30 Dec Gathering Stardust

By Eileen Glover, SIP Coordinator

I try to start every support group session with some sort of grounding visualization/guided meditation. (Sometimes we get carried away talking right out of the gate and then we’ll do it at the end.) It’s fascinating to watch how each unique collection of individuals comes together and gravitates toward a guided visualization that becomes specific to that group. 

In a recent online group, we’ve been using a visualization that started out very basically as some bits I’d picked up here and there, and really enjoyed being part of with others over the years. As the weeks passed, the bits and pieces have grown and coalesced. 

In short, we start out by feeling our connection to the Earth, feeling what we perceive as the weight of ourselves or gravity, but which is actually the pull of the Earth holding us to her and keeping us connected. Then we feel down through our seat and our feet into the Earth and see if we can feel something like roots reaching out for nourishment and connection. Then we follow our energy up through our bodies and out the tops of our heads where it reaches out into the atmosphere, the galaxy, and even the universe to gather strength and energy as well as whatever we may need. 

One evening, after doing the visualization together, one person spoke about how perfect it was for her at that time. She described what she had been imagining and working with on her own prior to the support group starting, and then here comes this group of people who just started doing almost the exact same thing! 

As she was spending time in the hospital getting treatment, she felt moved to create a painting that brought her visualization to life, and at one of our sessions she shared it with the group. She was offering us all the gift of momentarily getting to peek into someone else’s imagination and see what previously only they could see. 

To share this sense of connection with one’s body, with the Earth and Universe, with others in that same moment—and even when we are not together, with our essence and our being, is an aspect of being part of a support group, which can be generous in offering grounding and also incredible spaciousness. 

With great gratitude I am happy to say she was willing to share her painting in this newsletter, and she wrote:

The story behind it is that it is my visualization of sending out tendrils, veins, mycelia, threads connecting and drawing energy from the fiery core of mother earth and reaching into the powerful universe to gather the stardust energy that we are made of. Drawing all of this energy in, I feel it and imagine the energy metabolizing into my body, my cells, my immune system and helping to heal me.