Progressive Muscle Relaxation As the Wheel of the Year turns to winter, it is natural for us to turn inward as well, using the increasing darkness to help us concentrate on internal matters and to work with trance states and meditative journeys. Progressive muscle relaxation is a simple but useful technique for quieting the body so that the spirit can engage in these experiences without being distracted by external influences. It can also be used as part of a larger meditative practice to help us recognize where we tend to experience stress physically and learn to release that tension. Describing stress as a feeling of pressure or tension isn’t just…

As October rolls around, many Pagans begin preparing for Samhain, the Celtic festival of summer’s end, when the veil between the worlds of living and dead is especially thin. For Pagans today, this is often a time for acknowledging those who have died in the previous year and telling myths about death and rebirth. For all who may be grieving or remembering grief at Samhain, I would like to offer some suggestions about how meditative techniques can help you experience and move through those feelings. Concentrating on these emotions, especially the ones we usually seek to avoid, may seem like the very opposite of the calm peace and even detachment…

Meditation Moment: A Practical and Magical Skill I’ve spent the last few months discussing different ways to meditate; this month I’d like to focus on why meditation is such an important skill for both practical and magical purposes. Research is revealing more and more health benefits to a regular meditation practice, but the ability to direct your own attention and shift your focus as you wish is incredibly valuable in everyday life, not just while actively meditating, and also an essential part of working magic. As a practical skill, meditation can help us deal with difficult times in our lives. Many people who have depression experience being stuck in negative…

Washed Away If meditating in motion wasn’t really your thing, here’s another approach to meditation that also takes advantage of summer’s more temperate weather! Most of what I wrote about in terms of beginning meditation was about how to reduce your distractions: quiet time, calm space, and one simple thing to focus on. The approach I’m suggesting this time seems like it’s just the opposite: it’s all about your senses. It’s about letting your senses be your focus, but not any one particular sense or object, the whole flow of things it’s possible to be aware of, all around you. There’s a constant stream of sense-data that we are capable…

Mindfulness in Motion Now that summer is in full swing, I’d like to suggest a very different approach to meditation: physical activity. This is a great time of year for people to get outside, even for a few minutes, and combining meditation with moving around can be fun and easy. Please be cautious and adapt any of these ideas to your personal health and circumstances. The kind of activity that I have in mind doesn’t have to be a big sweaty ordeal; in fact, it doesn’t have to feel like a lot of exertion at all. If you have to constantly push yourself, and as a result you’re feeling uncomfortable…

The Skill of Forgetting We often think of forgetting as a problem, something that only happens by accident, something that we want to fight against. Our memories are vital to who we are and how we live; loss of memory is one of the most feared aspects of aging for some people. But memory isn’t always a good thing. The traumatic, intrusive memories of PTSD are just one example of memory run amok. Think about what your mind would feel like if you could never forget anything, even the most trivial details, like the thousands of license plates you see on the road in the course of your life. Having…

Bringing the Outdoors In Last month I wrote about how being deeply present in a single moment helps us relate to all moments; this month, I want to extend that approach to thinking about space as well as time. As Pagans, we tend to cultivate our connections to the world around us, especially the natural world. Meditation can help us deepen that connection. Many of us practice in urban areas, but still want to connect to the rhythm of the seasons and natural cycles. It can be ideal to find a location outdoors in which to meditate, but few of us have the luxury of doing that every day. So…

Connection and Context Last month, I talked about letting go of time to be wholly in the present moment. Worrying about a few pieces of the past or future disconnects us from the present moment, and also leads us to ignore the rest of the past and future as well. Being wholly in the present moment is an experience of mystery and delight; each present moment, taken by itself, connects to all the moments, past and future. The immediacy of the present moment and the eternity of all moments have more in common with each other than they do with our usual ways of understanding and experiencing time. Meditation can…

The Opposite of Multitasking The act of meditating is mostly about not doing anything else at the same time. That’s why last month I discussed how to measure the time of your meditation practice without letting the act of measuring time become overwhelming; you have to be able to let go of worrying about time. When we let go of being concerned about one thing, most of us seize onto something else to concentrate on. If it’s not the time, it’s the laundry; if it’s not the laundry, it’s the dog; if it’s not the dog… We are constantly tugged on by the past and the future, and as a…

Marking Time Last month, I discussed setting aside time and space – any time and space you can use regularly – for a meditation practice. Once you’ve started integrating meditation, or even just a few minutes of quiet time, into your habits, you can start shaping that time and space to further your meditation practice. I can’t emphasize enough that the most important thing about meditation is doing it. If you try one of these suggestions, and it pushes you further away from making your practice a regular part of your life, scratch that approach and go back to what you were doing before, or try something else. For beginners…