Below is a very special meditation on Gaia. Inspired by ideas in As Above, So Below by the editors of New Age Journal. It will give you a sense of both your own place as a part of the ecosphere and of communion with Gaia, the spirit of the Earth herself. Be warned, it is a rather long meditation, and you should schedule at least half an hour for it.
Find a good place to meditate, preferably a spot by a window letting in sunlight and, presuming it is warm outside, air.
Better yet, if weather permits, go outside and sit on the lawn with a mat or blanket. The closer you are to Nature, the better.
Make sure your position where you will be comfortable for awhile.
Begin to breathe. Slowly, deeply, in and out, making sure that you fill your lungs completely when you inhale and squeeze all the air out when you exhale.
Begin by tuning into your body. What's going on with it? What parts do you feel? What sensations? Let any stray thoughts drift away with your exhaled breath. Sense the air you inhale nourish you, the oxygen soaking into your lungs, feeding your blood. Begin to contemplate the many, many subsystems within your body that working together, compromising "you." Every system is part of another, larger one. Every system is made up of sequentially smaller ones. Each has its own identity, yet is a part of a larger whole.
The smallest system we know of is the kingdom of atoms.
Everything is composed of them. Visualize the atoms dancing in your cells. They were once dispersed in plants, animals, rocks.
Now they are part of you, dancing together to make your life.
Expand your awareness outward to visualize the atoms coalescing to create your cells.
Visualize those cells. Feel the cells as individual entities, seething with life.
Expand your awareness outward to visualize your cells coalescing to form organs, bone, muscle, veins, and blood.
Focus on your heart beating. Consider, from the atomic level on out, how many different collective endeavors go into making it work. Do the same with your lungs, your blood, your skin, your stomach, intestines, muscles, reproductive organs, even your brain inside your skull.
Expand your awareness outward to visualize this collective of organs coalescing to create what you know as you.
Expand your awareness outward to tune in on all the larger systems that surround you of which you are a part: your society, culture, lover, family, workplace, friendships, town, nation, world. Feel the cultures you are closest to as living entities, with you a part of them.
Expand your awareness outward to tune in on the human race, of which you are a part, blanketing the globe, swarming millions, giving you context.
Expand your awareness outward to tune in on the entire planetary ecosystem of which you are a part, animals, plants, oceans, air.
Expand your awareness to feel Gaia, the Earth. She is immensely large, immensely slow, immensely old. Yet, by Her own calendar, She is still quite young. Each ecosystem is an organ in Her body, each species a tissue, each individual animal or person a cell.
Visualize Her consciousness turning to you, looking at you, wise, benign, loving, maternal.
Visualize Gaia surrounding you with her arms, drawing you to her body, holding you close.
Realize that this is the situation everyday and minute of your life, and give thanks to Gaia.
Take a few minutes to clear your mind and breathe deeply before ending the meditation.
from The Best Guide to Meditation by Victor N. Davich
