Getting Their Wings

I once heard a beautiful guided meditation that goes like this:

"You are called to enter a forest - a very dark and scary place.  Even though you're really frightened, the trees and birds are beckoning.  So you go in.  You are in bare feet and the branches are touching your face and the leaves are wet and slippery on the ground but you must go on and somehow you know you can.  The most fearsome snakes slither by but you keep going and going somehow knowing that you can.  And then you see light in the distance.  As you approach, you see that it's bright and it's shining over a sparkling calm lake.  There's a small boat with a sail at the edge moored in the sand.  You know you can't sail the boat but you get in anyway.  Magically the wind lifts the sail and you're out on the calm, sparkling water bathed in sunshine and looking towards the opposite shore.  What is it?  Who is it?  Why, it's everyone you've ever known shouting, cheering, clapping and screaming "You can do it! Hooray!"  Everyone is there - your entire family, aunts, uncles, classmates, former employers, people you met on the subway, everyone who's ever touched your life - all laughing and patting you on the back, welcoming you as you arrive.  But soon the group parts, showing you a path to continue on.  It leads to the most beautiful cottage - the most incredible place you've ever seen.  Inside is everything you could possibly imagine - all set out for you.  On the wall is a safe and somehow you know the combination.  Inside is a small chest which you take with you and sit by the fire.  You open it and in the chest is the light - the all-knowing, eternal radiance, all-loving, perfection, serenity, only thing that ever mattered and ever will.  You are filled with remembering.  You are filled with the knowledge of your own true original self.
You close the lid and return the chest to the safe - knowing it will always be there for you.  The crowds cheer you back to your little craft and you make your way across the lake, through the forest, back to your life."

This meditation is to honour all the family members and all the people that touched the lives of two Sunflower Sisters who got their wings on New Years Day 2012.  May you know that even though the forest is scary - you can do it - and that the light is always, always there for you - you only have to remember.