Article by Make The Days Count Contributor Stefanie Johnson

           

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 Red Canyon. Inside Red Canyon, you can find warmth and wisdom to carry you through even the darkest and most difficult times.

 

You are staring up at the bluest, cleanest, clearest sky you have ever seen.  There are a few clouds, here and there, and they make wispy, comforting shapes. You look up at them, see the pictures in them.

 

(What shapes do you see?) 

 

You are barefoot.  There’s sand beneath your feet, soft and silken and warm from the sun.  As you walk through the sand, it caresses the soles of your feet.  The golden sun beats down on your skin, and you are warm.  Warm and comfortable.  Feel the warmth on every pore of your skin, let it soak through each muscle and tendon, relaxing you utterly. 

 

Around you, red rocky walls rise.  They are so tall you can see nothing past them, and in some places they are red as rubies, and on others they are citrine, mineral orange, the colors of red dusk and ripe fruit.  You could stay here forever, cradled in this warmth and color, walking along the bottom of the canyon with the red walls around you and the sky above you.  But you know there is something you seek here, and in order to find it, you must climb higher.

 

You come to a staircase carved into the red rock.  It appears ancient, and is flanked by tall, exotic flowers that glow and emit a heady, wonderful fragrance.

 

(How do the flowers appear? What do they smell like to you?)

 

You begin to climb.  Each step takes you higher.  There are vivid paintings on the smooth rock beside you, and you know that these paintings are a message to you, left just for you, and they have been here forever waiting for your eyes.

 

(What do the paintings look like? What do they say to you?)

 

You climb higher and higher.  You are halfway up the side of the canyon, and you are thirsty from your journey.  Before you, the wall is hollowed out, and you step inside.  There is a crystal clear pond in the shade.  You kneel before it, cup your hands, and drink deeply.

 

The taste is cool, refreshing, wonderful.  It revitalizes you completely, filling you with healing white light, mending and strengthening all that is within you.

 

You rise and return to your journey up the red stone stairway, completely revitalized.

 

With each step, you feel stronger.  With each step, you leave your doubts and fears behind you.  With each step, you become more certain of your path, more determined to reach what you have been seeking.  The paintings on the wall continue to speak to you, to send you messages and encouragement.  Before you know it, you have climbed the last step, and reached the plateau.

 

Here, the sun is huge and vivid, bright and wonderful.  You look down over the edge of the ruby-tinted canyon and see how far you’ve come, how high you’ve climbed.  After climbing so high, there is nothing you can’t accomplish, nothing you can’t face.

 

The world stretches out all around you, and now you can see what is on the outside of the canyon. Where will your next journey take you?  There is nowhere you cannot go.

 

Full of this knowledge, full of this warmth, slowly open your eyes, ready to face any challenges before you.       

 

If you can, please jot down some of the things you saw on your journey, such as the shape of the clouds and the paintings on the stone walls.  Remember, whenever you are feeling cold and colorless, whenever there is a challenge you feel you cannot meet, the Red Canyon is here to warm and guide you. 

 

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

 

“The first step is to fill your life with a positive faith that will help you through anything. The second is to begin where you are.”
-Norman Vincent Peale

 

“Whatever we focus on is bound to expand.  Where we see the negative, we call forth more negative.  And where we see the positive, we call forth more positive. Having loved and lost, I now love more passionately.  Having won and lost, I now win more soberly.  Having tasted the bitter, I now savor the sweet.”
-Marianne Williamson

 

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