Grounding and Centering

Face East and center yourself.
"I am grounded in the center of my being."
Visualise energy of below.
"I am supported by the powers of below."
Visualise the God/Goddess of above.
"I am guided by the powers of above."
Visualise the unity of self with center above and below.
"I am balanced in the axis of my being."
 Extend your hand to the East. Visualise and make contact with
the powers of the elemental forces. Visualise clarity.
"I am inspired by the powers of Air."
Visualise purifying/transforming.
"I am enlightened by the powers of Fire."
Visualise healing/cleansing.
"I am renewed by the powers of Water."
Visualise nurturing/stability.
"I am nurtured by the powers of Earth."
Establish the balance of axis and elements. Feel this to be
true.
"The forces are in balance within me and about me."
Feel the Sphere of the Circle.
"The Sphere is placed."
Feel the Cube of the Temple within the Sphere.
"The Temple is established."
Feel the Temple within yourself.
"I am the Temple."



Grounding to Earth Here is a sample exercise to help you ground. In this example you will ground to earth. While grounding to any element is possible, earth is probably the easiest, especially if you are starting out. If another element calls to you, or you already have your own way of doing this. feel absolutely free to use it. Stand or sit comfortably on the floor or ground. If you are not on the first story, that is okay, just be as close to the actual ground as you can for the space you are in. Visualize roots slowly extending from your feet (or other body parts touching the surface). Slowly they travel down, down, until the meet the soil. This is easy if you are outside, if you are not, imagine them traveling down throughout the layers of building, down through the foundation and eventually into the soil. Imagine the feel of the cool, secure soil all around your roots, keeping you safe, taking away all impurities. Aboriginal people who don't have much access to water bury themselves except their face in earth, and emerge totally cleansed and renewed. Imagine the smell of fresh, wholesome earth, as if you were turning over dirt to plant the first seed of spring. Imagine that you are a giant, primeval redwood (or other tree of your choosing). You are sturdy and confident. You are part of the earth, yet distinct from it. Your roots go down deep into the earth and all excess "nervous" energy, tension and stress flow down your roots and seep harmlessly into the earth, where the loving earth accepts and is nourished by it. In return the earth sends back calming nutrients, stability, and ancient serenity. You are an ancient tree, your roots go deep into the ground. You have been here before humans walked this area, you have seen so much. You have seen most of your old comrades die, be struck by lighting, be chopped own to build for the people, but you withstand. As you stand there, you think about the rings within your mighty trunk. The ones just inside your bark remind you of last spring's rain. The thin inside that of the cold year when you didn't grow so much. Continue to work inward until you reach the center rings, those rings of dark wood at your core that represent the inner you, your heart, your oldest part. Breath from that part. Suck the air in through all the rings to that central core. Feel your life force gather and recharge in you center. Pull it back from the outermost limbs where the growth may be unbalanced. Feel the sap brimming in your core. Once you feel totally charged, let it go and it will course through you, back out energizing you, but at your center is still the central heart of your energy, calm, full and ready for anything.
Copyright © 1997, Zephyr Lioness

Grounding and centering is the absolutely essential first step for any
energy working. It's the thing that makes
sure you are pulling the energy from the Earth, instead of depleting
your own resources.

Without it, you will find yourself exhausted (or highly exhilarated)
immediately after doing work, and then
sick, headachy, dizzy, or faint afterwards. Sometimes the headache can
persist for days afterwards.

All of these are signs that something is wrong.

Fortunately, it's easy to fix! Grounding and centering is a simple thing
that is a natural ability in all of us. For
some reason (probably that it smacks of the occult) it's rarely taught
in the schools now, though. So this is your
chance to learn it here.

Sit comfortably, without any part of your body resting on any other part
(no crossed legs, etc.) and smile. (It
relaxes you wonderfully to smile.)

Begin by looking at the diagram to the left. These are your Chakras. We
aren't going to go into what they are,
or how they work right now. For now, just look at them. Notice that they
go up in spectral order, starting from
red and going through orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo (actually a
lovely, bright blue-violet, but it's called
indigo anyway) and violet. The first one is red and is at the base of
your torso, near your anus. The second,
orange one is about the width of both hands (with fingers held together,
and including your thumbs) above that.
In fact, in my experience, they tend to be pretty evenly spaced, and all
about two hand-spans apart. The third is
at the Solar Plexus (yellow), the fourth at your heart (green), the
fifth at your throat (blue), the sixth at your
"third eye" (indigo) and the seventh at the crown of your head (violet.)

You probably already know this; but you have more than one body. The
ones we are going to be concerned
with here are your physical body, and your etheric body. Just assume for
now that you have the body you are
used to thinking of as "you," and you also have another one, larger and
subtler, that has all the same parts and
is around your physical body like two layers of an onion. Think of it as
the blue outline in the picture.

The point of the first part of the exercise, centering, is to line the
two bodies up so that the energy can flow
freely. You do this sort of like zipping a zipper. Hold the picture
firmly in your mind, and line up the two red
dots, physical and etheric, front to back and side to side. As you
visualize (imagine) them coming together, hear
the note C in your head. The first note of the scale.

Then carefully visualize all the others coming together as well, one by
one, front to back and side to side until
there is only one colored light. As you do, go on up the scale; doe,
ray, me, fa, so, la, tea, doe.

(Yes, I know I'm spelling them wrong; but many people are used to
hearing them, not seeing them written out,
and this way they will sound like they should.)

When you get to the final doe, visualize your whole body wrapped in
white light.

If this is really hard for you, visualize it going the other way,
starting with your crown chakra, the violet light
on the top of your head, and going down your body and down the scale.
But try to learn to do it the other way,
because it makes grounding easier.

For the second part of the exercise, Grounding, it is absolutely
essential that you be centered. If you aren't,
please go back and read that part now.

Starting with your crown chakra, the purple spot at the top of your
head, visualize (imagine) a cord of light
going all through your body, connecting your chakras as it goes.

See it coming down from the root chakra, and becoming a root itself.
Feel it going through your chair, through
the floor, through the foundation of the building, and into the ground.
Feel the warm, fertile ground below you.
And feel your root going deeper and deeper, down through the ground,
down below the deepest well. There is
a whole core of energy down there. The core of the planet is full of
pure, clean, loving energy; and the Earth
means her children to use it.

So draw that energy up your root now, up through the ground, through the
soil, through the foundation, and
the floor, and the chair, and into your body. Feel that pure clean
energy coming into your body.

And pull it on up through your body, up through all your chakras, up
through your crown chakra, up through
the top of your head. And as it comes, it washes away all the tired,
old, nasty energy, and fills you with clean,
pure, fresh energy, energy from the Earth.

And let it come out of the top of your head, and flow out like a
fountain, like the branches of a tree, up and
arching gracefully down, and flowing back into the Earth. You are
sitting in the center of a circuit now; a circuit
of energy flowing up from the center of the Earth, through your body,
through the top of your head, and back
down into the Earth again.

See how that feels? If you are doing it right, you will be able to feel
it. If not, try it again some other time. It's
really not hard.

Now, the important thing to remember at this point is not to get greedy
and try to keep too much of the energy.
When you are finished with the exercise, you should have exactly as much
energy as is normal for you. No
more, and no less. Just think of yourself as taking no more and no less,
and your own body will even it out for
you.

It's nice and clean and fresh, but it's the same amount. If it isn't,
you will wind up with one of the headaches
again. And you don't want that!

Keep doing this for a few minutes every day, and soon it will be as easy
as taking a deep breath. And it will
make you feel so much better!

Not just when working with energy, but when facing any kind of stress,
or tension, or fear, or exertion, or
anything. Being grounded and centered just makes life a bit easier to
take!

Karen