Article by Make The Days Count Contributor Stefanie Johnson

 

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a regular meditation exercise that Make The Days Count will publish.  These are meant as exercises you can do without much preparation and are therefore excellent for home or office.

 

There are magical places that exist within each one of us, inside our minds, hearts, and souls.  By visiting these places, we can tap into the infinite and bring peace and abundance into our lives.

 

Each journey will be unique, as we are unique, so you may want to have a notebook and pen nearby to record your experience afterward. You may choose to have another person read the meditation to you so you may experience it more fully.  Find a comfortable place, close your eyes, open your mind, and prepare yourself to travel within.

           

This week, let’s explore the Ancient Forest.  Inside the Ancient forest, you can be cleansed and replenished, connect with your spirit, and reclaim the abundance that is rightfully yours.

           

It’s a beautiful, sunlit day.  You are walking on a path through a lush forest …

 

(What does the path look like? Is it soft or stone?  This path is yours alone, so see it and know it.)

 

Trees rise all around you.  They are beautiful and majestic.  They seem to go on forever.  The air smells wonderful, fresh and clean, and you fill your lungs with it as you listen to the melodious birdsong that throbs from the trees.  The path eventually leads to a clear, sparkling brook.  There is no bridge over it, for this is a brook of purity.  You must cleanse yourself within it before you can travel deeper into the forest.

 

Walk into the water.  It is warm, comforting, healing.  As it rushes past you, you can feel all the stress, all the doubt and fear, trickle from you in dark droplets.  The darkness is caught up in the crystalline stream and taken away from you, dispersed in the clean water.  It cannot exist within you here.

 

As you walk to the opposite bank, you are freed from all the things that have held and harmed you.  Renewed, revitalized, you step onto the bank, which is covered by vibrant, sweet-smelling wildflowers.

 

(What color are the flowers?)  

 

Your path appears before you once again, flanked by your wildflowers.  You follow it deeper into the sunlit forest.

 

(Has the path changed, now that you are free?)

 

You come to a glade, and there, watching you with wise, kind eyes, is the guardian of the forest.

 

(How does the guardian appear to you?)

 

The guardian asks that you follow, and you do, for you feel no fear and know that it is leading you to what you seek - the Tree of Abundance, which waits for you in the heart of the forest.  You walk with the guardian, and your path grows wider and easier to travel.

 

There, before you, is the Tree of Abundance.  It grows from the middle of your path, and it towers over every other tree in the forest. The forest grew around this wondrous tree, just as your life shall grow around it.

 

(What does the Tree of Abundance look like to you?  What fruit grows amongst its branches?)

 

The guardian reaches over and touches you.  You know that you are welcome to eat a fruit from the tree.  You take a fruit from the lowest branch and take a big bite.  It’s delicious, like all the good things in the world rolled into one, and the taste fills you with a sense of well being.  You feel a golden glow of health, wealth, and happiness fill your entire body.  Slowly, keeping that glow with you, open your eyes and return to the outer world.

 

Know that abundance is coming into your life, and also know that, should you ever feel in need, you are free to visit the forest again and taste of abundance.  It will always be there for you.  The tree will never run out of fruit.

           

Now, if you have the time, please jot down some of the things you saw on your journey.  The color of the flowers, the fruit, the appearance of the guardian - these are all things have important meaning to you.  They are symbols of power and protection.

 

I was honored to serve as your guide on this journey within. I hope we will travel together again soon.

 

“Mountains inspire awe in any human person who has a soul.  They remind us of our frailty, our unimportance, of the briefness of our span upon this earth.  They touch the heavens, and sail serenely at an altitude beyond even the imaginings of a mere mortal.”

-Elizabeth Aston

 

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