Waking Energy 7 Timeless Practices Designed to Reboot Your Body and Unleash Your Potential

to be anointed by the highest star and heaven energy, and letting Mother Earth rise up to meet you,
infusing your body and soul with her healing pulse, a heartbeat running through your veins,
flooding your heart with love.
18. With your hands in Open-Heart Mudra, return to the intention that you set at the beginning of the
practice. Practice metta, loving-kindness, toward the self now by saying the following words:
“May I be healthy, happy, strong, safe, and free. May all beings everywhere be healthy, happy,
strong, safe, and free. May the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life and my own loving
heart contribute to happiness and freedom from suffering for all.” Inhale love and exhale
gratitude for the bounty that is your life—all that you have to be thankful for, all that you cherish
and hold dear. Breathe this love and gratitude in and out for several breaths.
19. Now bring your palms to touch in Prayer Position and silently repeat, “Namaste. The divine in
me sees and honors the divine light within me, and sees and salutes the divine light in you.”
20. Bow the head to the heart, with your forehead lightly meeting your fingertips, to seal your
intention. Then offer your intention to the universe, where it will be made manifest, by chanting
the earth’s perfect song as an act of highest love and light . . . “A-U-M, Ommmmm.”
Walking Meditation: The Labyrinth
Self is everywhere, shining forth from all beings, vaster than the vast, subtler than the most subtle,
unreachable, yet nearer than breath, than heartbeat. Eye cannot see it, ear cannot hear it nor
tongue utter it; only in deep absorption can the mind, grown pure and silent, merge with the
formless truth. He who finds it is free; he has found himself; he has solved the great riddle; his
heart is forever at peace. Whole, he enters the Whole. His personal self returns to its radiant,
intimate, deathless source.
—THIRD MUNDAKA UPANISHAD
Although sitting is the most widely used posture for meditation, you can also take your stillness
practice on the road. With walking meditation, you can move your mindfulness practice into your feet
and legs, so that as your body takes on a tranquil gait, you still your mind. Your feet are moving ever
so slowly and deliberately, deeply connecting to the earth, and your upper body is serenely going
along for the ride on top, reaching closer to heaven, as you walk the path to the innermost you.
With its complicated, mazelike route, always returning on itself and circling around to reach the
center, a labyrinth that we can walk for the purpose of prayer or meditation is a perfect representation
of the voyage we have taken inside our bodies as we’ve integrated the wisdom of the ages. When you
walk a labyrinth, you are stepping onto a clearly delineated path that offers you freedom to explore
and expand, to sing your song of songs. It is through rituals such as these, acts of honoring and loving
ourselves, that we can find the greatest freedom and expansion in our lives. Walking a labyrinth is
what I imagine happens after death, when we get to float on a carpet of stars, the Milky Way itself,
stretching out infinitely, like a diaphanous ribbon, the real-life equivalent of Stevie Wonder’s song
“Ribbon in the Sky.”