Meditation: A World of Ice

(by Birgit Reinartz)

Snuggle up in your blanket so that you are nice and warm. Now lie down comfortably, close your eyes and breathe deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth. Repeat three times.
Pay attention to your abdominal wall: when you inhale, it bulges forward, when you exhale, it retracts.
Breathe calmly and relaxed.

Ice flowers form on the window. They form strange patterns, strange and fascinating. Slowly they creep forward and cover the whole window pane with stars, spirals and ferns.
You look out the window and realize that the outside world is doing the same. Outside, everything is covered with a thick layer of frost and snowflakes are silently falling, covering the surroundings with a white mantle.
Dark giant trees loom between all the white, black trunks against a colorless background. You leave the room and go outside. Your breath forms little clouds in front of your mouth, but you are warm.
The ground crunches under your feet, snowflakes swirl in your face as you follow a path between the trees. It leads you to a small clearing.
A small fire burns cheerfully there. A figure sits by it, wrapped in a mountain of furs. As you approach, you see that it is a woman: tall, slender, and blond. She wears snowshoes on her feet, and beside her lies a bow.
The fire is flickering. Apart from the woman, it seems to be the only living thing for miles around.
“I am Skadi!” the woman says. You tilt your head and step up to her fire. “Sit down!”
She doesn’t ask; she knows what she wants.
You take a seat, look into the flames, and wait.
“I am the frost and the ice. I am the avalanche thundering down the mountainside. I am unpredictable. Stay too long, and you put yourself in danger. But stay long enough, and I’ll give you a chance: the chance to see your life from the outside! Like a movie that is switched to pause, I freeze your life for you. Take your time, look at it well! What do you like the way it is? What would you like to change? And how?”
Skadi hands you a horn. It is filled with ice-cold, clear water. You take a deep sip.
The water flows through your body, it blows your senses free and blocks disturbing thoughts and feelings. Skadi’s gift fills you and works within you.

After a while, the effect wears off. You look at Skadi again. She smiles, a small, narrow smile between furs. “If you know what you want, then go hunt for it.” She reaches for an arrow, raises her bow, and in one fluid motion, shoots an arrow at the tree behind you. Only when you turn around do you spot the target hanging from the tree. Skadi’s arrow is stuck right in the middle. You get up and want to pull the arrow out of the target and give it back to her, but when you turn around, Skadi has disappeared. Only the tracks of her snowshoes show the way she went.

You put out the fire and take the arrow with you as a reminder of this encounter.
Without the warming flames, it quickly gets chilly, and so you hurry back to the house. There, hot cocoa is already waiting for you.

You become aware of the space around you again. You remember where the walls are, the windows, and what furniture is around you. You feel the blanket lying on you.
Stretch, take a few deep breaths, and then open your eyes. You are back in the here and now.