The Mother of All Meditations
“You might imagine a curved hall of doors. Proceed and open the door to another time space…”
I’m in a gallery. An art gallery? An earth gallery. It is Mother Earth’s gallery.
The gallery is filled with portraits and paintings, sculptures of mothers and their children throughout time. Mothers holding their babies; laughing with their children, crying beside them. Mothers and infants, flesh to flesh. Adult sons and daughters supporting women who are bent and creased by time, the wisdom keepers.
Some paintings depict the earth’s gifts, fauna and flora in various states of bloom.
A mother carries her baby in a sarong on her back while standing near a river with a basket on her hip, the generous brim of her hat shading them both from the sun’s light,
In a sun-saturated palette of foamy ocean on sand, a mother bends next to her child at the sea’s edge as they examine shells
An elderly woman peers over the edge of a bassinet, surprise captured in her expression when her own watery eyes are reflected back at her from beneath a blanket of moss, bark and feathers…
In the center of the gallery is a portal, an opening backlit in the shape of a crack wide enough to walk through. Once through the portal there is dampness, a change in air, the feeling of enclosure and safety, punctuated by the muskiness of plantlife. It is dark inside yet also with a trick of filtered light, almost like moonlight. Curved walls cascade with greenery, a fountain splashing rhythmically in a pool at the center, a fertile garden surrounding it. It is The Womb. I know instinctively to reach out and touch the living wall. It breathes.
On the far wall of the gallery there is an experiential component to the gallery. I string beads with my life’s hurts and sorrows, then proceed up a staircase to a bridge (the vibe feels like it’s been inspired by a Monet lilypad painting.) The wall behind is awash in dreamy watercolors of blue, green,and lavender. From the bridge, I hold one end of my string and release the pearls to the moving “river” below where they ping and echo in the silence, and become part of the collective, carried out of sight. Over the river appears a hologram appearing to be activated by the pearls dropping, of shapeshifting hearts that float upward. Upon exiting the gallery there is a bass sound, a distant drum calling on me to remember. It resonates inside of me and I can’t be sure if I hear it through my ears or my heart. A bright light flashes in my eyes and then it is over.
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The story behind the Gallery…
In 2020, I participated in a zoom version of The Gateway Experience offered by The Monroe Institute in Virginia. The Gateway Experience offered me the opportunity to voyage within, to a deeply meditative state. For this inner journey, we used Hemi-sync technology - binaural beats - as our metaphysical “vehicle.” This altered brainwave state has prompted some participants to report out of body experiences (OBE’s). Using our headphones in the comfort of home, I and about 15 other participants relaxed while listening to guided meditations that integrated binaural beats; the audio track played at the subconscious level, using two different frequencies, simultaneously heard through separate sides of the headphones. Scientific studies have shown how the differing frequencies stimulate, or trick your brain into an alpha state. The alpha state is a very relaxed yet wakeful state where you have heightened awareness. While I was not specifically looking to get outside of my body, the pandemic provided the perfect opportunity to “travel” during a travel ban. We couldn’t go anywhere, and so traveling through my infinite inner landscape seemed like a welcome option.
In the program, we were instructed about various self-imposed “focus” levels, similar to a hypnotic state. It is up to the participant to fully engage or not. You are the driver of the experience and have complete control over how deep you go. After each meditation, we were instructed to journal about our experience. What follows are my notes about my “trip” through Focus 15.
Focus 15 is sometimes described as:
No time/ all time
Oneness
Beingness
Void
All potential
creation of new patterns
Floating in space - nothingness
Connection to all that is
There may be a sense of loneliness; you may request for a worthy companion
The Time Wheel
All Potential
Time Travel
You don’t have to be an observer here; you may jump in and participate.
During this meditation, I made a note in my journal: “I think I clicked out* and my body was somewhat absent. I recall a feeling of being gone and also present.”
*Clicking out is terminology used in the Monroe Meditation experience as a way to describe a state that may feel similar to dozing briefly, where your mind is released from thoughts.
The guided intro for Focus 15 began, “You might imagine a curved hall of doors. Proceed and open the door to another time space…”
“The Gallery” is where I “went” when I opened a door. My impression of the experience was one of awe as the vision wasn’t something I “created.” It appeared on the screen of my mind and flowed through me, as if without my input. Recording the impression also felt effortless as the memory was ripe with detail and flowed right out of my pen and onto the page of my notebook. My recall is that the experience was both seamless and timeless with a dreamlike quality.
