The thirty-first bead on the blessing cord is the blessing of stillness. It is the blessing of earth in Kether. Stillness is a feeling of centeredness and active peace. From this “place” of stillness we can see how things in our lives are going to move. We can see the rhythm and cadence of all that is going on in our lives without being unbalanced by it.
I am not sure where I heard it or read it, but when Shiva lord of the dance was described he was said to be the stillness of the center and the whirling cosmic dance. He was both in motion and centered in stillness. This has always stuck with me. I know that ecstatic dance has sometimes put me in this place where I could move my body, yet my spirit was feeling centered stillness. Stillness is that clear, uncomplicated awareness of being. Some people feel this in passive meditation when the mind is clear. The dancing Shiva has it while his body spins and his center is calm like the eye of a storm.
The Wheel of Fortune, one of the major arcana tarot cards, depicts a wheel going round. One of the things I council with the Wheel of Fortune is that where you place your focus changes how the wheel affects you: If you are focused on the outside of the wheel, you experience a roller coaster of experience. On the high part of the wheel you are lucky, your life couldn’t be better, everything is coming up roses and you get so excited you just can’t stand it. At the bottom of the wheel, you are at your worst: life sucks, you have the whole world on your shoulders and you are at your most depressed. The wheel can make us feel like we are almost bipolar with highs of mania and lows of depression.
This is what we experience on the outside of the wheel. In the center of the wheel is the axle around which it rotates. It is the stillness in the center of the dance of this cycle. From the center you can feel the up and the down without it moving you out of your center. You can have the luck and adversity and neither shakes you out of your equilibrium. You are part of the dance, but you have the stillness and centering to deal with all the twists and turns of the wheel. All of the cycle pivots around you instead of the other way around. The center of the wheel is the stillness we need to maintain to learn all that the Wheel of Fortune, of life, has to teach us.
When we act from this place of centered stillness we are like Shiva dancing. We find the rhythm of the dance and are not unbalanced by its motion. From a place of stillness we can observe and predict the next steps. All our parts are aligned in stillness and we feel greater unity with all of creation.
Meditation of Stillness
Hold the thirty-first bead of the blessing cord, the bead of Stillness, the earth of Kether.
Count your self down into a meditative state.
Visualize the screen of your mind expanding into a sphere around you. You feel a sense of rising as your sphere begins to fill with radiant prismatic light. Resonate the God name of Kether: “eh-heh-e-yeh”
The radiant light flows through you, making your spirit body feel fluid as you become one with the light. This place is timeless and yet contains with in it all times. Around you images flash of your past, but you feel a disconnection from these experiences. You are a silent observer on the outside of your time-stream. Focus your mind and intention to see a time where you felt the stillness.
See the time you felt stillness before you. You are an outside observer of yourself. Observe what you are doing. Look at your posture and even observe the energies that emanate from you as you feel stillness. When you feel satisfied that you have observed enough from the outside, merge with this past self. Feel what they feel. See what they see. What are you thinking about? What are you feeling? Where in your body do you feel your stillness the most? How are you dealing with the current situation? Draw your spirit self into the place of stillness within this past self. Observe how it feels to be completely one with this stillness. Feel how everything around it flows and dances while it remains the pivot point of it all. Now that you have found this stillness, know that you can return to it at any time.
Project yourself back out to be an outside observer again. Move back into the white radiant light of the place of timelessness that is all times. Set your intention to see a time in your past, where you had lost this stillness and the dance was swinging you out of control. See this time before you. Again you are an outside observer. Watch your past self loose their stillness. Observe what your past self is doing and going through. Feel and observe the energies that emanate from you. What are your posture and expression like? When you feel ready, project yourself inside your past self. Observe and experience what loosing stillness feels like. Why is this happening? You are just an observer, so you can disconnect from these feelings and reconnect to your intuition. What is it saying to your past self? What is the lesson of this time?
Now feel your past self’s body. Even in this time of unbalance can you find the stillness? Where is it now? Connect deeply to the stillness and allow it to spread from this place where you found it. Change the scene of you loosing stillness until your past body and your present “body” are in the stillness once more. Feel things calm as you regain your equilibrium. See and observe how the scene changes when you are in alignment with your stillness. Move again outside your past self, leaving behind the sense of stillness. Observe how everything you experienced from the outside has changed. The energies flowing off you and your posture have changed. You have not changed the past, only the way your present self interacts with it.
Step back into the white radiant light that is timelessness and all times. Know that you can find your stillness in any situation by taking a deep breath and focusing your mind to where your stillness lives within your body. The images of your past selves fade and the light grows more intense. Then it begins to fade and you feel a slight decent as your screen of your mind returns to its natural color. The screen recedes to its normal size.
Count yourself up into waking consciousness.
Give yourself clearance and balance and ground, as needed.
Contemplation
When do you most feel the stillness? What throws you out of your stillness? How do you regain stillness after you have been thrown out of it?
