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Find a quiet, safe place for meditation where you will not be disturbed and can fall asleep without coming to any harm, if you naturally drift from a meditative to a sleep state. Choose a time when you are not too tired and before you begin, have a bath to which a few drops of sandalwood or ylang ylang oil are added for heightened psychic awareness.
For the meditation, use a focus, for example a bubbling fountain or water feature, fragrant herbs or flowers, such as lavender or roses, or a scented candle of jasmine, apple blossom, lilac or neroli. (You can easily make a water feature by setting up a very small electric pump in a deep container in which you place crystals, greenery, perhaps a tiny statue and some plants.)
You can work either alone or as a group, sitting in a circle round the focus, so that you can see it without moving your neck or head. Experiment until you get the height of the table and the distances right.
For group work, you can light a circle of candles. If you are working indoors, and there is no natural harmonious sound, such as the water, you may like to play softly a CD of rainforest or ocean sounds, birdsong or dolphin calls.
* Light incense sticks of frankincense or myrrh.
* Sit either cross-legged on the floor on a rug or blanket with your hands supporting your knees, in the lotus position if you are skilled in yoga, or on a chair with both feet flat on the floor. If you wish, support your back with a pillow and have arm rests on the chair for your elbows. Relax your arms and hands, with palms uppermost. It is important to be comfortable and not to be distracted by worrying about keeping in a particular 'approved' position.
* Visualise yourself surrounded by a circle of warm, protective light or, if you are using a candle, gaze into the flame.
* Take a slow, deep breath through your nose, inhaling the light. Hold it for a count of 'One and two and three' and slowly exhale darkness through your mouth.
* Let the circle of light expand and enfold you so that you are bathed in the light. You may find it easier at this point to close your eyes and to see the light with your inner vision.
* Within the sphere of light, allow the goddess form to build up quite naturally. It may be a familiar figure or a composite of many different female power icons of beauty, wisdom and grace. She may be old, young, wise or challenging, according to the qualities you are attracting to meet your as yet, perhaps, unformulated needs. In different meditations you may see different goddesses and so adapt the charge accordingly to emphasise particular strengths and qualities they evoke.
* Let words flow about the Goddess and her relationship with the world, nature and the cosmos.
* Do not attempt to hold or recall them, but allow them to ebb, form again and disperse, like waves or ripples on a pond.
* You may experience colours, lights and fragrances unconnected with the stimuli: sounds of wild animals or the wind through the trees, a sensation of warmth or coolness.
* When you are aware of the sounds of the world beginning to return and the light fading, gradually move away from the goddess form, letting the image fade.
* Reconnect with your breathing and allow gentle pink or purple light to radiate within you, leaving you calm and in a deep pool of inner silence. If you have closed your eyes, open them slowly, blinking and stretching slowly, like a cat uncurling after sleep.