Relaxation Station: A Soul Spa

~ MUSIC ~

~ ART ~

STEP 1
Find a quiet, comfortable place where you won't be disturbed for a few minutes. Close your eyes and count backwards from seven to one, letting yourself relax as you go.

STEP 2
When you get to the number one, find yourself walking on a path. It could be in the woods, through a field, along the beach-wherever YOUR magical relaxation spot is. Know that this definitely is YOUR path.

STEP 3
At the end of the path is the thing you want to visualize. Could be a new home, a new job, a new relationship, or something in the non-physical realm like better listening skills (in which case it would appear as a symbol).

STEP 4
When you see that visualization-TAKE IN THE DETAILS. Really enjoy this, get all of your senses involved, get your emotions swept up in the experience. Big key: feel and hold the excitement of what you're visualizing.

STEP 5
And then let it go. Send your request out into the universe. Think of your request floating in a balloon, magnetically attracting to you the tools you need in order for the visualization to materialize.

STEP 6
Pay attention to the clues that pop up in your life-people you meet, articles you read, conversations you overhear-these will lead you closer to creation.

~ MEDITATION ~

1. Put your expectations aside, and don't worry about doing it right. There are infinite possibilities and no fixed criterion for determining right meditation. There are, however, a few things to avoid. They are...

- Trying to force something to happen.
- Over-analyzing the meditation.
- Trying to make your mind blank or chase thoughts away.
- Putting too much emphasis on doing it right.

2. It's not necessary - or advisable - to meditate on a completely empty stomach. If you're hungry, have a little something to eat before meditating.

3. Find a quiet, comfortable place to meditate. You can sit in a comfortable chair, on the bed, on the floor -- anywhere that's comfortable. It's not necessary to sit cross-legged.

4. Eliminate as much noise and as many potential distractions as possible. Don't worry about those things that you can not control.

5. When you sit to meditate, sit comfortably, with your spine reasonably straight. This allows the spiritual energy to flow freely up the spine, which is an important aspect of meditation. Leaning against a chair back, a wall, headboard, etc. is perfectly all right. If, for physical reasons, you can't sit up, lay flat on your back.

6. Place your hands in any position that is comfortable.

7. If it does not go against your beliefs, call on a "higher power" for assistance in your meditation. Any form you are comfortable with is all right. This can be quite helpful, but is not absolutely necessary.

~ YOGA ~

Progressive relaxation is performed by first tensing, and then relaxing, the muscles of the body - one group at a time.

THE GROUPS:
1) Hands and arms
2) head, neck, and shoulders
3) torso, including chest, stomach and back
4) thighs, buttocks, legs, and feet.

WHAT TO DO:
1) lay or sit in a comfortable position
2) tense the first muscle in the group
3) hold the tension for approximately five seconds
4) release and relax for up to 30 seconds.
5) do all the muscles in each group before going on to the next group

IN A NUTSHELL: TENSE FOR 5 SECONDS - RELAX UP TO 30 SECONDS

The contrast between the tension and the relaxation allows you to notice differences between feelings of tension and of relaxation.

Progressive relaxation can be guided with verbal cues and scripts, memorized or provided on audiotapes. You may prefer using tapes because they allow people to completely clear their minds and just follow instructions.

~ POETRY ~

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.

To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.

You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.

Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?

Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?

Everything the Power of the World
does is done in a circle

Everything the Power of the World does
is done in a circle. The sky is round,
and I have heard that the earth is round
like a ball, and so are all the stars.
The wind, in its greatest power, whirls.

Birds make their nests in circles,
for theirs is the same religion as our.

The sun comes forth and goes down again
in a circle. The moon does the same,
and both are round. Even the seasons
for a great circle in their changing,
and always come back again to where they were.

The life of man is a circle from childhood to childhood,
and so it is in everything where power moves.

(told through John G. Neihardt)