Lesson #3

Wiccan Pentacle & Grounding:
part 4

Centering

Centering can be thought of as separate from Grounding, but it's included in this lesson because it's one of the effects of a good Grounding. Also, every time you need to be Grounded, you’ll also need to be Centered.

Centering refers to any practice that brings your consciousness — your energy and awareness — back wholly within yourself:

• you return to your physical (and spiritual and energetic) core
• you return to inner equilibrium and Balance
• you return to harmony with Divine Resonance

Centering is a way of becoming fully present in the moment. It recalls all the threads of consciousness-energy that we as humans send out constantly.

Specifically: every thought, emotion, desire, aversion, pain, question, plan, goal, and concern you have, a thread of your consciousness is tied to it, and tied up in it! It's not free to put to any useful purpose. Your mind is, quite literally, scattered.

So Centering is a necessary preparatory step for any spiritual or energetic work.

What Does It Really Mean To Be Centred, Or Not?

Here's an example. Have you ever looked into a baby's eyes, one who's old enough to focus and look around? You can see they are fully there, inside themselves. Their whole self is looking out those eyes, and the eyes are bright and sparkling, their gaze soft and open.

Compare that to an older person's eyes, especially one who's been at their day job or some unpleasant activity, and it looks like nobody's really there, inside those eyes. Their eyes are dull and flat and hard, more like solid walls than windows.

Being 100% "behind your eyes" is being 100% in the present: you're not diverted by thinking about things, being caught in old feelings or habits and belief systems, planning for the future, or remembering the past. You're not protecting yourself from imagined pains or defending yourself or concerned with proving yourself right.

When you're Centered,
you're open to what's really going on,
within and around you,
right now.

You're fully connected
with reality in the present moment.

Benefits of Being Centred

Centering refocuses your mind, bringing all your scattered awarenesses together, in you, in this moment, in this place.

What are the benefits of this? Centering...

	Makes you whole inside
	Allows you full access to the incredible power of Consciousness, so you can engage with and affect your reality
	Employs your full awareness and allows you to focus, which empowers your intentions
	Best of all, brings you back to life!

We're in a kind of zombie state when we sleepwalk through life with half of ourselves scattered to past and future and desires and memories. The present moment is where life is — the only place you can find it.

This is where the Divine is always waiting to meet you. And that reconnection is a large part of why Centering makes us whole.

Centering is not exclusive to Wicca, but as with many energy practices, Wiccans are developing it to a fine art. Why? Because it's necessary for the way we connect with Spirit, and for ritual and magick.

In most cases, the Grounding you've just learnt is enough to Centre you as well. When you need something more, though, try the practice below.

How To Centre

Here's a fast and effective way to gather yourself and Centre.

	Start in your Spiritual Access Position: comfortable, relaxed, spine aligned and lifted.
	Breathing deeply and calmly from the belly. Grounded. Eyes gently closed.
	Become aware of your breath.
	Take three deep breaths, exhaling fully in between. Blow away, on your exhalations, any tension or shadow within you. (Often, this is enough to bring you back to Centre, especially with practice.)
	Now allow your breath to return to its natural rhythm.
	Imagine a sphere of light in the centre of your head, pure white light, spinning gently. This is the light of your consciousness.
	As it spins, it now calls back all the threads of energy and attention you have set loose in the world, winding them up like loose threads back onto a spool, drawing 100% of your consciousness back to itself.
	When you feel all the threads are collected, observe this ball of light. It's like a crystal sphere, ablaze with an interior pure-white flame.
	Now, as you exhale, allow this ball of light to slowly, gently settle lower. It drifts downward like a crystal dropped into a lake, settling slowly through the water to the lake bed.
	It moves all the way down to your Heart Centre (or even to your Power Centre, at your 2nd chakra), and it rests there. Your entire consciousness now resides peacefully and contentedly in your Heart Centre.
	Gently open your eyes. Keep a portion of your awareness on the light of consciousness in your heart as long as you can. And refresh this whenever you think of it.

A Note About Posture

We've talked a bit about posture already. At this point, when you're starting to do some of the actual spiritual practices, there's a bit more we should address.

In the West, we don't think much of posture. If our body is more or less vertical, we consider ourselves to be standing and think that's good enough!

In energetic terms, however, the position of the spine and the alignment of one part of the body to the others either enhances or restricts the flow of life force (energy, Prana, Chi). This has crucial impact on your organs, muscles, overall health, happiness, and vitality… not to mention your ability to be open to the Divine.

You can move energy most effectively and powerfully
when your body is strong and flexible,
healthy and energised,
aligned and balanced.

It's not a coincidence that all spiritual traditions which aim for personal connection with the Divine also require us to tend to our physical well-being.

Another point for proper posture is that when the head is forward of the body's centre-line, it engages the brain and the ego. This is counterproductive to any spiritual practice, and inhibits your ability to shift consciousness and do magick.

So when you are well-aligned physically, you are most open to energy flowing freely through you. You can access spiritual levels more easily. That's why posture is such a big part of the Spiritual Access Position (explained in the Introduction Lesson).

It's more challenging (if not impossible) to maintain good posture during ritual or meditation if it's something you're not used to. So it would greatly benefit your Wiccan practice to become more aware of your posture on a daily basis.

How to Improve Posture

I strongly recommend you use this and other professional assistance to help you find your correct posture, because most people try to improve by compensating for issues, rather than discovering what's at the root of the issue, and end up creating more problems.

For instance, when the head pushes or droops forward, many people try just pulling it back into place by muscular effort, not realising that the problem is actually dropped collarbones or lax core muscles or whatever. So they increase pressure on the spine and the muscles, which just creates a whole new set of problems.

And unless you've had regular chiropractic and massage (or similar) treatments, even if you regularly do yoga or somatics or what have you, it's likely that postural issues are caused or worsened by misalignment in the skeletal system or tension in the muscular system.

If that's the case, you need to address the actual problem, rather than try to cover it up.

You can get thorough how-to guidance on finding and creating good posture for your body (and how to use the Spiritual Working Position) in the e-book, A Natural Connection: Discover Your Animal Spirit Guides and What They Can Do For You.

Continue with Wiccan Pentacles
& Grounding

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