Dedicant - The Two Powers Meditation

The first time I did the Two Powers meditation, I found it very similar to what I was already doing to ground and centre, but with some key differences:

* I would visualise myself standing with my back against Yggdrasil as opposed to essentially 'being the tree' myself.
* My 'roots' would follow the roots of Yggdrasil down and the 'water' they pulled up was experienced only as energy as opposed to having a temperature (cool) associated with it.
* My branches would reach up to the heavens and pull down energy from a non-specific source; this energy also had no further characteristics associated with it.

In comparison with my previous method, I now find the Two Powers meditation to be more refined and efficient.

The dark, primeval waters of life and creation that lie in the Earth are experienced as cool, and the energy of the stars is experienced as a warm, electric energy ( I always experience it more as a hot firey energy). We bring those energies into our bodies and let them combine, thus making ourselves a bridge.

In a sense, I feel we recreate the cosmos within ourselves, making ourselves the sacred centre. To my mind, this is what makes other excercises carried out in the 'Other', such as the 'Passing the Mist' exercise, not only possible but effective. I find a parallel there with the recreation of the cosmos and establishment of the sacred centre that allows us to stand in that place between that allows us communication with the Kindreds in ritual.

Another way in which the Two Powers is more efficient in comparison to what I did before, is that by making oneself the tree as opposed to standing back to the tree, rooted to the watery earth current and connected to the stars, you cannot help but be grounded and centred.

The first time I did the Two Powers meditation, not only did I feel grounded and centred, but I felt a 'generative' energy there as the cool water energy mingled with the hot fire energy, much in the same way that heat and water produces steam and steam can then be used to power engines. Since then, I have used the Two Powers meditation before ritual in order to not only ground and centre myself, but to call up/down energy to direct towards ritual.