Winter Solstice Meditation: The moment the burden is lifted

Imagine… you are standing at the foot of a Pyramid, 10 stories high, the sun just breaking the horizon behind you at the start of day. It’s been a long winter. The conditions have been harsh and unforgiving. Long nights have passed in which the starkness of the landscape and the indifference of the elements have nearly broken your spirit. To survive the seemingly endless night, you have looked inwards to seek out the eternal light within. Some days you found it. Others days you did not.

But the days have been getting longer, and the nights more welcoming. The sterility of the season is occasionally impregnated by the wafting scent of early blooms, and the heavy blanket of winter begins to lift.

On this day, the Spring Equinox, you have gathered with all the members of your tribe to witness the dawning light as it snakes it’s way up the steps of the Pyramid, announcing the Birth of Spring. You take a breath. You relax your shoulders. Your heart opens. Your spirit lifts. It is yet another new beginning.

We celebrate the Spring Equinox with a sound bath focused on the moment the burden is lifted.

We carry a lot of burdens in this lifetime. There are the day to day stresses of modern living, the inevitable losses and wounds of human existence, and the weight of the collective consciousness that binds us to the suffering of all living beings, and the generations of beings that came before us. It can be a lot for a Wednesday morning.

But there is also the moment when the burden lifts. We have all felt it at one time or another. Maybe it’s the first good laugh after a period of mourning. Maybe it’s the warmth of a hot shower after a long day spent in the cold. Maybe it’s the comfort of seeing loved ones after a time apart.

That moment is the same moment we have in a meditation — whether we are seated quietly on a cushion, taking a walk in a forest, mindfully washing the dishes, or lying down in a sound bath — when we notice the mind has wandered and we come back to ourselves. We come back to the breath. We come back to the sound of the birds, or the music of the singing bowls. We come back to sensations of the body, or the vibration we feel as the bowls resonate with every cell that makes up this human form. We come back, and the burden is lifted.