselves throughout the hour: for example, a sense of dropped defenses, a sense of heightened energy, a sense of relationship and mutual benefit, a sense of wonder, a sense of wholeness or coherence.
Next, we stood up for David Spangler’s aptly named Standing Exercise. For this practice, you inwardly affirm and endorse your own standing physically, as a physical phenomenon in a physical world, with the wonder of it, the engineering achievement of it. Then you take time to appreciate and enact your standing as an emotional expression, a declaration or affirmation of presence (stand and be counted, stand to vote or volunteer, stand to greet someone or self-identify, standing ovation). Then you take a moment to have your standing be an expression of mental/creative availability, standing to see the horizon and choose to move or stay, standing to use the hands. Then you have this same stance represent your presence as an energetic, subtle being in a subtle or energetic environment (qi, chi, chakras, meridians, belong here, as do subtle forces and beings of all kinds). Finally, you let the standing be the expression of I AM, your root in divinity, a sacrament of arrival.
Having gotten ourselves truly in the room through this, we sat back down. Seated, and with eyes closed, we tried to generate a collective field, open to the Good, open to the dual radiance of the divine in which we all have a share and the specific light (David calls it Self-Light) that emanates from each of us as incarnate beings—beings who have developed our own signature radiance through the wear and tear of life on earth, and through all our past actions of creativity, kindness, and coherence. We inwardly honored and thanked ourselves, the space around us, the people with us, the activity between us, and all the unseen presences that wanted to share in this moment of gathering into light.
There was a belled “sharing of the merit” ritual at the end, but the central event was just this deciding to weave ourselves, as strong individualities, into a shared field.
So the blessing practice begins with the establishment of a coherent self, and continues through a kind of collective, open invitation. Next week, we’ll reconstitute this field, cast the invitation even wider, and practice focusing the light.
All blessings to all,
Michael
