{"id":9280,"date":"2014-01-01T01:10:11","date_gmt":"2014-01-01T06:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=9593"},"modified":"2014-01-01T13:40:54","modified_gmt":"2014-01-01T18:40:54","slug":"meditation-moment-33","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2014\/01\/01\/meditation-moment-33\/","title":{"rendered":"Meditation Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Darkest Night of the Soul<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year, which means each night following gets shorter, each day gets that much longer, until the summer solstice in June.<\/p>\n

Some people stay up on the longest night of the year, burning Yule logs, waiting to witness the rebirth of the sun.\u00a0 This meditation is for those of us who like that idea, but really don\u2019t have the energy to pull that kind of thing off.<\/p>\n

I have designed this meditation to work as a miniature \u201cdarkest night of the soul,\u201d where you give form to your negative energy until it crushes itself out of you, leaving only the best and brightest parts of you behind.<\/p>\n

As always, make yourself comfortable and separate yourself from distractions.\u00a0 In a moment, you will give form to the darkest parts of yourself, so it would be prudent to surround yourself with cleansing and protective tools.\u00a0 You may consider performing this meditation in the bathtub, soaking in sea salt water, with incense or essential oils.\u00a0 You could sit surrounded by tea light candles, light some sage, and create a protective circle to capture and nullify the negative energy.\u00a0 You can use stones, jewelry, and any other tools that call to you for this purpose.\u00a0 Get all set up, set aside at least half an hour of uninterrupted you-time, and get to it.<\/p>\n

Breathe deeply and slowly.\u00a0 With every inhale, feel peace and relaxation overtake your mind, heart, body, and spirit.\u00a0 With every exhale, feel stress and tension pour out of you through your breath.<\/p>\n

Imagine yourself waiting out the longest night of the year, witnessing the darkness.\u00a0 As the hours drag on, all your worries, fears, and hurts seem to grow in size and power in the dark.\u00a0 You can sense them swelling up like balloons filled with the breath of your complaints, or sponges soaking up the energy of your overwhelm, getting so big and so close to you they block out the light of the stars, even the light of the moon.<\/p>\n

These negative energies get bigger and stronger the more you dwell on them, sometimes taking on the voices and features of people in your life who embody each for you \u2013 the people who criticize you, the people who discourage you, the people who hurt you, upset you, anger you, while nameless fears and unvoiced pains smother you.\u00a0 Under the weight of this crushing negativity, you feel yourself break open.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t take anymore, so you release.\u00a0 You cry.\u00a0 You rage.\u00a0 You shake.\u00a0 You scream.\u00a0 You let it all out, push all the fear, all the hurt, all the shame, all the blame, all the anger and frustration OUT of you, giving it back to the Earth.\u00a0 When it\u2019s over, when you feel most empty, you discover a simple truth about yourself.<\/p>\n

When all of the darkness is expelled, only light remains.<\/p>\n

At your heart, you are light.\u00a0 You are made of stars, and they shine inside you, nourished by hope, joy, love, and gratitude.\u00a0 Feed your light now, at this, your rebirth.\u00a0 Bathe yourself in memories of all of your favorite pleasures.\u00a0 Fill yourself with unconditional love as you have experienced it, perhaps for a child or a pet, and hold that love close to yourself.\u00a0 Remember the things that make you smile, the surprises that make you laugh with joy.\u00a0 Allow tears of gratitude to overflow from your eyes as you fervently thank the Light for the people, memories, and things that you most cherish, and for the gifts you can now feel are on their way to you, called by your light.<\/p>\n

The more you feed your light, the brighter it shines, the bigger it grows, pushing away those dark demons of despair and overwhelm that beat you down before.\u00a0 For this glorious moment, the light inside you has triumphed over the dark.\u00a0 You\u2019ve done it once, and you know you can do it again, and each time you will do it just a bit longer, each time your light will be that much stronger.<\/p>\n

Filled with radiance, with hope, love, gratitude, and joy, come back to yourself.\u00a0 Breathe.\u00a0 Stretch.\u00a0 Hug yourself.\u00a0 Laugh.\u00a0 Give voice to your joy.<\/p>\n

Welcome home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Darkest Night of the Soul The Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year, which means each night following gets shorter, each day gets that much longer, until the summer solstice in June. Some people stay up on the longest night of the year, burning Yule logs, waiting to witness the rebirth of the sun.\u00a0 This meditation is for those of us who like that idea, but really don\u2019t have the energy to pull that kind of thing off. I have designed this meditation to work as a miniature \u201cdarkest night of the soul,\u201d where you give form to your negative energy until it crushes itself out of you, leaving only the best and brightest parts of you behind. As always, make yourself comfortable and separate yourself from distractions.\u00a0 In a moment, you will give form to the darkest parts of yourself, so it would be prudent to surround yourself with cleansing and protective tools.\u00a0 You may consider performing this meditation in the bathtub, soaking in sea salt water, with incense or essential oils.\u00a0 You could sit surrounded by tea light candles, light some sage, and create a protective circle to capture and nullify the negative energy.\u00a0 You can use stones, jewelry, and any other tools that call to you for this purpose.\u00a0 Get all set up, set aside at least half an hour of uninterrupted you-time, and get to it. Breathe deeply and slowly.\u00a0 With every inhale, feel peace and relaxation overtake your mind, heart, body, and spirit.\u00a0 With every exhale, feel stress and tension pour out of you through your breath. Imagine yourself waiting out the longest night of the year, witnessing the darkness.\u00a0 As the hours drag on, all your worries, fears, and hurts seem to grow in size and power in the dark.\u00a0 You can sense them swelling up like balloons filled with the breath of your complaints, or sponges soaking up the energy of your overwhelm, getting so big and so close to you they block out the light of the stars, even the light of the moon. These negative energies get bigger and stronger the more you dwell on them, sometimes taking on the voices and features of people in your life who embody each for you \u2013 the people who criticize you, the people who discourage you, the people who hurt you, upset you, anger you, while nameless fears and unvoiced pains smother you.\u00a0 Under the weight of this crushing negativity, you feel yourself break open. You can\u2019t take anymore, so you release.\u00a0 You cry.\u00a0 You rage.\u00a0 You shake.\u00a0 You scream.\u00a0 You let it all out, push all the fear, all the hurt, all the shame, all the blame, all the anger and frustration OUT of you, giving it back to the Earth.\u00a0 When it\u2019s over, when you feel most empty, you discover a simple truth about yourself. When all of the darkness is expelled, only light remains. At your heart, you are light.\u00a0 You are made of stars, and they shine inside you, nourished by hope, joy, love, and gratitude.\u00a0 Feed your light now, at this, your rebirth.\u00a0 Bathe yourself in memories of all of your favorite pleasures.\u00a0 Fill yourself with unconditional love as you have experienced it, perhaps for a child or a pet, and hold that love close to yourself.\u00a0 Remember the things that make you smile, the surprises that make you laugh with joy.\u00a0 Allow tears of gratitude to overflow from your eyes as you fervently thank the Light for the people, memories, and things that you most cherish, and for the gifts you can now feel are on their way to you, called by your light. The more you feed your light, the brighter it shines, the bigger it grows, pushing away those dark demons of despair and overwhelm that beat you down before.\u00a0 For this glorious moment, the light inside you has triumphed over the dark.\u00a0 You\u2019ve done it once, and you know you can do it again, and each time you will do it just a bit longer, each time your light will be that much stronger. Filled with radiance, with hope, love, gratitude, and joy, come back to yourself.\u00a0 Breathe.\u00a0 Stretch.\u00a0 Hug yourself.\u00a0 Laugh.\u00a0 Give voice to your joy. Welcome home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}