The Air is Alive….

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This exercise is simplicity itself. You just have to sit on the grass. Whether you live in the North, where it is still spring, or in warmer climes where, even though it is technically still spring, summer has a hold, your assignment is to find a place where you can sit on green grass and observe green things that are growing. Prepare yourself by getting into a meditative state by breathing slowly and deeply, and that with every breath you are breathing in prāna — the radiant, luminescent life-energy.

Then, as you sit, physically and closely connected to Mother Earth, look for a blade of grass – or any other growing thing – that is newly born. Focus in on the color, its vibrancy. Vibrancy is not just something you can see; it is something you can feel, too. The word vibrant comes to us from the Latin vibrāre which means to vibrate – to move or quiver rapidly. Tune into this vibrant, vibrating life energy. Let it seep into your cells and fill your being. Allow this vibrancy to flow into your creative work – regardless of whether you are doing it now or later. This cosmic creative force is always there for you.

St. Hildegard of Bingen wrote of a divine feminine force that she called “Caritas” or Divine Love. Writing as if Divine Love was the one speaking, Hildegard wrote, “I am the supreme and fiery force who kindled every living spark…. I flame above the beauty of the fields; I shine in the waters; I burn in the sun, the moon, and the stars. And with the airy wind, I quicken all things vitally by an unseen, all-sustaining life. For the air is alive in the greenery and the flowers; the waters flow as if they lived; the sun too lives in its light…”*

Translation adapted from Barbara Newman’s in her book Sister of Wisdom