Sally Kempton’s “Circle of Light” Meditation

Welcome to our daily meditation and to the creation of our Circle of Light. 

Please take a moment to find a comfortable, upright posture. Inhaling, feel the hips and buttocks becoming heavy and sinking into the seat. Exhaling, feel the spinal column elongating upward through the crown.

Your shoulders release onto the back, your head rises as if held by a thread from the ceiling. Your chest lifts and opens.

Focus for a moment on the simple flow of breath, cool on the inhalation, warm on the exhalation. Your face is soft. Your belly is soft. Your shoulders drop. Now, begin to sense the breath flowing directly into the heart. You might feel as though there is an opening or softening in the chest wall, so that the breath, like a caress, can touch and open your heart.

Be aware of the network of hearts meditating at this moment. Allow yourself to feel part of this golden current of love and care for our world. 

Now, take a moment to form an intention. How do you want the future to look? Can you imagine a world where there is genuine equality of opportunity? Where our social systems support us? Where there is fundamental trust between people, where our institutions act for the greatest good? Going farther, can you see a world in which humans recognize the truth that we are all part of a single tapestry, that we are all sacred, and that each one of us has the power to live from a divine core? Can we imagine a world in which we protect nature, and recognize the rights of all living creatures and of the earth itself? A world in which we all recognize that behind the forms of this world is the shimmer of light and the shimmer of love?

Today, at this moment, what is the brightest future you can conceive? Create that intention for this moment. It doesn’t have to be the same vision you had yesterday. But let it be a vision fully expressing your love, beauty, and wisdom. 

From the heart, feel that your intention fills the space of the heart. Feel that the inner heart is filled with the energy of light, irradiating your intention and filling you with loving light energy.

Now, imagine that your intention is reality. Feel that your intention, carried by the light, filled with radiance, is spreading from within you and irradiating your entire body. Sense that light softly flowing from your body to fill the space around you. Then the room. Now have the feeling that this light flows in waves from within your heart to the entire neighborhood. Now be aware that all around the globe there are others who are holding this same light in their hearts. Feel that the loving sacred intentions of all these beings are joining, and that together we are offering light and loving kindness into the field of this planet. Sense this light flowing through our cities. Feel it penetrating the corridors of our government buildings. Feel that light flowing into the homes of people of people all through your region of the world. sense this light filling the trees and the buildings. Feel it softening and inspiring everyone and everything it touches.

Inhaling, draw your intention for light and love into your own body. Exhaling, feel it spreading softly from your heart into the world. Imagine the people you love filled with light. Imagine people you distrust or reject being filled with the light. Imagine that where there is fear and unhappiness and cruelty, this light dispels fear and pain. Imagine that people all over the world look into each other’s eyes and recognize our shared humanity. See how naturally the light interpenetrates the stuck parts of each one of us, and turns our confusion into clarity, our suspicion into trust, our fear into the willingness to love.

Meditate on the illumination of the world.