Ritual: Daily Grounding and Shielding
One of the features I want to have on this blog are ritual/spell posts. Whether they are my own personal approaches or sharing guest posts, I think sharing ideas is the cornerstone to building community and maintaining personal growth. To start I figured I would share something fairly simple - my personal daily grounding and shielding ritual that I (try to!) do every morning.
Daily Grounding
This is a practice I learned from a friend of mine who is a local shamanic practitioner. I was introduced to her through a friend who thought I could benefit from a shamanic healing, and we clicked instantly. I participated in some local journey groups she hosted as well as a few ancestral healing circles. When she decided to try her hand at teaching I participated in the first cohort of her Soul Compass Path 9-month course for folks interested in learning the basics of energy body hygiene and shamanic skills.
You can learn more about her work through Eagle Therapies. You can also look into joining the next cycle of Soul Compass Path.
We began each class with this grounding ritual, and I’ve incorporated it into my personal practice. I prefer to do this near a window, if possible.
While standing (or sitting if you are not able to stand) close your eyes and breathe deeply.
When ready, reach down towards the floor. If possible, place your hand on the floor. Imagine a line extending down from your hands deep, deep into the earth. At the center of the earth is a large pool of water that shines with a silver light. The line extending from your hand dives deep into this pool and the water is crisp and refreshing. The light is cool and soothing, its brightness reminds you of shine from a full moon.
When ready, bring your hand slowly up to the center of your torso. If you were crouching/sitting while touching the floor slowly rise up to a standing position. As you do this, envision that cool, refreshing silver energy being drawn up through the line you cast down and filling your body.
Next, raise your hand up above you towards the sky. Imagine another line extending up from your hands toward the center of the cosmos. There in the center is a warm, bright golden light. The line extending from your hand penetrates right into the center of that warm light. Feel the warmth from this golden glow, feel it invigorating you.
When ready, bring your hand slowly down to the center of your torso. As you do this, envision that warm, invigorating golden light coming down through the line you cast up and coating your body.
Breathe deeply as you envision these two lights, these two energies, intermingling. The refreshing silver energy helping to sustain and balance the warm energizing golden energy. Be aware of the lines you cast up and down keeping you connected to the sources of these energies Above and Below.
When ready, exhale slowly and open your eyes.
Shielding
In my daily personal practice I immediately follow the above grounding ritual with this short, simple shielding visualization. I roll right out of the grounding into the motions and breathing for the shielding.
While the sitting/standing position you ended the grounding ritual in take a deep breath through your mouth. Place your hands mid-level at your torso, palms facing out. As you slowly exhale through your mouth push your hands forward, visualizing yourself creating a space between you and the “outside” energies of the world around you.
Slowly spread your arms, bringing your hands behind your back to touch if possible. While doing this, imagine the space you created in front of you spreading to form a flat circle around you centered on your torso.
With your hands behind you, slowly drop your arms down toward your side in a long arc. Continue raising your arms in front of you, palms up. Continue the arc raising your arms up above you, and then behind your head. The motion you are making is like you are splashing water over your head. While doing this motion imagine the space you have created around you in a circle expanding upwards and downwards, in essence you are creating a three dimensional space between you and the “outside” energies of the world around you.
Bring your arms back down to your sides while feeling the space you’ve surrounded yourself in. Feel the edges of that space and imagine them firming up. For me, this has shown up as the outer edges of this spacing becoming like a hard shell - like a hard candy or a lacquered surface. Know that the center of this space is anchored in you, and this boundary you have created and reinforced will move with you.
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This is it for my first ritual post! Some may think it a little simple or obvious, but I couldn’t think of a better place to start than with how I literally start my day! Future ritual posts will explore things from hex-breaking to augmenting your activism with ancestor work.
