Contractions (and Turtles)...all the way down

So in Hindu mythology, the world rests on an elephant.  Or so I've been told.   And the elephant rests on a turtle.  And what does the turtle rest on?  We'll of course its turtles all the way down.

And when I think about it, the turtle is a contracted and shielded little (or sometimes big) fellow.  He is surrounded with that shell around him which really slows him down.  He (or she) is contracted in the sense of as if he (or she) has drawn into themselves to become rigid, shielded, armored.   I'm sure there are a ton more adjectives I can use.  Its almost like the turtle is the archetype of contraction.  While some sort of air creature or water creature would be the archetype of expansion.  

So what does all this have to do with me?  Well here I am walking through the forest on my daily route and often I notice that I'm cut off from the forest.  I'm in my own little mental world, not really feeling, hearing, seeing, or connecting to the forest.  Not really there.  And I wonder if my feeling of "not really being there" is like a shell around me that my turtleness has created.  

And in my meditation practice, can I feel the energy of this contraction?  The feeling of it, the sound of it, the hiss of it.  Maybe that's the inner reptile in me feeling the energy.  And there is nothing wrong with it.  Its a gift, right?  Its sacred.  The sacred hiss.  

So what society calls stress or contraction, i'm going to call my sacred reptile.  And the turtle will be my power animal.  Or at least my friend.:-)  

Early Morning Meditations Pt. 1

 Find the energy of the morning, internally or externally.  Is there something wanting to come in?  Something that wants focus?  Where is the physical sensation, is it in your body or outside?  Find the energy of the morning that wants to come in.  Find the thought--and specifically the belief that accompanies it.  

For example, the belief that something wants to come in and inhabit the body.  Something that wants to permeate it.  Then the belief that there should be relaxation and welcoming, not constriction and fear. Feel how the belief affects the energy.  Creates the energy.  Modifies the energy.  The subtle belief is highly probative.  

Can the subtle belief be subsumed into the perhaps more pervasive belief of turning the focus from the head to lower than the head.  Letting the experience of reality "come in" as opposed to radiating out with a thought form presumably from the mind. 

Can I find the core of this energy?  Then it becomes almost a practice of active imagination as the core of the sensation becomes a thought which becomes an energy moving to a different thought.  Perhaps a more expansive thought.  It opens up.   The belief opens up to experience.

I'm very interested in the early morning bike ride and the denzien of the house on 11th with the stobe light in the back upstairs window that I can see from my meditative perch high above and a half mile away.

Going back to mediation though, the belief of the trance is very powerful.  Finding the trance that allows the experience of the outside as opposed to the inside thought being projected out.