visualization

A Final Farewell

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A Note from Betty:

Dear friends, it is time for both Grandmother Cottonwood and I to pursue new adventures in life, so this will be our final blog post. Since the tree herself was cut down last June, I feel that her spirit is finally ready to move on.

It has been a great honor to translate the communications of GCW into words and pictures. We’ve worked in partnership to bring you over 500 posts since 2015. And now, we say a loving goodbye.

Please enjoy GCW’s offerings from our archives. Thank you for your kind attention and support throughout the past five years. Dear readers, you have been much appreciated!

Remember Grandmother Cottonwood when you need to feel grounded, when you desire inspiration, when you find yourself off balance or living in your head, or when you want to connect with the spirits of nature.

GCW in winter

We leave you with a final practice to help you live connected to the Earth, centered in your body, and aligned with spirit

Visualize your energetic roots anchoring you to the Earth, drawing in vital Earth energy. Visualize your awareness centered in the trunk of your body, your heart and belly. And finally, see and feel your energetic branches reaching to divine light, pulling in life giving nourishment and inspiration from the heavens.

(If you have children or grandchildren, they will love this visualization!)

Ground with your favorite tree

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Dear reader, this post is from the archives of AskGCW.

Yes, I repeat myself once again with rooting and grounding theme. I do this because so many humans walk this earth with their awareness and their spirits partially outside of their bodies.

The energy of ungrounded humans feels as though it floats in space without an anchor or home. This causes many to feel anxious and unmoored. Ungrounded people are disconnected from a vital source of life-giving energy.

Making sure you are grounded in times of trial and uncertainty, when you feel spacey anxious or disconnected.

Here is one simple way to anchor yourself with my friends and cousins the trees. Which tree are you drawn to? Oak, sycamore, sweet gum, hackberry, cedar palmetto, beech, elm, walnut, fir, hickory, maple, ash, cherry, apple, spruce, poplar, aspen, magnolia, pine, cottonwood, mesquite, …?

Grandmother Cottonwood

Choose your favorite tree. If needed, find a picture of a magnificent tree to help your imagination see the details.

Now envision for a few moments that you too are a magnificent tree. Bear with me, you don’t have to tell anyone else about this…

Now imagine that you have roots reaching deeply into the soil, gripping the earth. Your roots range in size from mighty ones the size of main branches, tapering down to the tiny tenacious hair like roots that draw in nourishment directly from the soil.

Strong roots

With your imagination see and feel your roots reaching deeper into the soil and subsoil, through the bedrock and mantle of the Earth to the molten core. (Anything is possible in your imagination)

Now as you breathe in, pull in the anchoring Earth energy up into your feet, legs and lower torso to fill the cells of your physical being and help bring your awareness into your body – where you are meant to live.

Now you are plugged into the frequency of the planet.

Breathe the Earth energy in through your roots and let it travel upward through your trunk and branches through the tips into your leaves. Do this breathing several times as you imagine the energy filling your from the center of the Earth up.

Interwoven branches and nest

Feel yourself relax and become one with our planet. Allow the Earth energy to soak into every cell of your body.

Let the trees show you anchoring. This simple practice can help calm you. No equipment or expensive accessories are needed, no experience or skill required.

All you need to tap into Earth energy are your heart, imagination and intention.

Take a Memory Tour

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Dear ones, are you confined, quarantined right now? Only your body is required to be at home.

Use your senses to take a tour of your favorite places in your imagination. In this way, you can take a virtual visit to your family members, remember the loved places you knew as a child, to go back in time, or visit the future.

In your mind’s eye find yourself at the place of your choosing. See the details as you approach your Grandparents’ home once more, or that small lake cottage, the town you grew up in… your childhood friends in their homes… the life you want to live when the pandemic has died down…

Here we’ve chosen a tour of Betty’s Grandpa and Grandma’s farm to get you started.

Now I approach my Grandparents’ house from so long ago, letting the details emerge… The flower boxes, colorful and spicy scented petunias, the deeply colored coleus, asphalt siding meant to look like bricks, large trees shading lush uncut grass, wildflowers along the dusty gravel road, old red barn and outbuildings with white trim… the metal pump with the cold smooth handle…

Now I call up and feel once again the texture of the gravel lane under my feet, the worn paint and sharp snap of the screen door as it closes, the heat and glow and wood-burning smell of the pot belly stove, the beloved old dog with her doggy scent and thick fur greeting you with smiles, her wet doggy kisses… Grandma’s bottle green tightly woven upholstery in the living room,

The heavenly scent and taste of thick milk gravy on beef, the sweet-tart and delicious raspberry pie, steaming from the oven, the canned peaches floating in their cream colored bowls with lavender and blue pine cone decoration…Fire crackling in the stove, the voices of those loved ones now gone, Grandpa’s aftershave…

Coyotes yipping after dark beyond the hills, hens clucking, streams of milk hitting the bucket at milking time, the sweet smells of cow manure and fresh hay, the milk separator whirring, the cream can filling…

Cars crunching on gravel, dust flying up behind them, shared songs at dusk on the front porch, simple harmonica tunes, voices joining together in familiar tunes, wooden floors creaking at bedtime….

Taking a memory tour is another way for you to spend an hour or two during this stay at home time – You can call up those sensory details of seeing, touching, hearing, tasting, and smelling that help you remember the beautiful places the people and times of your life.

Find your own memories, take a turn around the places you loved, going slowly, letting the details emerge. Revisit your children, friends, or grandchildren if you can’t see them right now.

You can also tour your future and re-imagine what your life can be, what you want it to be when you are able to move freely once again.

A memory tour will help you remember the preciousness and beauty of life here on our beloved planet.

A Practice to Calm and Raise Your Vibrations

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Dear ones, as you try out this practice, set an intention to raise your vibrations and calm yourself during this time of great uncertainty.

Breathe in Earth energy, breathe out fear

Visualize beautiful deep roots like the roots of a large tree growing down into the Earth from your hips, legs, feet. Now breathe in through your roots and feet. As you inhale, allow your feet, legs, hips, abdomen and lower body to fill with Earth energy. This will anchor and connect you with Earth’s loving vibrations, the energy of home.

Take several deep breaths in and out through your feet and roots. On the out-breaths, let tension, stale energies, old emotions, fears, and worries you no longer need to carry within you drain into the Earth for energetic recycling. This will ground and clear you.

Connect to the Earth

Fill yourself with divine light and color

Visualize a beam of pure clear golden light filling you through the crown of your head. Allow it to pour down through your entire body, permeating every cell like liquid gold.

Imagine every hair follicle, skin cell, blood vessel, every nerve, all organ systems, every bone, connective tissue and tendon, all muscles, your immune system and glands, respiratory and circulatory systems, every energetic particle of your physical being filled with this sacred light, bringing all body systems and organs into balance and harmony, clarifying your aura.

Now, as you visualize this beautiful light, allow it to become any color in the spectrum, whatever vibration of color is needed in your body to bring wholeness, healing and well being. Let the colors change and flow and mix as needed.

No need to think too hard about it or consult a chart. Ask for the colors to be just right for your body’s needs. Allow yourself to sit with the healing colors and light as long as needed.

Yellow swallowtail butterfly on deep pink Zinnia

Create sound and connect with all that is.

Set an intention to use your voice to resonate those areas of your body that feel out of balance. You will fill them with the healing vibrations and loving waves of your voice. You do not have to be a good singer, the only requirement is that you can make sounds with your voice.

Begin by humming, then make vowel sounds. Change the pitch and sound you are making and feel the vibrations resonating in different parts of your body that need attention. Intend for the sounds you create with your voice to reweave and harmonize the subtle energy of your physical and spiritual being and fill your being with peace.

Flowing stream, light dancing on shallow water

Connect to the Earth through your roots, fill yourself with divine light and color, weave all together with sound. Experience the oneness of all creation.

A healing practice

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First, gently allow your body and mind to relax, breathing deeply, letting yourself sink comfortably into your chair or bed or mat…

Now, imagine the crown chakra at the top of your head, gently opening and beautiful liquid-like golden light from the divine pouring into and through you like water.

Grandmother Cottonwood

Feel it pouring down through the energy center, filling every cell of your body, every organ, every nerve and blood vessel, every bone and muscle, every ligament, every skin cell…every microscopic connection between cells… Imagine the beautiful light filling them all effortlessly with its cleansing healing power.

Imagine and see and know this amazing healing light filling you from head to toe displacing and sending all heavier energies away, letting them drain through your feet into the Earth for recycling.

Now when light reaches your feet, pause a moment to enjoy the feeling. Then let it begin to fill your aura from your feet to your head, permeating every particle of your energy with liquid golden light.

Allow this light to assist in weaving your aura together in a beautiful tapestry that draws in life affirming energies and filters out all incompatible energies and those that belong to others.

Now, sit with this light and let it circulate from your head to your toes slowly and thoroughly throughout your entire body, then from your feet to your crown through your aura.

This is the light of the divine. Feel it, know it, experience it. Let it heal you and bring you peace.

Grandmother Cottonwood, summer moss

When you feel complete with this practice, give thanks, then tap your cheekbones, the center of your chest and rub the bottom center of your feet near the big toe joint. Let yourself come back to the here and now.