RCG Path Crown Chakra
I am devotion
the mystic lotus flower
unfolding my soul to you
I've been preparing for this for the last week. The last solid Chakra path day, and the second to last I'm teaching in.
I've been very hush, hush with it in writing, because I have a lot of women in RCG who read my journal. I even had one beautiful woman tell me yesterday that half the fun of leaving Path was to get to come home and see my long detailed thoughts on it, which sometimes helped her to understand things she missed at other points. So I think I'll take this from the top of yesterday. A few setup notes, some teaching talk, and mostly as per normal daily walk through.
The Lead Up
I had to go on early yesterday morning for set up, thus I was awake around seven-thirty. Pilling stuff to the car for set-up there. Then for things I needed on hand. My brain completely blanked on what to pick when it came down to the normal participant stuff -- especially what to bring that symbolized the stress that took me from my chaos and the thing which helped me to find it. Within two minutes he returned to me.
A small vile of red fruit punch capped, because it is the thing I avoid far more staunchly than any food ever. Red food coloring can severely effect people with adhd, to the point where your ability to filter and control yourself is nil. Then after three seconds of turning around in my room he picked up a small Buddha from off my main altar.
Earl: "And this can symbolize the one for your calm?"
Amanda: "You do know that Hope gave me that right?"
Earl: "And this is negating my point how?"
Of course. Of course. I nearly put my hand to my forehead. Religious symbol, meditation, and all things Hope. All rolled into one. How could it not be a symbol of what helps me find my center? In retrospect I should have had something for Earl on there, as per this example, too. My Earl. The boy who knows exactly how I tick and can answer the questions about me that stump me. He who knows my center and give it names and shapes for me.
It took me forever to find clothes, too. We were assigned to wear purple or white. I realized I own a drawer of white shirts, two nearly see-through white skirts, and only one purple night gown and one purple shirt (I don't wear, which is an RCG shirt, too). I ended up, after digging it up from the closet, in the long white dress bought for my first Dragon*Con. (How ironic given what Temple of Twelve month this is, too.) I may have to assign my priestess of loving purple with finding purple things for me.
Packed up I headed off and did a world a setup with my other priestess for the day to start. We all had an hour prepping it.
The Day
From the beginning there were papers taped up all around the building which had the words "We invite you to hold silence in this space today" from the front doors. As crown is beyond the body, in contemplation and meditation today was going to be spent in as much silence and contemplation as possible. From the doors there were also four altars you were walk to and stop at previous to entering the sanctuary.
The Affirmation:
Let your emotions dissolve like sea foam with the sound of the water drum
The Affirmation:
Release your thoughts into the sound of the chimes
The Affirmation:
I release all my physical attachments to the sound of the mok tok
(I made this one! &hearts &hearts &hearts)
The Affirmation:
I step into the still flame of the crown
We sat in silence for the first ten or fifteen minutes, while all the women for the day filed in. I was finding first silence (if for about forty minutes for me at that point and not ten) a little tenuous given my history with forced silence from last year. The first thing we did was a set of breathing exercise to the tune of focusing on the words
In the stillness of being truth is revealed
Then I lead out check-in for the day. Unlike our normal where we repeat names or choose words, I assigned them a brand new task. The room was to stay as quiet as possible. They were invited one my one to first, say their name, and then second to make a movement which symbolized them or how they felt or whatever they'd like. Then everyone else would copy it. There were some amazing, some silly, some truly poignant movements.
Mine was to make a heart with my hands and then flow out my hands and fingers like water.
We moved into our first activity which was the first and only chant we did during the whole day, which was a Universal Peace Dances chant we learned the words and movements to.
The words written above, and here, again;
I am devotion
the mystic lotus flower
unfolding my soul to you
For the first line we sang it twice in another language, then you sing the verses twice in English. The dance was gorgeous as well. You walk around in a circle, holding hands in complicated, cross arms pattern with the person two over from you on each side. Twice to the foreign language. Then the first time in English one group of four raises their hands making them into lotus flowers and connecting to the divine/past/future/whatever-you-would-call-it. Then the second time in English the other group does.
I took the next activity moving everyone into their first mini-meditation. Mine was ten minutes of sitting, with your eyes closed and you hands on your knees, or however else was best comfortable, focused on the following words
To speak requires a reason, silence does not
For me, this was the one meditation I truly could not drop into at all, because every two or three minutes my brain kept turning back on a whispering about the time. Everyone else seemed to be doing pretty awesomely with it though. I gave up on my last two minutes and just listened and watch the group go. Until time was up and I rang the Tingshas, which we rang at the beginning and end of each meditation.
We called for a ten minute break but asked everyone to maintain silence.
During the break I got my picture of the main altar in the room, too.
As I said further above, everyone was assigned to bring something for the chaos side and the balanced side. I ended up bringing both the things I said above, and tossing on a handful of coins for jobs and money and all things associated on the purple side as well. I was quite impressed by some of the things that I resonated that ended up on chaos. A medicine bottle. A To Do List.
I, also, contributed the Chakra cards at the top of the candle line, and the stone and doll at the bottom. The normal pieces that sit on my altar at home during each of the Chakra's we've done. (I may need to do a picture of my main altar wall since it's been growing along this whole time as I put each new piece up.)
We gathered back together for our Tarot Trinity for the Crown Chakra. The Trio of Tarot Cards for the Crown Chakra were The Hierophant (which my deck calls High Priest), The Hanged Man and The Sun. I still love recording into writing, but I knew I would have problems doing the trance work the way it was shifted to for the last three chakras, so I sat up writing it out to do it at home. I really can't get into doing the breakdown of each card first together and then their questions together in the trance later.
It had been easier for me when we did a each card one at a time. The breakdown, then the trance for that card with its questions, then moved on did the break down and questions for the next. I feel too much pull and push for me this new way. I lose what was said about the card during the first half and feel lost during the second. So I skipped the lost, disjointed feeling and just wrote the questions to do the meditation at home. 5 - The High Priest
"What does this world look like?"
"Do you represent a tradition? How is this reflected?"
"What are the symbols in this place?"
"What rituals connect you to the Sacred?"
"To what do you offer blessings?"
"what do you offer as blessings and to whom?"
"Is it difficult to be in this place? Comforting? Could it be?"
"Is this a place of power for you?"
12 - The Hanged Man
"What do you hang from?"
"What holds you?"
"Is it a struggle for you to relax into surrender? Or is it easy? Can you?"
"When have you sought a completely different perspective?"
"What does this different perspective open in you?"
"Is initiation something you are seeking or have sought?"
19 - The Sun
"What symbols speak to you?"
"What is it that illuminates? Radiates?"
"What are the blessings of this world?"
"How does it feel to experience direct connection with the divine?"
"How does it feel to experience your divinity within?"
I had to leave early to help with preparing the next stage of the day, but the ending chant for the Trio Trinity was
The Hierophant will teach me well
I surrender with The Hanged One
The Sun shines bright within my life
My Crown connects my souls
I went to help make the tea for our Mindfulness Lunch I was helping to keep running smooth with another one of the day's priestesses, readying the tea. Lunch is usually the free space for people to explode and chatter, but we told them in advanced it would be a quiet, aware-filled time of sharing, too. We assigned everyone to bring finger foods to be shared. I'm so amazed to see that only three people brought multi-ingredient food and of those two of them were people chosen to feed themselves.
I helped pass out tea and bowls to women as they gathered outside with their bowls and plates of food. I found the experience exhilarating in numerous ways.
After so many years of not being able to eat at all at Path's where there was sharing, I was amazed that more than half of the stuff offered I could eat, and at the easy grace and enjoyment that exchanged between even women who declined dishes. The laughter and appreciation in their eyes just for the offering and the acknowledgement in it the act even when there were refusals.
So many eyes filled with brightness, lips turned to smiles. And so much amazingly delicious food, the tasted so much clearer without any sound. Everything was so stark and bright and colorful in my mouth.
After lunch we went back to class in the main room again, starting a lesson on the Triple Soul from the Feri tradition. This had to do with The Fetch (Sticky One or Younger Self; located right around our body), The Shining Body (Talking Self; the whole aura) and The Sacred Dove (located either above the head or around it, depending). It was a lessons about putting them all together into alignment through meditation. This one I understood objectively, but I've never been really drawn to the path it follows.
I did fall drastically in love with the ending words though
Who is this flower above me,
And what is the work of this God?
I would know myself in all my parts.
Afterward, we took part in to next mini-meditation session like mine, except this one was a walking meditation in a circle around the room while contemplating these words for ten minutes
In silence, we hear the whisper of the Goddess
I had a very easy time dropping into this meditation for the whole duration of except for about thirty seconds at some point in the middle. Walking meditation involves your eyes being open and you see things, but don't. Because you're focusing, but one of the moment while I was making a circle turn past the main altar I realize one of the Tarot Cards on the peaceful side was The Tower. Without even a seconds restraint there was Insta Character Bleed of GLEE. For about twenty seconds, while I smiled and went back to my phrase.
(I don't know who put it there, but Star approves. A lot.)
Next we sat down in a big group around a table and looked at examples of Sacred Geometry in art and pieces from other cultures and religions. I very much would still like to know a lot more about Sacred Geometry itself. We did single card pulls from a Star Beings deck for gods and cultures who symbolized where we were right now. My first was Isis, and my second was The Hopi. During my meditation on the cards, I fell away into a beautiful world on a silver cord.
We did another mini-meditation after it, this time standing still and having to stare at exactly one point for ten minutes. I chose the window facing into the garden, thinking I'd look at the trees. But my subconscious, still stuck in Sacred Geometry, had my eyes fixated on this set of overlapping squares reflecting on my window from the one high above and behind me. It ended up so amazing and intense, especially because the words fit so well with my past and present.
In Silence you find your way
And how true that has been in my last year. I found myself, my life, my foundation in Silence. And in today with my sisters I found a self-willed silence that was also safe and home and okay.
Our next activity was Non-Dominant Hand Drawing, which was really interesting. I didn't find all that frustrating, perhaps, because I went into it knowing it was a frustrating assignment and that my incredibly detailed motor function wouldn't be there. So whenever lines went where I didn't want to them, or words were harder to write, etc, I wasn't surprised. And by that not expecting them to be perfect, so not frustrated that they weren't.
But it was still challenging though, which was nice.
I ended up with a really interesting new art piece for my book.
We closed our day out with three last things. We opened up more into the universal connection of Crown with the end of the day. First with communally breathing through some Breath of Fire exercises. Then we played with Earth Drumming, where you beat on the floor with your hands. Follow the rhythm or create your own, listen for the pauses, figure out when to add things on, whether to follow things, how to change them. It was my first time and I loved it.
The last was doing the Chakra Mudras. Everyone drew one and we started at the first and worked through the seventh. We were told who each one was to, they showed us how to make the hand position and then were to hold it. And we held them for one minute each. (Mine was Naga Mudra, The Snake, for the Third Eye.) It was really amazing and wonderful to learn.
And after that we all hugged and did our massive break down of the day's stuff.