Week 4: Getting still enough to connect with the sense of touch
Notice how your arms wrap around so nicely, allowing you to place your hands right on your heart. We make this gesture so often, but how often do we really connect to the energy of touch, the heart chakra and the air element that corresponds to this centre?
Try it now.
First, see if you can place the hands right on the skin at your sternum. Get quiet so that you can connect with the thrum of your heartbeat.
Once you’re there, then notice the airs in and out of that area. Inhale, the heart expands, exhale, hug the energy close to you.
Here, in this space, you may get a sense of the communal wind, the communal life force breathing in and breathing out. The cosmic thrum. This is perhaps why the heart chakra is called anahata, unstruck. It’s very essence is this inner pulse, uncreated, eternal.
There are other ways to connect with the energy of this centre and the element of air. Whenever you step outside, check in with the sense of air on your skin. You may go to sight, smell, and the way you can almost taste the freshness of the wind. But stay there for a few more moments that usual. This is what is required to get to the subtleness of the feeling of the air. Get still. Allow it to lift your arm hairs. Subtly calling you. When the you’ve fully experienced the touch of the wind, continue on.
And finally, to ground your simbiosis with the wind, to embody it fully, there is nothing better than to take a bath in epsom salts. Allow the epsom salt and warmth to relax your body, in particular your belly and diaphragm area where we may do a lot of holding. As you breathing in the water, notice how your body rises and falls. Again, the pulse of wind. Like a baby floating in amniotic fluid, make contact with the parts of yourself. Acknowledge each part. Next, after patting yourself dry, anoint yourself with an uplifting oil, like bergamot in sweet almond oil. Breathe as you do your self massage.
You’re opening yourself to the expansive, airy, pulse of creation through touch.
I challenge you this week to:
- Get subtle and really feel the air element as a loving touch from the universe (or the communal winds).
- Make a heartbeat by tapping on your heart or just place your hands there as your whole meditation.
- Give yourself a full-length oil massage.
- Tap into this heart energy whenever you greet someone or give a hug.
- With a close friend, partner or child, place your hands on each other’s backs through hugging or seated side by side. Just breathe and feel the flow of love and connection between you.
Happy week of the touch, air, the heart chakra, and held by the universe!