An important part of ritual and magick work is meditation. Medi- tation is one of the easiest and most difficult spiritual practices. The basic goal of most meditative practices is to learn to just sit. This sounds easy enough. After all, who does not know how to sit? The difficulty is being able to just sit for a long period of time without letting the mind wander. It is like the practice of “breaking” a horse. A wild horse is not very keen on the idea of having another animal ride on its back. In order to turn a wild horse into a riding horse, it must be conditioned to allow a human to get on its back. In order to “break” the wild horse, someone has to get on it and just sit. But just sitting on a bucking bronco is no easy task. The mind is similar to a wild horse. It is always running off in different directions. It rides along the path of whatever thought that comes along. It likes to stay on the move and it certainly does not want to just sit still for a long period of time. The mind, too, has to be “broken” so that it can come under your control. It takes a great deal of practice and determina- tion to have this sort of control over the mind. But it is that sort of control that is necessary for magickal work. The greatest tool of any
Wiccan is not any of those sitting on the altar, it is the mind. Access and control of the mind will yield more power than any oil or incense. There are three elements to good meditative practice. Though there are many ways to practice meditation and many spiritual sources and traditions offer a variety of techniques, all the techniques have three common goals: relaxation, concentration, and absorption.
Relaxation
To begin any meditative practice, you must first be in a relaxed state of mind, body, heart, and soul. Let’s begin with the body. Relax- ing the body is best done through stretching and the release of ten- sion. The physical practices of yoga and other body-stretching exercises are great ways to make your body flexible. Tension most often is stored in our muscles. By stretching these muscles, we can release this ten- sion, increase flexibility, and strengthen our bodies. Before beginning any meditative practice, it is a good idea to stretch as much as pos- sible. This also helps to alleviate the strain of sitting in one position for a long time. When you are ready to sit, concentrate on releasing tension throughout the body. One way to do this is to tense each muscle separately and tightly, and then quickly release that tension. After doing this, concentrate on sending warmth and relaxation throughout your body. Imagine if you could fill your body slowly from your feet upward with a warm and heavy liquid such as wax. Connect your breathing to your sitting. Imagine that each time you breathe in, you bring into your body warmth and relaxation, and every time you breathe out, you release tension from deep within your body. Next, encourage relaxation with the other parts of your self. Allow your mind to relax. Imagine that it feels as warm and relaxed as your body. Imagine that your mind is like an attic on a warm summer day. On each end of the attic are windows. Open those windows and allow the summer breeze to fill the room. Imagine that all your thoughts are like the breeze. Allow them simply to come into the room in one window and drift out the other window. Do not think about each thought. Let each drift silently by. Encourage emotional relaxation by allowing this special meditation time to be a gift to yourself. Accept yourself for who you are. You are a developing and progressing being, and at this moment in time, allow yourself to be exactly who you are. During this time, remember that you do not have to be anything special
to anyone else. You can be completely and fully yourself. Finally, allow the gods to enter into your soul and fill you with happiness, wisdom, and guidance.
Concentration
The next element of meditation is concentration. Each spiritual tradition that uses meditation has different objects of concentration, but the principle is the same. Focus your mind on an object or idea for a long period of time. Do not allow your mind to wander. If it does, relax again and gently start over. Your mind will be like the wild horse that will want to run off. Grab the wild beast by the reins and pull it back into the ring. Do not be harsh with yourself. Making judg- ments about your abilities is not helpful and further impedes your concentration. Simply begin again without comment.
The object of concentration can be any number of things. It can be visual such as the flame of a candle, a crystal, a special symbol, or a drawing or artwork. You can concentrate on repeating a word or phrase in your mind. If you are working with a chant or power word, you might repeat that. You can concentrate on a sound or some piece of music. Some people concentrate on their breathing or just on si- lence itself. Whatever you choose, focus on it for a period of time. Try five minutes at first, and then work up to at least 20 minutes. In magickal practice, it is often important to learn how to visualize. You can practice meditation by concentrating on visualizing something in your mind. Try to maintain your vision of the object just as if your eyes were open and you were staring at it.
Absorption
The final stage of meditation is the most difficult. If you can main- tain concentration for at least 20 minutes or more, you may be able to reach a state of mind where you become absorbed and merge with your object of concentration. You completely lose the sense of self and enter into a state of being in which the object and the viewer are part of the same eternal reality. It is here that the wild horse is finally tamed. But, more than that, there is no longer a rider and a horse, there is only that which is both rider and horse. One who has learned to reach this stage of meditation learns to peer into the minds of the gods.
These are the basics of most passive meditative practices. You should begin to develop a regular meditation routine to develop your powers of concentration and visualization. Later degrees of this sys- tem involve a great deal of meditation on different objects and ideas. By developing a consistent and regular practice, you will be able to practice future meditations with little difficulty. Start to set aside a special time every day in which you can regularly meditate. If you cannot do it every day, try to set aside at least one day a week.