Elemental Meditation

This meditation will help you experience each of the four elements in succession:  Air, Fire, Water, and Earth.

Find a comfortable position and begin breathing in and out through your nose.  Take a few moments to focus on your breathing.

(30 second pause)

Now become your breath.  With your next exhale, follow your breath out into the air of the room.  Know that you no longer need your physical body. 

Now that you are Air, you may move freely throughout the room.  Find a place for you to move out of the building and to the outside.

Now that you are outside, allow yourself to flow with the wind.  Go with the wind where ever it takes you:  through trees, over fields or water.  Take some time now to be the Air and wind.

(3 minute pause)

Below you, you spot a dry wooded area.  A small fire is burning.  Approach the fire.  Surround the fire, and feed it's flames with yourself.  As you feed the fire with your Air, allow yourself to become absorbed by the flames.  Leave behind the element of Air, and become Fire.

As Fire, you are free to feed on the fuel around you - feel what it is like to burn and consume the dry wood around you.  Know that as Fire, when you burn the wood around you, you are transforming that wood.  It is part of your essence as Fire to transform what is around you.

Now take some time to experience being the element of Fire.

(3 minute pause)

A light rain has begun to fall on you.  As the drops of water pass through your flames, join them.  Feel yourself leave the element of Fire, and join the element of Water as it washes along the ground in streams.  Feel yourself flow in to a larger body of Water, and become one with that body of Water.  Flow in currents, surrounding anything that you come across. 

Now take some time to experience being the element of Water.

(3 minute pause)

Now find yourself washing up against land.  As you cover the land at shore, feel what it's like to be a hard surface.  As you become accustomed to the firmness and stability of the Earth, leave the element of Water and become the element of Earth.

As Earth, you are many things at once:  soil and dirt, rocks and sand.  Plants grow up from you, feeding from your boundless energy to nourish themselves.  Now take some time to experience being the element of Earth.

(3 minute pause)

You have now immersed yourself in each of the four elements.  It is time to leave behind each of these individual elements, and return to your body.  Know that your body is a balance of all the elements:  your breath is Air, your spirit is Fire, your blood is Water, and your body is Earth.

Now come back into your body.  Wiggle your fingers and toes.  When you are ready, open your eyes.