Category: meditation

Coming Soon: Festival Stories

~ Chelsea Lynn ~ Leave a comment

My latest project is a collection of festival stories that take a fun and, sometimes, frightening journey into the fringe! All the stories are based on my true, lived experience. I’ve been compiling these for a few years, and I’m loving the way they’re coming together as a whole. I can’t wait to share some of these wild writings with you!

This collection is my second, coming after Varanasi Sage, which is comprised of true stories that honor our sacred existence and the ordinary miracles manifesting on earth. Varanasi Sage is available in audiobook, paperback, and ebook. Click here for more info!

Photo by JPZ Image

The Waters Who Raised Me

~ Chelsea Lynn ~ 2 Comments

I appear at her door with footsteps speaking homesick words

And pour world-weary troubles into her waves.

Longing for innocent longing.

She sings to me, just as she used to —

Soothing indifference, pulling my words into her crashing whirlpool,

Sweeping them out with her undertow

Tumbling and polishing them with salt and sand.

And in the space of my empty wordlessness —

She keeps my polished rock words and gives me her song.

✨ New Audiobook Now Available on Audible! ✨

~ Chelsea Lynn ~ 2 Comments

✨It’s here!✨

After months of recording and fine-tuning the words, the Varanasi Sage audiobook is now available on Audible! Varanasi Sage is a series of vignettes that describe the deep connection we can feel with nature and celebrates the ordinary miracles of everyday life. Click here to check it out!

“Walk through nature’s bounty in lyrical, nonfiction prose. Each sensory, rich, hypnotic step illuminates time and place, navigating nature’s creation in contrast to man’s destruction. Written in a series of vignettes, Varanasi Sage honors our sacred existence and ancestral communications through the unseen power that connects all. Varanasi Sage explores life, death, and the ordinary miracles manifesting on earth. Journey the depths of self-discovery to find the truest self, connected and whole.”

Soon, it’ll also be on iTunes!

If you want a quick sample, click play on the icon below to hear one of my favorite chapters, A Call to Vision.

Children of the Earth and Sky

~ Chelsea Lynn ~ Leave a comment

North out of Yellowstone, a two-lane road snaked along the hillside and next to a dark blue-green river, white ripples cascading from rocks. Around a bend, traffic slowed to a stop and go. I pressed and released the break with patience born from heart full of bison, caribou, and mineral pools. 

Onto a straightaway, we saw a bull elk down river, and knew the traffic jam was for him. 

As we neared, we found a crowd of people only tamed by the limited parking area. We got lucky. A car put on its reverse lights as we approached. And just like the others, we left our car with camera in hand to admire and immortalize the stag in our memory.

As we focused on the bull, a man excitedly approached us to point and say, “this is the most incredible thing. There’s a mom over there and baby in the grass!”

The mother relaxed close to the river, her golden back to the crowd, wanting to enjoy the view, but her ears turned back, knowing humans could not be trusted. We walked a few steps further to find the baby behind tall grass. It stood facing us, its innocent eyes on us. Nervous, yet unafraid, knowing its father stood behind in the river, his robust, spearlike antlers facing the crowd. Ready if necessary, keeping an eye toward us as he lowered his mouth to drink.

Listening to the river and tuning out the crowd’s chatter, I remembered the last time — the first time — I found myself in the presence of elk. At an empty campsite on a rocky creek in Oregon, in the cool morning just after dawn, I walked through the mist. Moisture hung low to the earth to make the lush ferns mysterious and magical. I had left my camera in the tent, having taken many pictures the day before. I wanted to lose myself on the winding trail that followed along the creek, beneath trees adorned with moss. As I bathed in the forest, I saw a family of elk drinking. Two cows, a bull, and a few calfs. I stopped, obscuring myself behind a tree, in awe of their elusive nobility. After a few breaths, I stepped around the tree and towards the creek to get closer. They each stopped drinking to watch me. Having their peace disturbed, they backed away into the forest and mist.

We returned to the road leaving Yellowstone after taking our pictures and enjoying the elk. We drove to a campsite nestled between hills. We walked beside a meadow while the sky turned pink and purple, passing deer who leaped as we neared. 

The next morning, we woke early, broke camp and continued north to Glacier. A haze had settled in over night. North of Bozeman, forcing us to abandon our plans, the air grew thick and brown. 

Smoke from Oregon. Forests burning. Flames intensified by human-created climate change, taking the moss, ferns, trees, insects, and wildlife — the elk. 

Under the smoke, my heart burned along with my relations, children of the earth and sky.

My Grandfather’s Sky

~ Chelsea Lynn ~ 7 Comments

Hills that beg you to keep seeking the other side. A sky that calls you to fly up and above to the mountains of your dreams. My Grandfather, who I never met, grew among the grasses and hills, the deer and moose and grizzly, and under that sky who called. 

In the vast open space, I understood — I knew him — at last. I understood why he escaped his crib and ran down the dirt road again and again. And why, even though his parents put him in a boarding school to tame his wandering adventurer, they never could. Why he enlisted in the front lines in the Pacific. And why the monotony of a 9-5 in suburbia destroyed him. 

I felt him there within my heart, within my bones. I knew why and how his soul could be crushed — a wild bird locked in a cage.  He died of a broken spirit long before he left his body. 

On this trip, I couldn’t make it to the mountains of my dreams, the road to the sun blocked by Oregon’s smoke; yet, I gained more than my intentions. A feeling of wholeness, of integration, of knowing this man, this mystery — feeling his DNA come alive within mine. 

I’ll return in Spring. To let his essence bloom within my consciousness, to let him live on. For just like him, the hills and sky call to my Spirit. 

Glamsient at Virtual Burning Man!

~ Chelsea Lynn ~ Leave a comment

I’m excited to announce that I’m guiding three meditations in this year’s Virtual Burning Man through my camp Namaste & Chill! You can participate from anywhere in the world — and the majority of the world will have access to the virtual playa for free! The environment plays like a game (check out a preview below our event calendar). RSVP at dustymultiverse.com

My Schedule in Pacific Time:

Tuesday – 8 PM – Full Moon Ceremony – Empowered by the Moon – Drum Meditation with Nikki Prizma (also live on Twitch at Shelter in Space)

Thursday – 12 PM – Writing & Meditation (also live on Instagram)

Saturday – 2 PM – Burn the Man Within – Drum Meditation with Nikki Prizma

Namaste & Chill Events (2)

 

 

 

A Call to Vision – New Audio Track!

~ Chelsea Lynn ~ Leave a comment

This previously unreleased vignette is based on an experience I had that made me feel reborn. Like all of the stories in Varanasi Sage, this one is true to my experience. At that time of my life, I was on the precipice of a new way of being. I would be forever changed, and this morning set the tone for my new beginning. The encounters with wildlife felt especially symbolic.

I hope you enjoy this audio track! Soon, I will release the entire audiobook version of Varanasi Sage. Stay tuned!

You’ll find the writing below, if you would like to read along.

A Call to Vision

Dark shadows obscured open farmland, hills and valleys. An occasional owl hoot accentuated the silence between.

The crescent moon observed from a star-filled sky as a deer path took me uphill. I enjoyed the cold air, knowing the afternoon would drive me into the shade with a fan turned high. At the top, between dry shrubs, I brushed aside small rocks and sat. 

I drank my tea with sips of intention, breathing the peace of a million minds sleeping, while night faded from black to blue, taking the stars, waking the birds. A line of color cut eastern hills in rolling silhouette.

Birds convened in the heavens, voices joined with each breath, proclaiming the ordinary miracle that sets our clocks. Old and familiar, yet always new.   

A showcase, a pastel wash on oaks and hills, hues casting themselves as bright streaks on feather clouds, colors spread by a gilded brush, each layer more brilliant than the last. Breathing deeply, my seat on the ground, I took in the oaks, chaparral, and dried grasses. All of us together in the presence of its Majesty rising. I pinned my heart to the changing sky, illuminating my being.   

A rustling uphill—a small rabbit! My smile and his sprint, light and fast, until, face to face, we looked into each other’s eyes. His nose and whiskers twitched a brief moment before he dashed. A soft, tender happiness carried water to my eyes, washing my heart, cleansing my cheeks. An awareness of golden rays behind hills, opening me to light as a soul opens her eyes, birthed into new life, connected with the One. A pleasure to exist on a hilltop in shifting light, a glory to cure afflictions.

I meandered back to the path, recognizing each step. In the lowest branch of a wide-reaching oak — a barn owl. I slowed to admire her round face, her speckled auburn overcoat, her white underdress. She leisurely stretched her wings and flew to a rancher’s post nearby, piercing my humanity before turning to the landscape, as if in her higher wisdom, she, too, admired the valley at dawn. 

Towards her mystery I crept, present to our encounter. She turned her face to mine, and after a moment, sailed on silent wings to the next post. Magnetized. I followed. She peered into my soul, drew me along the ridge, and stopped at short distances. She signaled our walk’s end by flying high into a tree.

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New Audio Track! Awakening Depths

~ Chelsea Lynn ~ Leave a comment

After several months of false starts while I figured out how to record the Varanasi Sage audiobook, I finally have it down! Here’s a track of “Awakening Depths,” an excerpt from the collection. You may want to listen with eyes closed, but I’ve included the text if you’d like to read along. Let me know what you think of this recording in the comments! Stay tuned for more audio tracks, and the audiobook release!

Awakening Depths

Faithful observers, large and wise; monoliths standing emphatically. Jutting from the earth, rising balconies and towers, watching, witnessing. Boulders looming, rocks piled, guardians of the cave. Trees flourish in crevices with cool mineral moisture. The trail, meek, between giants. My body even smaller.   

A large metal gate at the entrance. “Flashlights Required.” I pull out my headlamp. I crouch and squeeze between rock bodies, layered and etched with the Sculptor’s tools; rigid, yet crumbling. Gentle giants summoned by the earth’s heart, set into place. Darkening. Light cuts through holes, cracks between boulders, lighting the way over bridges and up stairs. Bold and industrial gifts from the New Deal. 

Further inside, my lamp finds little white arrows painted, marking the trail. I follow and follow, deeper and deeper.

The cool, dark quietude penetrates my being. The awe of sacred knowing. Completely held within the earth’s body—her smooth touch embraces me like a wounded bird in caring hands. With only my breath and the rock, I sit and turn off my headlamp. Surrounded, supported, my body soft and humble, yet unafraid to share space with titans arranged into impossible shapes, moved like pebbles. Spirits born from the Nature’s depths.

To sit amongst them, entities unfathomable, a guest in their great hall. Without sight and sound, I dissolve into the rock, the air, the empty space. And she comes to me, the truest part of me, the same as her living heart. The outside world lost to her embrace. My heart turns over to hers and the feeling of oneness, endlessly present in time.

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