As you visualize the outcome you are praying for, remember to actively stream compassion and lovingkindness to yourself.
In my work with clients this week, one image has repeated again and again: the sense of a 'hole at the center of the belly'. When we investigate, we find, inside of this hole, "I don't know," and "nothing" and "space."
At first, sensing this 'hole, there is panic - a loss of identity, of purpose. When we continue to explore, calming ourselves and looking around, we discover silence and opening, a tunnel, a doorway. And a pool of peace.
If I can offer one image to the world right now, it would be this:
We are holding a new world inside of our own bodies, deep in the womb space of the low belly. We are also, always holding there, a vast and deep pool of peace.
Right now, we are part of a global energy project, each of us seated at the center of what feels like a planetary dream. As if an old world is melting and, at the same time, a new world is being born. (Look for signs of this. Notice what is already here.)
Gazing across the dreamscape, I'm reminded of a scene from "The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy," in which we are taken on a tour of the world building zone. A vast, cosmic holding space - like an airplane hangar, filled with planets in various stages of construction.
It's one of my favorite images because it plays with the creative dream-power we wield when we dream together.
When we dream together, we can literally remake the world. (In fact, we always do. We made this one. We will make the next.)
Right now, much of our creativity is flowing to this gestation project. Women may be more familiar with this feeling but men are also experiencing this.
Those of us who are quarantined at home - think of this time as your 'confinement'. A historical term representing the period of a woman's pregnancy when she would withdraw from society, and prepare for the labor and delivery of her child. Use this time, also, for being 'at home with yourself'.
Many of my clients tell me all they can focus on is cooking and cleaning. We are all 'tidying up' now - borrowing a phrase from Marie Kondo - we are making space for what really matters and discarding what does not spark joy.
All of this is part of the natural nesting process we are sharing as we co-create the next world.
Though it may seem that you are 'just sitting around at home' while doctors and nurses, grocery store and delivery workers, carry the burden, you are doing important work - energy work, psycho-spiritual work, as you manage your own reactivity, as you reach out to your friends, as you care for others. By simply staying home, you are saving lives.
Just as medical professionals are engaged in the grueling mortal fight on the front lines, we are all doing important healing work, dealing with the trauma of watching other people suffer, and of holding our attention on a world situation which seems chaotic and out of control.
Watching without doing can be exhausting. If you feel this way, it can help to stream your worry into a beam of love, compassion and light - and direct it to the site of your worry.
This kind of energy prayer allows you to participate in the healing and the co-creative remaking of the world.
It may also help to close your eyes and visualize the beautiful world that our heart knows is possible. (Borrowing a phrase from Charles Eisenstein.)
This work is real work, even though it takes place in the imagination, it exists in the plane of the imaginal, where all things begin and out of which all things are born.
In other words, prayer is a form of creative visualization, a kind of active dreaming, which has a real impact on the world.
Therefore, as you visualize the outcome you are praying for, remember to actively stream compassion and lovingkindness to yourself.
You are the vessel through which the new world is being born. All of us are.
And if, ike many of my clients, you find yourself feeling inexplicably drained, anxious, restless or empty, take care of yourself and your body as you would if you were expecting a physical child.
Nourish yourself with good food and water.
Give yourself the quiet and rest your body requires to soothe the nervous system.
Drink plenty of water, to flush out the built up of toxic energy.
Sleep. Stay connected with beauty so that you are strengthened and capable of fielding the next triggering story as it echoes through the television.
Do all of this so you are capable of holding the image of the new world in light as it comes into form.
A new world is coming.
As you wait, locate the pool of peace inside your own belly. From there, ask yourself:
Where do I already see signs of the world emerging? How might I add my prayer, my attention, my energy to that world now?
Focusing on the emergence of the world that you want to live in brings you into the collective power of dreaming it into being.
Image: Holly Moxley