Guided Meditation
Earth and Sky
A daily practice for feeling steady in your body and connected to something larger, both at the same time.
This is a re-recording of one of the first meditations I ever made. It became one of my most listened-to tracks on Insight Timer, which felt like a good reason to give it a better version.
The practice itself is simple. You picture a clear white light entering through the crown of your head, settling slowly down through your face and your shoulders, your chest, your hips, all the way to the soles of your feet. Then a warm green energy rises up from the earth beneath you, taking the same path in reverse.
The two meet at the crown. Earth and sky at once. And for a few minutes you just rest there, steady underneath and open above, remembering that you’re not separate from the world around you.
Find somewhere comfortable and press play. I’ve left longer pauses than usual between the sections, so there’s room to feel what I’m describing rather than only hear it.
Listen to the meditation
One gentle note: meditation works best as a regular practice, not a one-off. A few minutes most days will do far more than an occasional longer session, so if it helps, let this become a small part of your daily rhythm.
If you’d like a next step
Building the habit is the hard part. The 21-Day Meditation Course gives you a short guided practice for each day of three weeks, so sitting down to it stops being a decision you have to make every morning.
What You’ll Experience
Steady underneath, open above.
Most of us move through the day slightly above our own bodies, thinking ahead, only half here. This brings you back down into yourself first, and then gives you a sense of belonging to something wider than your own week.
Arrive In Your Body
Follow the light slowly down from your crown to your feet, and actually land.
Draw Up From The Earth
Take in the steady green energy of the ground beneath you, all the way back up.
Find The Meeting Point
Rest where the two energies meet, supported below and open above at once.
Feel Less Separate
A few minutes of remembering you’re part of the world, not standing outside it.
Gentle Reflection
After listening, you might like to sit with these questions.
No need to answer them all. Choose the one that speaks to you, and see what comes up.
1. Where does my body feel most solid right now, and where does it feel least?
2. When did I last feel properly part of something bigger than my own day?
3. What might change if I began tomorrow from this place rather than from my phone?
When this meditation may help
Come back to it each morning, or whenever you feel adrift.
It works best as a daily habit, something you do before anything else asks for you. But it’s just as useful on the days when you feel oddly untethered and can’t quite say why.
Looking for something different today?
Every meditation in the library meets a different season of life, whether you need calm, better sleep, emotional healing, self-worth or simply a few quiet minutes to breathe.
Browse the Meditation LibraryQuestions people ask
How is this different from the original universal energies meditation?
It’s the same practice, re-recorded. The original was one of the first meditations I ever made and the audio shows its age. This version is slower, better recorded, and has longer pauses. The original is still on the site if you prefer it.
Do I need to believe in energy for this to work?
No. You can hold the white light and the earth energy as something real, or simply as images that help your attention move slowly through your body. Either way the practice does its job.
Why are the pauses so long?
They’re deliberate. If I talk the whole way through, you end up listening to me rather than noticing yourself. The pauses give you time to actually feel the light moving. It can feel odd for the first listen or two, then it settles.
Continue the Reflection
Sometimes a meditation isn’t the end of the conversation.
From The Library
Learning to Belong to the Life You Have
Healing isn’t always about getting the old life back. Sometimes this one becomes home.
Sometimes it’s the start of one. If today’s meditation has left you feeling a little more open, you might enjoy Book Quote Therapy, my literary companion site where books, poems, quotations and Literary Prescriptions are gathered for different seasons of life.
For this meditation, I’d point you towards these Literary Prescriptions:
Nature as Healer : for the steadiness that comes up out of the ground.
Awe : for sensing you’re part of something larger than your own day.
Rituals : for the small things we return to every morning.
All gentle companions for feeling a little steadier and less alone in it.
New here? You can also download the free Literary First Aid Kit, a gentle collection of books, poems and quotations organised by feeling.
Download the free Literary First Aid Kit →