I’m not sure why it’s not part of everyone’s regular practice, but somehow grounding and creating sacred space before doing meditation or ceremonial work got lost for quite a few spiritual practices and groups over the past couple of hundred years. Students look at me funny when I say they need to get grounded before they work with the Akashics. That’s something you do after, right? Nope, before. Because how can you truly focus and do your best work if you aren’t solidly in your body and aware of your self? Grounding helps you get rid of all the ‘busyness’ of the day and all the thoughts buzzing around in your head about tomorrow. It allows you to let go of the doingness of things and the worries about what hasn’t happened yet and what is to come. It brings you into the present.
Sacred space is the other half of that coin. Setting up a space where you can work is like starting the car engine before you decide to drive somewhere. I mean, you could push the car with the driver side door open and steering with the wheel, but why would you bother putting that much effort into it to get nothing in return. Make the car work for you. Setting up sacred space allows you to work in the Akashics with the aided push of the world around you and in you. You don’t have to use your own internal resources, you don’t have to struggle just to get there and stay there, at least as much as you would otherwise, and it does healing work for you while you are working. Double your fun and your reward.
Setting up sacred space takes as many forms as there are spiritual practices. You can form a space using salt or cornmeal or dry rice on the floor. You can make a room sacred space using incense or sage. You can tone or drum a space an existing space or use prayer ties or prayer flags or stones to mark out a space. Whatever method you use, use it regularly. The more you consecrate it with use, the more facile you become at using sacred space and the more sacred the space becomes. Like an athlete, the more you do something, the better you get at it.
So ground yourself to bring all the scattered bits of you back to your center and create sacred space to start the car so you can reach your destination in style and with ease. And when you get back, you’ll feel refreshed and peaceful and rejuvenated instead of spacy and hyper and unable to function. Because the point isn’t to ‘get out there’ but to bring back wisdom to live here.