Week 24: The Two Powers

I have been working with the Two Powers meditation for about a year and a half, but more closely the past 8 months or so. In that time this meditation has taken on significant meaning to me. 

Not only do I do this meditation when I am alone but I also have written variations and preformed them in ritual for groups of people for many high days in the past year. I have leaned ways to connect to the meditative quality of the Two Powers in simple ways, when I am alone and need to balance, but simply closing my eyes and visualizing the earth's energy coming up from my feet and the sky's fire coming down through my head to meet in my center. I do this reflexively when I step out into the sunlight or when my feet touch cold earth. I almost never feel one without the other anymore. Always there is a calm balance and an energy transfer from within. 

This meditation has, although somewhat simple, been powerful for me to center myself, to connect myself to the sky and earth, to represent the world tree as a beacon of earth. It has helped me sedate my anxiety at times by causing me to slow down and feel myself from every inch of my being let go of those tensions and fill them with change and inspiration. 

Here are some simple answers to this week's assignment: 

What parts of the meditation move you the most? The least? Does one power seem stronger? 

I think one of the parts that really moves me the most is visualizing the waters rise up through me and imagining them as change, as transition, and as cool calming and mysterious. These waters really do invoke curiosity and intrigue within me and when I am anxious, these waters help cool me down and set me int he right mood to balance. 

The second part that is just as powerful is as I raise my head to the sky and feel the warmth of the star/sun/moon fall over me. At this point in the meditation I am cool and relaxed and I have let go of the anxiety and frustrations I had before I started meditating. But when the light touches me it feels as if I am set on fire with intention. I feel energized and that those calm waters have been set on fire to carry that sense of balance and drive beyond the meditation itself. 

Both of these powers seem tremendously strong to me and one without the other would be far less impactful. 

Many people will come to feel that one power is masculine and one is feminine. Can you make arguments for each representing each side? Which convinces you more? 

I actually dislike this comparison because I don't feel that either power has a gender. I have never seen the Earth Power as 100% strictly feminine (along the idea of "Mother Earth") because there are masculine energies as well as feminine energies that speak to me. As for the Sky Power, again, I never feel one completely over the other 100% of the time. 

However, I will say there is always balance for me and there are two sky powers that really call upon specific genders for me. The Sun speaks to me as masculine and when I visualize the Sun as my sky power, generally the Earth Power feels more feminine. Other times I call upon the Moon as my Sky Power and the Moon speaks to me as feminine. When I feel the moon the Earth Power feels more masculine to me. 

The gender that always feels more strongly is that of my Sky Power, but I have never considered the "gender" of these elements until writing this as above all things, I feel balance more than I feel gender associations. Overall, my Two Power feels both masculine and feminine and without pull in one direction over the other. 

The Sky Power is sometimes described as "Ordering" and the Earth Power as "chaotic" Do you feel this is an accurate depiction? 

For the most part, yes. I completely agree that the Earth Power is often chaotic, it is mysterious, and it is full of change, transition and curiosity. It is also the first power that wages war with whatever state I am in before I decide to meditate. 
I do not really see the Sky Power as ordering as much as I see it as inspiring and like the hammer that drives the nail of intention home. The Sky Power focuses power in whatever direction I need to go but sometimes that is not necessarily ordered. Most often, yes, but other times its just a powerful energy with no real direction aside to charge me. 

Can you write a chant or a prayer about the way the cosmos looks when we're in ritual? 

Ill give it a try.

I stand upon this mighty land
My roots reach deep.
My mind extends high
I am the tree that reaches all.
I am the catalyst of mysterious water
Waters from the Earth
I am the catalyst of inspiring fire 
Fires from the Sky
I am the whirlpool of inferno and typhoon
These powers run through me,
And I grow strong. 
I am the Tree of Balance. 
I am the glowing center of all.