The bridging/blending of Above and Below, one of the main themes of my long life,  demonstrated here via a meditation that, after decades of practice, feels “as natural as breathing.” 

OPENING TO THE SPACE WITHIN

A Millennial Meditation

1999

by Ann Kreilkamp

I sit cross-legged on a sloping ledge above the Gros Ventre river — Big Belly river. Across the valley from the Grand Tetons — Big Breasts! Men named this river, these mountains, female. I feel female — full, grounded, centered, tail bone locking firmly to the rock beneath. This is my spot. The sun glides over the ridge and filters through the budding wild rose bush to my left. Birds greet the dawn, their cries pierce the watery murmuring. I close my eyes in morning meditation.

Inside, I find the energy, breathe into it. Concentrate and focus the breath. I direct the energy down, down through my tail bone into the rock, down, down deeper into bedrock, deeper still, to the molten core. This takes time. I feel the resistance of my body, of Earth’s body; of matter itself, so congealed and unyielding! I feel the resistance of my spirit, so comfortable with lifting off Earth, so little experienced in feeling Her. Only in the last few years have I allowed myself to consciously feel Her, to honor and embrace Her pain.

I feel Her, and I fight the feeling. Mind wants to escape, leave this world. It is too much, too much. I feel weighed down, suffocated, can’t breathe . . .

I catch myself holding my breath, chest tight, constricted. Start all over again. Breathing deeply, focusing, directing the energy down, down, down into bedrock. Now, reversing direction, I draw Earth’s fire up through rock, through my sacrum into the spinal column, up, up, through first, second, third chakras, into the heart.

Good. One avenue opened.

Concentrating again with the breath, I direct energy upwards into the throat and head. Immediately, I blow off the top of my crown. This is easy. This is fun! I am awake, wide open, vibrating with the familiar exhilarating shock of freedom, rushing into the fullness of space, my natural home. Reversing direction, I funnel energy in through the crown chakra, and direct it down, down, into the heart. As above, so below. Energy from above, mingling, in the heart, with energy from below.

Energy gathers, concentrates, pressurizes. Heart full, so full! Heart bursts — with love, with gratitude, energy streaming out through the chest and back to caress the fresh morning air, birds, river, trees and sagebrush, rock and bush, mountains and sky.

Thank you, Goddess, for all of creation. Thank you for allowing me to simply Be.

Here.

Now.

I am sitting strong and straight and proud. Breathing in, breathing out. Absorbing energy, releasing energy. Cycling in an cycling out. I am taking my place in all of creation, sitting in my spot, next to the budding rose bush. Back upright, legs and bottom firmly planted in rock, I am one among millions of humans learning how to connect Heaven and Earth.

As quickly as self-consciousness enters, so does it vanish. Suddenly, “out of the blue,” in one brilliant instant the universe roars through and hurtles on into the void, leaving me dissolved, in tears.

I am nothing, a mere point, floating in infinite space.

I am the precise center of the entire universe.

Consciously, with reverence, in full awareness, I enter the point that is not, that has no dimension, that includes all dimensions within it.

Consciously, with reverence, I enter the point that is me and not-me, everything and nothing, no thing at all.

Consciously, with reverence, I enter the one still point of the turning world.

I center within the point and the point opens, expands. The way out is the way through. I go through the point into an endless series of spacious presences. Each one a gift! Each one a frequency, with its unique subtle atmosphere, pervading its own singular dimension. One by one, psychic membranes stretch and pop, each new space opening to enclose the next in an endless procession of concentric permeable globes, bursting with light.

I sit in the center of this vast expanding panorama, rooted to the rock, still grounded. Only within the past few years have I learned to ground myself through my own body into Earth’s body as I travel through space and time. Only within the past few years have I learned to seek wholeness, honoring spirit, mind and body, putting myself and my world back together again.

Thus grounded, I am learning to travel through space and time every day, every hour, feeling the changes — inside myself; sensing internally the continuously transforming geometries of invisible energies.

This is my work, my livelihood. It is also my passion.

I study the laws of change — the architecture of space as it intersects the choreography of time. I am an astrologer. I study astrology because I know it as a language, a divine language, teaching universal harmony. Harmony within oneself. Harmony within humanity. The Pythagorean Harmony of the Spheres.

Astrology teaches the following:

Each of us, by consciously and fully occupying our own unique point in sacred space/time, holds the key to the entire universe. That “still point of the turning world” contains the secret of the ages: to fully center ourselves is to turn the key. We create and hold open our own space. We go through the doorway, and enter worlds within worlds, each one new, in continuous creation.

This doorway is our own archetypal seed, the precise pattern of our individual destiny.

Our pattern is original to us, it is that out of which we originate, and which we are born to fulfill.

As above, so below. As within, so without. The energy pattern in the heavens at the moment of birth, from the point of view of that place on Earth, is the energy pattern that lies within. We are born at that precise moment in space and time when the sacred geometry of the solar system meets the evolutionary needs of the soul.

The birth pattern is our blueprint in sacred space; this blueprint unfolds through sacred time. The birthchart is both a map of our essential identity and a timing device. As each planet continues to carve out its own space through time it interacts energetically with both all the other planets in their current movements, as well as with the original positions of one’s planets at birth.

We experience these planetary interactions as events in our life, either external, or internal, or both, which challenge us; if the challenge is met and embraced, we are transformed, and our inner world enlarged. Thus do we fulfill our evolutionary destiny. Each of us is an energy system in continuous creation, with the potential of being in simultaneous contact with worlds within worlds. There is no end to it. The mysterious space/time workings of our lives are both endlessly creative and meaningful.

The longer we live, the larger the world which we can both absorb and reflect. The larger our world, the greater our sense of our own individuality, and paradoxically: the more deeply we enter into the realm of our essential Self, the more sensitive we become to the worlds of others. The harmony of the spheres lies within us.

The harmony of the spheres lies within me, as I sit, tail rooted into rock, linking the Heavens and our Earth.

My body, linking sky to ground, helps me re-member myself, that I am both universal and particular, mind and body. My body, linking sky to ground, helps me remember that Earth, our home, also has Her home, that she lives within a heavenly context. I honor Earth’s allies, those other great celestial bodies, Her support system during this terrible and glorious planetary emergency. I close my eyes, center myself in communion with all that is. I trust the larger harmonies hurtling us all, willy-nilly and ready or not, into the next one thousand years.