Gift of Laniakea

If I could give you one gift before I leave this world, what I want most to share is the breath of Laniakea.

In the native Hawaiian language, Laniakea means "immense heaven." Astronomers adopted this word to name the super-cluster of over 100,000 galaxies in which our Milky Way is but a tiny dot. And within our little galactic spark swarm an estimated three hundred billion stars, our sun among them, the infinitesimal golden dust-mote that sustains the earth and the planets.

You might think that in all this radiance you are so small, almost nothing. But who is aware of that limitless abyss surrounding the farthest edges of time? You are. Even as you hear these words, do you not visualize those galaxies floating in unbounded black silence? Of course you do. Is your awareness of vast space not the very space of which it is aware?

Which means that the entire cosmos happens in your consciousness, and the swirling majesty of all creation Wordlessly bursts into the hologram you are, awakening a jewel in the core of your heart that cries, "I Am."

Now close your eyes and breathe in, feeling your attention rise up your spine like amrita, like sap, filling the hollow places in your body, all the way to the top of your skull. Rest here, in your fontanelle, where once the tender spot of infancy pulsated, before those bone gates closed to shut out the Infinite. Let the grace of inhalation soften it again. Gentleness is your birthright. This is the portal where a thousand angels come and go with every breath.

Now exhale, letting awareness soak like a gentle mist through your whole body, down to your sacrum, down to your toes. Let this breath of astonishment continue to rise and fall, up into your intergalactic crown, and down into the loam, ever so quietly refreshing each mushroom cell of you.

When you are ready, feel the Mother's lips touch the top of your skull. She is the Goddess who was at play with the Creator in the beginning of time (Proverbs 8:30). You may call her Shakti, Sophia, Shekinah, Holy Spirit, Chi Kwan Yin. Or simply let her be a nameless stream, the gracious pulse of pure Existence. But know beyond doubt or hesitation, that She who whirled the stars into chalices of golden nectar, has come to dwell in you as this very Breath.

When She touches your nape, don't you taste the sparkling wine that drips through the mala beads of your vertebrae? It is the vintage of Laniakea trickling down your spine, pouring her un-created radiance through your flesh, where it ferments into love, so that you too may be a breath-giver, illuminating the world around you, and greening the earth.

Are we not all exhalations of the Goddess? Are we not one breath in eight billion bodies?

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This meditation is reprinted in beautiful 'Braided Way Magazine' (LINK). Photo is a map of the Laniakea super-cluster. The red dot is our galaxy, the Milky Way.