Meditation: June 9th, 2025
The earth holds both the ecstasy of morning birdsong and the hollow ache of empty nests. In her embrace, we learn that joy and emptiness are not enemies but dance partners, instead.
Physical Setting & Preparation
Find a space where you can experience both fullness and emptiness simultaneously—perhaps a garden where blooms coexist with bare branches, or a room with both abundant light and deep shadows. Position yourself so you can feel contrast in your body: warm sunlight on one side, cool shadow on the other. Sit with your spine fluid and responsive, allowing your posture to shift between expansion and contraction as your breath naturally flows. Place one hand on your heart, one on your belly, feeling the rhythm of fullness and emptiness that governs all breath, all pulse, all life. Let your body become a vessel capable of holding both the intoxicating joy of summer's abundance and the profound hollowness that sometimes follows moments of peak experience.
Opening Invocation | Fosgladh
Màthair an Lionaidh agus na Falamhachd, gabh rinn
(Mother of Fullness and Emptiness, receive us)
In this day when June approaches her solstice height, I call upon the earth mother who knows intimately the dance between ecstasy and void. She who fills the cherry tree with blossoms only to watch petals fall like snow, who swells the river with spring melt then lets it dwindle to summer trickle, who births creatures into abundance and watches them return to dust.
Tha m' aoibhneas agus mo fhalamhachd naomh dhut
(My joy and my emptiness are sacred to you)
I feel both currents moving through me like opposing winds—the rising spiral of pure exhilaration that comes from being fully alive in this moment, paired with the strange hollowness that can follow even the most transcendent experiences. These are not contradictions but complementary aspects of the same deep truth: that all feelings arise and pass away like breath, like seasons, like waves on an endless shore.
The earth mother holds the ecstatic burst of seed germinating in perfect conditions alongside the hollow quiet of winter fields. Through my body, she teaches me that both states are necessary, both sacred, both expressions of the great mystery of consciousness moving through form.
Body of the Working | Corp
Tha m' aoibhneas mar reul a' deàrrsadh
(My joy is like a star shining)
In my chest, I feel the rising effervescence of pure aliveness—a bubbling, sparkling sensation like champagne made of starlight, like the earth's own intoxication with her own beauty. This ecstasy needs no reason, no object; it is simply the natural response of awareness to the miracle of existence itself. It fizzes through my bloodstream like carbonated sunlight, making my skin tingle with the same electricity that charges storm clouds.
This joy is wild and unreasonable—the same force that makes flowers bloom with outrageous beauty, that fills birds with such song they seem ready to burst, that drives waves to crash with such exuberant power they shake the very foundations of stone cliffs. It pulses through me like the earth's own heartbeat, reminding me that I am not separate from this wild celebration of being but am this celebration, temporarily experiencing itself through human form.
Tha mo fhalamhachd mar loch domhain
(My emptiness is like a deep lake)
Yet even as this ecstasy builds, I feel its twin—a profound hollowness that opens like a cavern in my belly, like the mysterious depths beneath mountain lakes. This is not the emptiness of depression but something far more mysterious: the sacred void from which all experiences arise and into which they return, the pregnant darkness that exists between thoughts, between breaths, between heartbeats.
This emptiness is not lacking but complete, not broken but whole in a way that defies understanding. It is the silence that makes music possible, the space that gives shape to all forms, the darkness that makes light visible. Through my body, I feel how this void is not the opposite of fullness but its secret source—the infinite potential from which all joy emerges and to which it inevitably returns.
Tha iad ag dannsadh còmhla nam chridhe
(They are dancing together in my heart)
In my heart-space, these two currents meet and merge like ocean tides, creating a dynamic spiral that generates its own electromagnetic field. The ecstasy gives the emptiness movement and color; the emptiness gives the ecstasy depth and foundation. Together, they create what can only be called the texture of being fully alive—not a flat, single note but a complex harmony that includes all possibilities.
I feel my body as a living mandala where these energies trace their eternal patterns—joy rising like sap in spring, emptiness settling like snow in winter, both essential to the earth's own seasonal breathing. My flesh becomes the landscape where these forces play out their ancient dance, my bones the stable foundation that allows such fluid movement.
The Deep Working | An Obair Dhomhain
Anns a' mheadhan, tha an diomhaireachd
(In the center, there is the mystery)
I sink now into the earth mother's deepest teaching ground—the place where ecstasy and emptiness reveal themselves as two faces of the same coin, two movements in the same eternal dance. Here, in the core of being, I discover that what I thought were opposite states are actually the same energy experienced from different angles.
The earth mother shows me how her greatest moments of creative ecstasy—the explosion of spring growth, the wild abundance of summer, the intoxicating beauty of autumn color—are always followed by the profound rest of winter, the emptiness that allows new dreams to germinate in darkness. Neither state is better than the other; both are necessary movements in the spiral of creation.
Tha mi ag tuigsinn nach eil dealachadh ann
(I am understanding there is no separation)
In this depth, I realize that my human experience of alternating between joy and hollowness mirrors the earth's own breathing—the inhalation of spring and summer abundance, the exhalation of autumn and winter release. I am not separate from this planetary rhythm but am this rhythm expressing itself through individual consciousness.
The ecstasy I feel is the earth celebrating her own aliveness through my nervous system; the emptiness I experience is her own deep rest and renewal flowing through my awareness. Both are forms of love—exuberant love that dances and sings, quiet love that simply holds space for all possibilities to emerge.
Tha mi air mo dhèanamh den aon stuth ris an talamh
(I am made of the same substance as the earth)
My boundaries dissolve completely now, and I experience directly what the earth herself knows: that fullness and emptiness are not states to be achieved or avoided but the very fabric of existence itself. I am the bubble of joy rising from underground springs and the cave of silence that holds ancient waters; I am the celebration and the rest, the song and the silence between notes.
Through this dissolution, healing flows not as the resolution of opposites but as the recognition that I am the space in which all opposites dance. The earth mother's healing touch teaches me that wellness is not a constant state but a dynamic fluidity, the capacity to flow gracefully between ecstasy and void as life requires.
Afterthought | Smuain Dheiridh
Carson a tha feum againn air an dà thaobh den bheatha?
(Why do we need both sides of life?)
Take a moment to contemplate: How might your capacity to experience both profound joy and sacred emptiness be essential to your full humanity? In what ways does the alternation between these states—like the earth's own seasonal rhythms—serve not just your personal growth but the larger web of life of which you are a part?
Closing Blessing | Beannachd Dheiridh
Màthair na h-Iomlanachd, tapadh leibh airson gach pàirt
(Mother of Wholeness, thank you for every part)
As I return to ordinary awareness, I carry with me the earth mother's profound teaching: that both ecstasy and emptiness are gifts, both necessary expressions of the life force that flows through all beings. Like the earth herself, who moves gracefully between seasons of abundance and seasons of rest, I am complete in my capacity to experience the full spectrum of being.
Bidh mi a' gabhail ris a h-uile faireachdainn
(I will accept every feeling)
The earth continues her eternal dance between fullness and void—spring's explosion followed by winter's quiet, the ocean's waves followed by tidal pools' stillness, the mountain's peak paired with the valley's embrace. May I remember that I am not outside this dance but am this dance expressing itself through human consciousness, perfect in my own rhythm of joy and emptiness.
Aoibhneas agus falamhachd, araon annam fhìn
(Joy and emptiness, both within myself)