A Meditation for Love

As war rages in Ukraine, as party politics continue to divide and polarize the country, and as new COVID 19 variants spread around the world, I, and many people that I know, are feeling a deep sense of unease, even fear. I want to do something concrete to help, but I feel that anything that I do is so small as to be negligible. Today I want to offer a guided meditation that helps to not only fill me with peace but is also one way to make difference in a fractured world.

I use this meditation to ground myself in love and to send out love to the world. It can be used in your daily spiritual practice or when you are feeling particularly fragmented and fearful. You can use it with or without quiet meditation music.

Find a quiet space where you won’t be disturbed. Align yourself in your most comfortable meditation pose. Take some deep cleansing breaths, slowly inhaling and exhaling from your belly. As you breathe, allow any stresses, worries, fears, or discomfort to flow out of your body as you exhale. As you inhale, breathe in the love of the universe. As you concentrate on breathing in and out, let everything fade into the background. There is only this moment and this incoming breath of love and outgoing breath of letting go.

When you are totally relaxed and ready, imagine that your spirit is a white light rising from the top of your head. Allow this light to travel up, up as far as you can imagine, out into the cosmos. In your imagination, float among the stars. Here you are safe and here you are surrounded by and filled with unconditional love. You are wrapped and held in this beautiful, all-encompassing love. Stay in this place as long as you like, soaking up this amazing love. When you are ready, bring your love-filled spirit back down into your body and let it rest in your heart space.

Now imagine that you are sending your roots down deep into the earth, grounding yourself into mother earth herself. Go down, down into the earth’s core where the great mother is waiting to embrace you. As you rush into her arms, feel the unconditional love of the Divine Feminine. Allow her to hold you and rock you in her embrace. Here you are safe and held, loved beyond measure. Again, stay in this space as long as you need to. Then when you are ready, bring your roots back into your body. Allow that love to come back up with you and rest in your heart space.

As the love from the cosmic Source and the love from the Great Mother join together in your heart, feel that love overflow into your body. Feel it travel through your veins and arteries. Feel it in every cell, every organ, every muscle, every nerve, every joint. You are filled to overflowing with so much love that it cannot be contained.

Now allow that love to flow out of you into the world. Allow it to flow to whomever it will – to your loved ones, to those who are bereft, to those who are prisoners, to those who are fighting for their lives. Feel the electric energy of that love as it flows in great ripples out into the world. Allow yourself to be a channel of that love, even when you are not consciously meditating in that love.

When you are ready, you can slowly come back into the space you occupy, refreshed, filled to overflowing with love and ready to radiate that love out into the world.

Carry that love with you throughout your day. Try to be aware of it in every encounter. Allow it to permeate everything you do and connect with everyone you meet.

I truly believe that the only way to change the world is through love. If we can each channel love to everyone we meet, the ripple effects can be enormous. For those in the spiritual path, I believe that we came into this world at this time to be those channels of love. Today, I am sending love to you.

Barbara Garland
April 202