Timing?

[Maps]

For you all who use meditation/trance in your religious pursuits, are you bound by a ritual calendar, or do you just dive in when it feels right? Do you have certain times of day that you prefer, etc.?

I use the Tzolk'in calendar for helping me time my "honoring" days and trance days, each of which recur every 20 days; though I usually dedicate more than one day-name for setting aside an hour in the evening to try and work. For me, there are two I use specifically for journeying/vision attempts: Akbal, "night/underworld house", and Lamat, "rabbit", though only because of purely personal reasons.

[Annie Roonie]

For you all who use meditation/trance in your religious pursuits, are you bound by a ritual calendar, or do you just dive in when it feels right? Do you have certain times of day that you prefer, etc.?

This is where I am totally unorganized. So many bells during the regular year that my bladder is like pavlov's dog at third bell. It takes about two weeks into break before my body schedule snaps out of bell times. I think because of that, I have been childishly reticent to get more scheduled with things.

But it does seem very prudent to me to do this if I ever want to incorporate deeper trance type things and examine them more reliably. Shoot, I bet doing it with some kind of order like this would also help with inducing the experience. I'm going to have to look in to this.

[iulla]

For you all who use meditation/trance in your religious pursuits, are you bound by a ritual calendar, or do you just dive in when it feels right? Do you have certain times of day that you prefer, etc.?

For me it's a little of both.

I adhere to a ritual calendar, and meditation helps me to connect to the deity(s) who I am honoring on "festival" days.  I feel closer to them when I take the time to relax and try and focus.

And then there are times when I just need to relax, or I have a question to ask.  I try and do these relaxation meditations every other day.

As for the time of day...for non-ritual days, I generally prefer anytime past the early evening.  It's easier for me to meditate when it's dark (I don't have curtains in my room, which can be a real pain in the arse), and it's usually quieter then, too.

[Maps]

This is where I am totally unorganized. So many bells during the regular year that my bladder is like pavlov's dog at third bell. It takes about two weeks into break before my body schedule snaps out of bell times. I think because of that, I have been childishly reticent to get more scheduled with things.

But it does seem very prudent to me to do this if I ever want to incorporate deeper trance type things and examine them more reliably. Shoot, I bet doing it with some kind of order like this would also help with inducing the experience. I'm going to have to look in to this.

Yeah I'm the kind of person that does best with a solid schedule like that... especially something that's determined by "someone else", so to speak. Back when I was doing it whenever, I started getting anxious about it-- if I was doing it too often or not often enough, and all that fun stuff. Once a weekish isn't that often, really, but I really should start separating good old relaxing meditation with trancework and visualization anyway, because I think that's kind of important.