My after work meditations this week felt almost stifling, so instead of continuing with my usual sitting meditation, I went with a more movement-oriented meditation.
I ran across this Deep Peace of the Trees meditation from OBOD* and was reminded of a grounding and centering exercise I used to do for Tai Chi that was based on the movement “Embrace Tiger and Return to Mountain”. Instead of the actual movement in the sequence of Tai Chi, it isolates a repetitive series of movements that are intended to balance lower and upper, inner and outer. We did these as a warm up and cool down to every Tai Chi class.
At it’s very basic, it’s two full, slow breaths – Reach up, reach down, pull in, push away.
- Standing with your feet shoulder width apart and your knees slightly bent, inhale and bring your arms up in front of you, moving your hands along your midline until they reach up over your head. As you do this, straighten your knees.
- When your hands are fully above your head (but elbows are still soft), exhale and swing your arms out to the sides and down, rotating your palms to face down once they reach shoulder level and bending your knees again. At the bottom, cross your hands at the wrists, left hand in front, so your palms are facing your body.
- Now inhale, uncrossing your arms, and pulling your elbows back at your sides, drawing your hands to your waist, palms face up, straightening your knees.
- Then exhale and push away from you, keeping your elbows close to your sides and your palms rotating around so they are facing away from you, knees bending again.
I do this exercise in sets of 9 movements. Usually just one set of 9 is enough to make me feel calm, relaxed, balanced, and open to a more heightened state.
I thought this, or some variation on the OBOD meditation might help when I was having trouble focusing (this week was high stress at work, which I think is the source of my lack of focus). I was right, and switching to a moving meditation provided me with the grounding and centering I so needed after dealing with lots of stress and anxiety at work. I need to remember to do these moving meditations more often, since they seem to be extremely effective for me, especially when I’m having trouble getting my mind to settle into seated meditation.
*For all the negative things that happen on YouTube, I love finding Druidry there. Maybe I can help work to broaden the presence of ADF on YouTube once I get a little more established.
Little Druid on the Prairie 
I believe there are links to ADF YouTube videos on the ADF website somewhere. Just search for “videos.” I personally am somewhat conflicted on Paganism having any sort of presence on YouTube. I feel that it is a great way to show people what our faith is all about and giving people a feel for ritual, but I also feel that YouTube is a huge source of hostility in the form of comments on videos. Check out some of the comments on heavy metal videos and you’ll see what I mean. I am not sure if ADF is ready for being called “devil worshippers” and proselytized to by evangelicals on an hourly basis.
Many blessings,
Victoria
Victoria –
There’s a really easy fix for that. You just turn off comments. I’ve seen the ADF videos on youtube, and several of them are wonderful (the solo COoR ritual one comes to mind). It’s a great tool to have as a place for people to connect, and I know I went looking to find as much as I could about ADF before I joined. YouTube is only as good as the content it promotes, and there are a lot of places that promote learning and fun (like the nerdfighters and crash course), and a lot of places that are full of hostility. And frankly, if people want to make comments calling ADF “devil worshipers”, they can do that on my text-based blog just as easily as on a video blog, or your blog, or anywhere. The internet is a place full of all kinds of people. If we don’t want trolling, turn comments off entirely. But I don’t think that negates the possible benefits of video as a teaching tool. (Obviously I’m not talking about putting a whole ADF training course on youtube or whatever, just that its nice to have some things to reference from there).
Also, I don’t think ADF is going to attract the same kind of crowd as heavy metal videos (or science bloggers). YouTube is a platform, and within that platform there are smaller communities. Pagan communities are mostly filled with pagan people. Yeah, you get the occasional proselytizing comment, or a nastygram from someone whose fee-fees got hurt, but most of the comments on pagan videos are from other pagans (at least the ones I’ve watched.) They’re not usually getting more than a few thousand hits per video either, unlike major music videos and video blogs.
You have good points. 🙂 I am glad to be proven wrong. However, if ADF fulfills Isaac’s vision of becoming a mainstream religious movement, then there will be serious problems. We have a long way to go before that happens, though.
And about the kinds of people ADF attracts–you might be surprised. Lots of metalheads are Pagan (most of them Wiccan, but still). 🙂
Blessings and thanks,
Victoria
We do have a long way before we’re a mainstream congregational religion (and I’m not sure I want to be part of a mainstream congregational religion, so that’s another post for later…) YouTube is one of the ways I think we could get there – for example, I think a recording of a Two Powers meditation would be a really neat video, set to images of water and trees. Not hard to make, and you don’t even need any faces in it! (and comments automatically turned off seems like a good place to start for stuff like this, since you’re really only looking to get information out there.)
As for metalheads in Paganism – as I’m not a metalhead, I’d have no idea if other commenters were into heavy metal or not, being that I’m only seeing the names pop up in Pagan spaces. Of course there will be crossover – just like there will be a lot of crossover from the New Age and Wiccan and probably environmentalist crowds. But that’s Ok, the community in each space can be different even if it has some of the same people. 🙂 (You could post lolspeak comments on a lolcat blog all afternoon and I’d never know, because I only talk to you in complete sentences about Druidry, for example.)
Great! Thanks for the conversation. 🙂 I enjoy our commenting back and forth.
Blessings,
Victoria
I really like this. Things have been stressful on my end, so I think I’m going to try this for a few days and see if it helps me meditate.
[…] 15-30 minute ones). I included one meditation that included the Two Powers, and combined that with Embrace the Tiger, Return to the Mountain moving meditation – I really do wonder if they serve the same purpose. I’ll definitely […]