By: JANA GREENE
In my town, there is a little hippie-dippy church – open to all peoples, no matter their belief system – that hosts “healing nights” once a month. I like to go with my grown daughters when I can, and our eldest daughter accompanied me to the healing night last Wednesday.
Each “service” is different, but all of them would have been too spooky for my former evangelical self. There’s still a little fun-killing gremlin inside me that says, this is hokum! But the funny thing is that that little gremlin gets hushed like a kid in church when the yoga mat comes out, and I actually remember to breathe.
So we roll out our mats, and brought out the blankies we brought, in case it was cold in there. We pulled out our journals, as the teacher welcomed us all. What will it be tonight? We’ve done Spirit Animals, Reiki, even past life regressions.
These are all things that Evangelical Fundamentalist Me would have at the very least bristled at, and at worse, would have marched up to the altar in a fundie church until someone laid hands on me and “delivered me.” If you don’t know, deliverance ministry is… well, that’s a blog post for another time. I digress.
This session was Yoga Nidra, which – as the instructor described it – is the art of doing nothing. After some calming words, incense, and breathwork, we began. This guided meditation was about colors, he said. “I’m going to take you through the color wheel.”
We started with white. “Quiet your mind, and imagine the purest, cleanest white light you can.” So, after much intrusive, non-relaxing thoughts (where did I put my glasses? what about the state of our country? Are we out of laundry detergent?) I sank into the exercise.
The purest, brightest of white light was conjured by my desperate mind. I thought of Jesus emerging from the center of it, resplendent in white robes, arms outstretched. I thought of my wedding gown (which technically, is off-white,) and for some reason, meringue cookies. I was hungry, I guess.
Next was yellow. I visualized running barefoot through a field of daffodils. And then I focused on a big, ripe lemon. And the craziest thing was that I could almost taste the tartness. Then something unexpected. Something I have not thought about in at least forty years – a flower girl dress when I was little; festooned with little yellow sunflowers and gingham, a green ribbon tied in the back. Just like Holly Hobbie.
When we moved on to orange, I though of…an orange, because how original is that? I sunk back down in my mind and stopped trying to think.
Then I stopped trying to “conjure” visions. I guess I let my mind wander off-leash. You know how in a dog park, when a dog is released to run free within the confines of a fence? And when the leash comes off, they run batshit crazy all willy-nilly, not a care in the world? Yeah, like that. And a flood of imagines bombarded me.
Orange. Orange is the warmth of the sun at the beach, cheetohs, a threat level. I let it fill my mind – all the shades of orange. My breathing was steady. Hey, maybe there is something to this!
And red? The velvet pew cushions at the Baptist church my grandparents attended. Red is the blood in my body, tainted by leukemia. A rich red wave filled my mind, and I tried to think of something less traumatic. A nice cup of Red Zinger tea. I could smell the tang of it, feel the steam coming from it. It’s weird where your mind wanders, when you’re relaxed.
Purple? The sunrise over the ocean, if conditions are just right. Twice I have seen sunrises that are made of pinks, and yellows, and purples. If you are very valiant in war, you may receive a Purple Heart. I get purple bruises all the time. But I also imagined Tudor period dress in purple, laced in gold, as purple was for royalty, as indigo was at a premium. (Nerd thoughts of the history of indigo scribbled all over my nice little meditation.) Get back on track, Jana.
Blue. The sea, where I imagined floating in warm, salty water – turquoise waves moving me gently through ripples. The blue Froot Loops I used to pick out of the cereal to eat first, convinced they tasted best. And then I visualized sitting cross-legged in a field of bluebonnets in my beloved home state of Texas. “Yeah, but the last time you did that, you sat on an anthill in that field,” my brain whispered. Shush, I told it, going back to the field. No ants allowed in my vision, thank you very much.
I hung out there for quite a while. Felt like home.
My daughter and I melted into the floor, splayed out in relaxation. This isn’t hokum, I thought. This is as close to God as I have ever felt in a church. He is found in our imaginings and dreams. I think the hippies are onto something, ya’ll.
I’m sharing this because the experience blessed me, calmed me, comforted me. And God – always in our visions – can choose any number of ways to hang out with you, inhabit you. If I – with my wild anxiety and unfortunate neurosis – can let my mind wander off-leash, then maybe you can too? Maybe we are made for meditation, which I was warned about all my Christian life, but turns out to be a holy experience.
The church may be the “house of God,” but it’s not his only residence. He inhabits our thoughts, hears our prayers, and dare I say – invites us to explore our minds. Are our bodies not the temple of God? Our minds share in the divinity, but we go about or lives paying taxes, working, entertaining ourselves with empty pursuits just to pass the time here. But that’s not all we are here to do. If the body is a temple, the mind is the playroom.
With the introduction of each color that we were instructed to focus on, my senses participated in the practice as well. But those five senses we know in the flesh pale in comparison to the thing that’s truest about us.
The truest thing is that we holy already. We are holy. And we have been given these beautiful minds. Not to make an enemy of it (“lean not on your own understanding”) but to meet God in the Temple. The Holy Spirit lives in you, and not to condemn you, but to guide you through scary thoughts, and say, “You are already enough. Meet me at the playground, which is your mind! It’s colorful there.”
When my daughter and I got up to leave, incense hanging in the air, everyone seemed sleepy and contented, like a baby after the milk she has been screaming for. Most all of us were also smiling. Like having just had the best massage of our lives, our legs were noodley for a bit, hair just a little bit mussed, and a cacophony of yawns.
Because we allowed their minds to wander off-leash and go batshit crazy with the freedom that comes from exploring the beautiful mind God gave you. It’s okay to be all willy-nilly. It’s a colorful world, hons. Don’t let fundamentalism convince you that there is just black and white.
Blessed be.
Words by Jana Greene 
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