“I don’t know how you sit there and think about nothing, I can’t do it” were my husband’s words as I came into the room after meditating.

This is a common misconception about meditation. Yes, sometimes meditation is thinking about nothing and waiting to see what develops in your mind, but more often than not it is (and should be) quiet contemplation of a topic or focal point in order to gain understanding on a level deeper than the logical, academic surface.

Taking an easy example, most practitioners know the correspondences for the element of Fire.

Fire is hot and dry, the element operating at the center of all things, masculine, projective, red, south, noon, wand or athame, Mars, Aries/Leo/Sagittarius, inspiring, destructive, energetic, martial, rage, etc.

This short list of the correspondences of Fire is only academic knowledge, it is not understanding of the meaning behind the correspondences or why these things are associated with Fire.

What would happen if the Fire glyph (an upward pointing triangle, usually colored red) was used as the focus for meditation? Would the links that bind the correspondences of Fire begin to make themselves apparent? Would new associations enter the mind? Would the energy of the element fill the mind, body and spirit?

Not only does focused meditation offer an opportunity to deepen academic knowledge, it also makes meditation much easier by giving the brain something to think about, something on which to concentrate.

Exercise: Focused Meditation (Links to the focused med. exercise in my own Book of Light, so you are leaving the blog, but you’re not leaving me :D )

Meditating on the same concept, symbol or image repeatedly is common and often necessary to gain the greatest understanding. As we advance along our paths, new experiences and knowledge can be brought to the same old meditation that will enhance and deepen even further our understanding of the most basic concepts.