This phrase has taken on new meaning for me recently. To many of us it's always referred to zooming through a traffic signal that's morphing from yellow to red. Now, to me, Run the Light means something totally positive and invaluable. I Run the Light while meditating, while walking down the street, actually whenever it occurs to me to do it.
Running the Light is a precious tool because when we're upset, depressed, worried, anxious or just plain exhausted, the energy in our bodies contracts, and things are not easefully pulsing away in there with the harmony and balance that is native to our systems. If we're out of this orientation for long enough, we usually get sick. I'm sure this is coming up for me right now because during the holiday season I usually succumb to overwhelm and get laid low by some form of 'not feeling well'. The upside of this is it reminds me that I need to Run the Light. This year I've been fine and think it's because I'm automatically doing just that.
First and foremost, running the Light requires us to acknowledge that our bodies are energy systems. Just stop reading for a moment and notice your beating heart - notice your breathing - take an energetic deep breath and then exhale it slowly as if you were ever so gently blowing on a big candle to watch the flame flicker - begin to notice pulsations all through your body. As Deepak Chopra says: "Our bodies are rivers of energy." See if you can feel that. All the cells of our bodies are alive with energy. Feel a flow within you.
OK - so what is running the Light? I'm a heart person so my inclination is to go straight to the heart. In metaphysical terms, the chest cavity is referred to as the heart center. It makes sense because that's where our physical hearts are housed and where we feel love, joy, peace and gratitude and conversely, at times, profound sadness and grief. It is considered the gateway to our spirit. So I ask you right now to come with me - come home to your heart. Obviously, closing your eyes wouldn't be appropriate, but as you're reading, see if you can imagine taking your awareness gently down into your chest cavity. When I say gently I mean as if your awareness were a leaf wafting to the ground in autumn - that kind of float and ease. Allow yourself to come to rest in the center of your chest cavity in what seems to be a vast expanse of Light. This Light is dazzling bright, shimmering and glistening and there's a surprising calm in Its luminescence - you are enveloped in It and soothed by It. It's a very welcoming feeling. Stop reading for a moment and imagine that. Feel It. It really is home.
Now assign healing properties to this Light - that It is tender, compassionate Love (It is.) and then imagine that this wondrous Light is liquid Light and that It is easefully starting to run through your entire body. We've all seen enough graphics on film to imagine this for ourselves - healing Light bathing our lungs and rib cage, all our vital organs being embraced and suffused, liquid Light flowing easefully though our intestines, our sexual organs, our pelvic girdle, down our legs and into our feet. You're glowing with Light from within from your chest cavity to your feet.
Now bring your awareness, again gently, back to your heart center - and notice that the liquid Light is flowing up into your shoulders and down your arms into your hands. Then see and feel It in your throat and up your neck into your head - Light/Love compassionately easing and releasing the tensions, fears, doubts, worries - any dis-ease. Know that this Light can spread throughout the body in moments. As you become more attuned to It, you can see and feel It branching out from your heart center in every direction at once. This wondrous tree of Life/Light is streaming healing Light to every nook and cranny of you. This process can become the most natural thing in the world for us to do.
For millennia sacred teachings have told us of God being omnipresent - there is no place that God/Love is not. Running the Light is an acknowledgement of this Divine Presence being here constantly - in every cell, every atom, in every sub-atomic particle of us and everything else. This kind of surrendering to the Presence, which is our own innate healing ability, is the perfect antidote to the relentless, wearying and often destructive distractions of our daily lives. It's time to bless ourselves regularly with this Light - to remember and rejoice that It is ever-present with us - that we are one with It.
It goes without saying, that every time we engage this Light, we're raising the energy all around us and inadvertently blessing others. The next logical step then is to very consciously Run the Light to our beloveds, to anyone or any circumstance that is currently challenging us, to all beings on this planet, to Mother Earth and, ultimately, to the Universe. See all embraced in the Light - being soothed and healed by glorious Light.
As the New Year begins, let's make Run the Light a daily practice for ourselves. We can do it anywhere, anytime, though it's particularly delicious when we can sit or lie down and embrace stillness at the same time. It occurs to me now that maybe the yellow light morphing into red has real symbolic resonance here. Maybe, as 2009 commences, it's time to embrace Barack Obama's "audacity of hope" and move through whatever cautiousness stops us in our lives, and regularly Run the Light to the freedom, joy, fulfillment and vibrant well-being that are our birthright. Let's do that! Let's Run the Light!
