A Meditation for Connection
Travel to the place where you feel most connected. Bring it to life.
Dear Friend,
One way that I’ve been coping with the polarization and distress in the world is by leaning into places where I feel deeply connected.
Right now. in late spring, one of those places is the landscape around me. Late spring where I live in southeastern Pennsylvania is a magical time. The landscape is bursting with the flowers that I love the most—roses, peonies, irises and lilacs.
My connection to this time of year and the energy in flowers deepened during two different springtimes. Twice, eleven years apart, I was diagnosed with breast cancer in late winter and went through chemo, following surgery, during late spring and into the summer.
When you’re faced with that kind of diagnosis, your mortality is right up close to you. It becomes a companion and can be a teacher. During both of those springtimes, I traveled deeper than I ever had before to find a connection to what I think of as the source of life and also to my desire to live and to the resilience in my spirit.
The flowers around me, the ones in my own garden and the ones I encountered as I walked my dog for miles each day, were a big part of my healing. They offered their beauty. They invited me to be quiet and forget about how shitty I felt, physically and emotionally. I could just be with them. They taught me a lot about the cycles of regeneration, life and death, that are always present with us.
That experience opened me up to the depth of connection that humans can have with our landscapes and the seasons we experience. This is not a new idea in any way—it’s ancient. But living in a Western capitalist world, I had been removed from the magic of that connection.
When I claimed it, different parts of my spirit returned to me. I’m writing a whole book about that wild experience–more to come!
My creative life returned, too–from writing in small windows of time, like I encourage you to try in this practice.
It’s the last Sunday of May–I have a meditation for you to listen to now. (New friends—welcome! This post describes our monthly flow of creative prompts).
Click the arrow above to listen to the meditation. Get comfortable. You may want to listen to it more than once.
Share with a friend who might be craving this kind of meditation and creative prompt today.
Writing Practice: Set aside 5-7 minutes for this practice. Write in a journal or open a ‘Journey with The Season’ document where you can return each Sunday.
Prompt: You’ll find the guided meditation at the arrow above. Take a listen. What images and visions came up during this meditation? Capture what you saw and sensed in your place of connection. You could begin with, ‘In my place of belonging, I feel…’
If you struggled with the meditation, no worries. Write about a place from your past or present or dreams where you feel a sense of belonging. Where you are loved. Where you offer love. Write about how you feel in this place.
I would love to read about your experiences. Feel free to comment below or use the messaging app.
Deepening Practice: We can all feel disconnected in our daily lives. When you have that experience, you could get quiet and return to your place of connection or imagine another places where you feel a sense of belonging. Write more about what you need to feel connected.
Wishing you more and more places where you feel deeply loved and connected! With my love, Gabrielle Ariella
The second time that I went through healing from cancer, I took on a second name, Ariella. There is quite a story about how I received and took on that name! Ariella means ‘lioness of God.’ I am very Lion-centered (obsessed?) now. Thank to my friend Robin Matthews for making me lion coloring pages!