The popular distinction between prayer and meditation is that prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening to God, that universal force that perpetuates life. We know that in real world communication models, both skills are necessary.for progress in relationships. While we are encouraged by our traditional religious traditions to pray, in the West we place little if any emphasis has been placed on meditation and usually look to Eastern customs when we seeking a deeper dialogue with the Eternal. However, if we look more closely we will find examples in Western religion and in the culturally transmitted stories that parallel those beliefs, fairy tales. From Rapunzel locked in the tower and Sleeping Beauty separated from the world by thorny bushes during her long sleep to the created fairy tale-like fiction of Dorothy Gale in the Wizard of Oz, we see not only the receptivity to spirit through meditation, but thefemale characters taking the lead in meditative practice, surely a model of the Divine Feminine.
First let’s establish that Biblically, we do find the active of meditative practice as opposed to group worship by reserving sacred solitude for communication with Spirit. Matthew instructs followers to pray from their “inner” or ‘private room,” with other translations using the word “closet.” In Gethsmane, Jesus told his disciples to wait for him while he went off to pray in private. In Acts Peter sent others out of the room then got down on his knees and prayed alone. We know that the major distinctive characteristic of the Jesus followers was the equal inclusion of women in his ministry as students and participants, so it would not be a stray assumption to know that the meditation encouragement included those women.
Reaching the Divine by going within is further expressed when people are directed “not to look externally for God because God “is in your midst” “, behold, the kingdom of God iswithin you. within you” (Luke 17:21). As our fairy tales parallel the morality of Western religion, we fine one example after another of the transformation that follows solitude. In the Wizard of Oz, this becomes Dorothy’s struggle from the onset: isolated from home and family by her values alone (protecting her guide, Toto), having to combat the Wicked Witch of the West, feeling desperately homeless and powerless, and regaining her power after her isolation.
Even the most practical,self-defined, non spritiual people will call out to God in their most desperate moments, which is where we see Dorothy’s solitary prayer and repentance; it was forced upon her through capture but quite effective. Imprisoned and isolated in the witch’s castle, watching her end measured by red sands in an hour glass, she envisions her Auntie Em in the crystal ball, calling out to her. The solitude, despair, call for help, and crystal enables remote viewing, a meditative skill. This is the one time Dorothy is truly alone and forced to go within for higher assistance, as Glinda is unable to penetrate this dark fortress Even Toto, her soul mate and perpetual guide, has been carried away in a basket by one of the winged monkeys, so she is without her greatest love and companion, left with nothing to rely on but her own inner resources, her soul, her link to the Divine. Responding to her circumstances in what can be described as her cry in the wilderness, she confronts her fears so that she can conquer them. “I’m frightened, Auntie Em……I’m frightened.” She plunges into her core to find and overcome her darkest fears and in doing so, establishes telepathic contact even if just for a moment.
All telepathy and intuitive work is based on the principle of energy. Everything distills to energy: our thoughts, feelings, and as Einstein taught, all matter. By acquainting ourselves with our own inner energy we strengthen our vision and begin seeing the parts of ourselves we need to change. From there we advance, transcending the physical limitations of our bodies. We activate our upper chakras to transmit and receive energy at these subtle levels, and we transform like the fairy tale heroine on the road to ascension.
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