Many of you are familiar with the rise of interest in the Goddess in modern times. You know that a parallel to this enthusiasm is a revival of interest in the ancient symbol of Gaia, the primal Greek goddess who personifies Earth. Perhaps you’ve heard that James Lovelock, English scientist, reintroduced this ancient concept of deity to modern thought when he proposed the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that our biosphere is a self-regulating entity.
But do you experience Her as a living being who is as close to you as your own breath? Earth’s first requirement at your birth was that you be enlivened with her breath if you were to live. Thus you became immediately equipped for the beginning of your life’s journey in her realm.
There is more than one kind of breath through which the goddess Gaia gives us life. In addition to the air we breathe, She enlivens us with subtle streams of energy. That is why walking outdoors makes us feel grounded and vibrant. When we spend much time indoors, we reduce direct contact with Earth’s subtle energy. Add to these factors the amount of time we sit at a desk or in front of a computer, when we allow our breath to become shallow, further diminishing our vibrancy.
Everyday stressors can also take away our energy. We must meet the demands of our workplace. At home children and the chaos and debris of daily life challenge our calm. Some of us must also care for aging parents. Is it any wonder that we often feel completely drained at the end of the day? Yet life seems to continue to accelerate. The stream of information from our television sets and the Internet leaves us feeling that the world is becoming more complex than we know how to cope with.
I suggest that we do have a resource immediately available to us, the one from whom we drew our first breath. I’m not exactly talking about prayer, although prayer is helpful to many. I’m talking about accessing the power of the Goddess, our mother Earth, through visualization.
First find a quiet place where you can be alone and not be interrupted, where you can go within yourself for five to ten minutes. Sit with both feet flat on the floor. Imagine that you are strolling, relaxed and forgetful of time, along a forest path. Gradually you see a grove of mighty oak trees. You hear the sound of a pleasant breeze stirring their leaves. The breeze touches your skin. The gnarled trunk of one tree in particular attracts your attention. It seems to beckon to you to lean against its trunk, and you say yes. As you relax against the rough bark of the tree you savor the warm air and you begin to breathe in deeply, focusing on the sensations of the cycle of your breath: in and out…in and out. You let all thoughts and cares drift away on the summer breeze. You clearly sense that your breath is direct nourishment by the Goddess, the Earth who always responds to your needs if you ask. You also feel a great calm coming over you, and you realize that the oak tree is giving this gift of calm to you. You can also feel how this immense peace blends with your aura and invites in your Higher Self, that part of your consciousness that remains an unperturbed witness to events in your life.
In your open and expanded state of being you feel that you are merging with the tree, as if the tree is embracing you. You can sense that the soles of your feet are growing roots going far down into Earth, where subtle energy is coming up from Earth’s center. You just know that the energy nourishes your own roots, and you grow stronger. The color of this energy is a mix of red and gold, and it is a powerful and inexhaustible flow coming to you from Earth’s matrix no matter where you are. You have only to call it up. You begin to find yourself more grounded as you receive more and more of this steady flow of energy.
Your vibrancy of life and personal power — a birthright given to you by Earth — is renewed.
For hundreds of years indigenous people have believed that Earth is a being with whom they can communicate, expect to be answered, and be assured of Her gifts. Imagine that you too have the power to access Gaia’s energy. You have nothing to lose, and perhaps much to gain.
©2022 by Dorothy “Chickee” Atalla
