360 Degree Breathing
Unity & Oneness
Meditation Pranayama
We tend to think of ourselves as falling in to two groups: those who are similar to us and those who are different. We allow political boundaries to obscure our interconnectedness. Yet we are all children of the same mother, the Earth.
Real community is built with an awareness of what Thich Nhat Hahn calls "interbeing." It calls upon our ability to allow for difference and open our hearts to caring for all things regardless of Cultivating a practice of mindfulness helps us integrate and harmonizes our thoughts and actions, so that we can feel the truth of our connection to all things.
Deep in our bones we are connected to all things, plants, animals, wind, sun, rain.
*Use this breath meditation pranayama (prana - life force /yama - discipline) to help you cultivate a new relationship with your life force energy. Allow the beauty of 360 degree breathing to unite you with the planet, to teach you how to connectd to all things - in front, behind, to the sides, below and above. Expand your awareness. In this way, we create a literal "oneness" with our environment; we dissolve the impressions of physical boundaries and become limitless; We learn how to feel the vastness of our life force energy expanding in all directions ~ 360 degrees ~ We become one with the Earth.
Everyone of us, regardless of nationality or religious faith, can experience a feeling of admiration and love when we see the beauty of the Earth and the beauty of the cosmos. This feeling of love and admiration has the power to unite all of us citizens of the Earth and remove separation and discrimination. Caring about our environment, loving our Earth is not an obligation but an act of survival. May we all find our relationship with the Earth, unite with it and thrive.
Sun & Moon Meditation
Guidance for Balance & Harmony
To understand our deep primordial relationship to the Earth and the Cosmos, we gain insight into the depth of our love, strength, power and ability to thrive. So, how can we cultivate this relationship? How might we bring awareness, balance and harmony? Very simply, we find it in our everyday lives. The daily rhythms governed by the Sun and Moon are reminders of our sacred connection to the Universe and the flow of our lives. Rhythms, of light, dark, movement and stillness, living, aging, nature, tidal flows, and seasons are guided by the solar/lunar cycles.
Mother Moon and Father Sun structure our lives through primordial rhythms. They signal the time to plant and the time to harvest. Calling our attention to personal cycles of fullness and completion. Offering new beginnings and expansion.
To manifest a vibrant and empowered life, we call upon the energy of the Sun. We learn to take action from the eternal presence of the Sun’s power to bring life. Countless cultures have paid homage to the sun. In the Buddhist tradition, there are many who praise Amitabha, the Buddha of Limitless Light. Christ is seen as the Bringer of Light. The Holy Spirit is a shining sun ray. The Sun Dance, a solar ceremony giving praise to the life energy of the sun, of the Plains Indians of North America, spread to other tribes and endures to this day.
To live from our creative spirit, we call upon the energy of the Moon. We learn to embody the procreation and transfor mative energies of the feminine from the Moon’s ability to constantly change in rhythm and flow over and over ... to wax and wane, expressing life’s fullness and absence. The Moon’s cyclically beauty demonstrates paced, patient living with ease and grace. Full Moons bring high tides, signaling times of illumination, clarity, and culmination. New Moons bring the opportunity make a change, to re-orient yourself or to conjure a new aspect of yourself and your life into being. In many indigenous cultures, Mother Moon symbolizes the powerful ability of the feminine to give and nurture life.
Living in balance with ourselves, our communities, our planet requires us to open to the energies of our surroundings and to move in alignment and flow with them. Qu’ero shamans speak of ‘Ayni’, living in right relationship with all things. This means living in alignment with our sacred selves, that place within us that is whole; in union with our mind, body and spirit. The Sun and Moon are beacons of this aligned energy in harmony and balance.
Like all things, to be in balance and harmony requires awareness, presence and practice. I invite you to a practice of alignment with the energies of the Sun and the Moon to experience harmony and balance. Join me for a Sun/Moon Meditation at www.empowerembody.com/sunmoon ~~
May you walk in beauty, harmony and balance.
~Gianna Carotenuto, PhD.