(c) Cat Charissage, “Eve” 2013

Dear Friends,

For the Friday prompt this week, I invite you to listen for and to acknowledge all of the knowledge and wisdom that is already within you.

Think of your dear body.  Draw a full page outline of your body (sure, she can be your ideal body if you want) and bring your attention to each part of yourself starting with your toes.  Scan slowly, and ask each part of your dear body if it has anything to say  to you.  Write down any insights you have as you think of your toes, then ankles, then calves.  Write it right on the outline, just a few words.  As you move your attention from each part of your body to the next, say a little thank you to that part for supporting you, for working properly — or add a bunch of compassion if it’s not working healthily.  Take your time with this, and consciously try to relax each section of your body as you move your attention to it.  Relax and listen.  Include your internal organs, too!

If that’s all you want to do right now, stop.  Have a glass of water and move on into the next part of your day.

If you have some more time, though, draw another outline and mark the energy centers, or chakras, with circles or spirals.  Red for your root (at the base of your perineum), orange for your sexual organs, yellow for your solar plexus, green for your heart, sky blue for your throat, indigo blue for your “third eye”, and purple for your crown, located just an inch or so above your head.  Now starting at your root, ask yourself what your survival self might have to say to you.  Do you have concerns about basic survival issues:  food, housing, feeling like you have the right to be here?  If so, or if you hear anything from your intuition about this aspect of your life, write it down.  Move through your energy centers, asking, listening, recording, honoring, thanking.  How is your sexual self?  How are you relating to sexual intimacy, whether partnered or by yourself?  What about sensuality?  At your solar plexus, ask about your sense of personal power.  At your heart, about love.  Do you feel loved in your life?  Are you sharing your own love with others?  At your throat center, clear your throat, then hum a little.  Are you expressing yourself as you would like to at this time of your life?  Are you aching to say something, but refrain?  Why? Now at your “third eye”, what do you see?  What do you see in certain people, in certain situations?  Let yourself see and know what you know.  At your crown, ask about your openness to transcendence, your spiritual connections.  Is there anything that this part of you wants you to put into words and write down?

Take a few deep breaths, have a glass of water.  Reflect on what you wrote.  Is there anything you felt that you haven’t yet recorded?  Even if you don’t quite have the words right now, try just a word or two, or even leave a space or draw an empty box in order to express your wordlessness.

On another day, go through other systems of organization that you know about, such as the four directions (or seven, or eight directions, depending on how you’ve learned about these symbolic systems).  Ask yourself what you know that you haven’t yet been acknowledging about these symbolic areas of life experience.

Metaphorically ask each part of yourself “How’s it going?  Anything new?  Do you need anything?”

Ask the different voices in your psyche the same questions.  We all have our “on the one hand”  and  “on the other hand” voices.  Too many of us have voices of other people within us who criticize us or demand too much.  Some of us are lucky enough to have the voices of those who have loved and encouraged us within ourselves.  Hopefully, all of us can hear the quiet voice within us of our True Self —- at least, if we listen for that voice.

Doing these kinds of scans regularly, whether every day, every week, every month, or every few years can be really helpful in owning whatever wisdom we’ve been accumulating through our life experience or through our conscious study.  It will help us pay attention to areas of our bodies or our lives that are needing help in some way.  It will help us to either balance out our lives, if that’s what’s needed, or else to acknowledge areas of particular concentration for a phase or for a season. It will also give us information about where we might most effectively direct our energy into the world around us. After all, “my” is “our”, ultimately.

Reaching for knowledge, and with love,

Cat