Journal Prompt: What have you observed is a cycle you go through when you sit? What are some of the things that have passed through your mind in the five minutes?

Are there times of day, moments in a routine, places that you find the most comfort, ease, or traction for this practice?

If left to my joy, I will meditate outside. I like the sound of wind, and the things that are of it. Gravitate to places with subtle bell or chime tones. Though most of the time it is in my room out of concerns around time. I sit in the middle of my room, on a pillow, in half lotus. This process was slow, but the more I sat in half lotus the less difficult it became and now I work on sitting full lotus though this is a personal ambition and not something that I believe is a goal other people should have by default. I have noticed though, that my posture is at its most supported in this position which is partially why I want to become adept at it. Sitting in any other way I find that my shoulders naturally curve over my chest, and I hunch.

I constructed a loft bed with a small seating area specifically for meditating in the morning, though I usually have to use the restroom in the morning and so it’s more of a night-nook for the evening sit. It feels really good though to have this physical anchor that I can build into my routine.

Journal Prompt: What did you notice about your first day of a 5 minute meditation? Free write a paragraph, or even just a list about this.

What is your intention with this practice? What draws you to meditate? If there were something you wanted to dedicate yourself to at the beginning of each meditation, what would it be? What are you committed to working towards?

Blessed Aquarius New Moon! And welcome to the Aquarius Cycle of the 5 Minute Meditation Series. This is as a very simple series of meditation videos, supported with some journal writing on your end, blog posts and occasionally 5 minute video interviews with people about meditation and related topics. I am keeping my astrological downloads to a concentrated few posts, but this is a super beautiful time to begin a practice. Especially on this New Moon that will be the first Aquarius New Moon co-present with Pluto, in 287 years.

A little about me: I am an astrologer of 15+ years. I have read over a thousand people, and am currently writing a book on the topic. Meditation is a huge piece of my practice, and the 5 minute meditation “challenge” is what helped me actually create a routine and relationship to sitting that I have been able to grow. I try to go to beautiful places in California as well as casual places within a days drive of my home town San Francisco, believing that the energy of the places that the videos are made in are also energetically accessible to anybody participating in the sit even if we are separated by space and time. I also believe that whether we all know one another or not, we form a kind of entangled community of 5 minute meditators, which if we take Rupert Sheldrake’s ideas around morphic resonance and apply them to this, would also make this process more vibey with friends. We curretly have 25 people vibing. :).

PROCESS

If you don’t already have a protocol for meditation, I will offer up what I’ve been given. Sit, or lay down, make sure you are comfortable. Use headphones if you have them, otherwise just turn up the volume on the video. A bell with begin and end each session. For five minutes, bring your attention to your breathing, on the sounds of the room, and on the fact that thoughts will come - and pass. Use the experiences relayed to you by your senses as a grounding mechanism. When I find myself really intensely thinking I will step back, and imagine putting something that represents my thought into a basket that floats away.

I typically sit with my right hand laying on top of my left, with my thumb tips touching (I have heard with the thumbnails touching, but I don’t get too finicky about this). I have heard that if you identify more with femme energy to reverse which hand is on the bottom. Another hand posture or mudra, is to lay them out over the knees, palms up, with the thumb and index finger touching.

Some Thoughts I’m Using As Topics Covered In Future Blog Posts

• Starting is the hardest part, but you can do anything for 5 minutes

• Consistently doing something everyday for 30 days has been clinically shown to build new neural pathways that make it a habit. Once you have a habit, you have a tool.

• We are using astrology, and the power of the moon cycles to establish new habits, and support the generation of these new neural pathways.

• Mirror Neurons: Seeing someone else do something automatically creates the space for you to do it, and makes it easier.

• Entanglement: Sitting with intention, with others, even if separated by space or time, creates something akin to a “Quantum Field.” We end up in something of a cohort, and use this collective intention to impel our practices forward. It is another piece in a large stack of small things which together make for large results.

• I treat this practice as ritual, and homeopathic - it is an innocuously small effort which can have big effects. Consciousness organizes matter around us. My “prescription” if you can call it that is based on my own journey - I can’t really offer anything but that. After 11 months of meditating for 5 and 10 minutes per day, I eventually went on a meditation retreat. At some point in the next year, that is the goal, to offer the same.

• These videos are deceptively simple. Even if you don’t use them directly as a lattice for your practice, try to at least use them as a reminder to set up your own meditation. Sitting through annoyance, through boredom, through apathy - just like you can do anything for 5 minutes you can do anything for five minutes, 30 days in a row. In my experience, going through the emotions of being committed to the practice - of which for me there were alot - is part of a restructuring process. Bringing consciousness to these feelings can be transformative, and allow the release of the blockages which they create.

• Saturn conjunct Neptune will crown the whole Saturn moving through Pisces moment, and it is in this moment that meditation can shift power, can shift the literal structures of the world. The programming, the dna, of our collective resonance is something that I believe is especially malleable right now. This makes the practice of sitting all the more relevant to the creation of a world that supports and uplifts us.

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Welcome to the Aquarius Cycle.

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