Elemental Movement Meditation

I’ve been practicing what I preach this morning with an elemental movement meditation. I learnt about this on the creative arts therapies course I’ve been doing for the last year and recently completed! Now the studying has finished, I have more time and energy to put into practicing some of the things I have been learning. An ‘elemental movement meditation,’ combines intuitive movement (which is listening to your feelings and body and moving however you feel like in that moment), and a meditation on the different elements whilst listening to/moving to music that evokes those different elements.

I felt a little self-conscious at first, and the dog stared at me like I’d gone mad! But she soon realised my strange movements were not anything to be worried about and I settled into it too. Music that evoked feelings and images of the earth were first, followed by water, fire, air and ether or spirit. My movements began by being quite slow and low to the ground – ‘grounding’ being a good word to use here because it was grounding to imagine myself connecting with the earth through my movements. Water, as you might imagine, evoked more fluid, flowing movements, whilst fire moved me to stronger, ‘sparky’ movements, like sparks as they fly from the fire or a sparkler. With air, I became much slower in my movements, seeing how slowly I could actually move. With ether, or spirit, I placed my hands on my heart and swayed gently, bringing my attention to myself and beginning to wind down and rest as I reached the end of the exercise. Throughout the exercise I was able to flow with the music and move in whatever way felt right for me and my body in that moment. As time went on, my mind focused more and more on the element I was ‘being’ and I felt I was really able to let go and be in the moment, and lose myself in the movement, music and my imagination.

I ended the movement meditation with a sitting meditation, focusing on my breath and inviting in reiki energy and healing from my spirit guides and angelic helpers (this is of course optional, and I appreciate not everyone believes in this), and it was very relaxing. I thanked my body for all it does for me and thanked myself for this opportunity to move and relax.

You might think that this exercise, which lasted around 45 minutes today, might be quite exhausting but it wasn’t (I was surprised too!). I’m not the fittest person but I just moved gently and did not push my body to move energetically or in any way that caused me pain. I actually feel really relaxed now and I feel refreshed, as if I have moved stale energies and emotions out of my body by moving around.