Heart Haven Meditations

In moments of personal or collective anxiety it is easy to feel thrown. This meditation offers an opportunity to cultivate calm clarity through attuning to your heart. Life requires us to walk through many portals, some more challenging than others. Hard times allow us to discover who we are, to find our mettle. This meditation invites you to open to whatever life presents you in this moment, to f...

Award-winning novelist, teacher, and podcaster Manda Scott talks with Tess Callahan about her shamanic spiritual practice, her new Thrutopian novel ANY HUMAN POWER , and her highly acclaimed podcast Accidental Gods . Tess and Manda discuss dreams, visions, and the liminal states between waking, sleeping, life, and death. Manda encourages writers to create new narratives that will pave the way to t...

Novelist, screenwriter, and founder of LA Writers' Lab Alan Watt tells host Tess Callahan his extraordinary experience of recovering a childhood memory through meditation. This memory from infancy, preverbal and terrifying, had already begun to surface through the writing of his novel, Diamond Dogs . Watt asserts that the desire to write is connected to the desire to evolve. He first began me...

Drawing from ancient wisdom traditions and inspired by Ram Dass, this timeless meditation invites you to bathe in liquid love, release sadness and loneliness from your heart, and become an instrument for peace, light, and love. The meditation begins with a relaxing body scan before focusing on the heart. You are invited to visualize a wisdom figure whose heart connects to yours. This being lovingl...

Friends, this episode is a departure from my usual offerings. I will return to meditations and occasional interviews after my mini book tour, but today I'm talking about my novel DAWNLAND, and what IT has to do with meditation, particularly the question: Do we sometimes meditate by accident? And if so, what’s happening there? Inadvertent meditation might seem like an oxymoron.  We usually ass...

Creativity flows when our hearts and minds are open, and tightens when we grasp onto particular ideas of outcome. It tends to hide from us when we take ourselves too seriously. Lightness of spirit is key. "Lila" is a Hindu term that has many layers. It describes the effortless play between the relative world and the absolute. Lila manifests when when fullness, unable to contain itself, s...

Open awareness is a non-referential meditation, meaning you don’t use any reference point such as the breath or the body to keep your mind focused. Those focal points are useful as first, but as you progress, they can hold you back. In open awareness, your attention rests with everything that’s happening. To this end, you meditate with your eyes gently open. Normally our eyes are trained to focus...

Join novelist, essayist, and canoe adventurer Mar’ce Merrell as she unpacks her spiritual and creative toolbox, sharing how she uses meditation to move through stuck places in life and on the page.  Mar’ce describes some of her extraordinary life-and-death moments in the canoe, how she learned to work with water and not against it, and how her life has unfolded in the gap between the impossible an...

This is a shorter version of Episode 71 "Tranquil Ocean Shamatha," with a bit less instruction. Shamatha or “peaceful abiding” helps stabilize the mind by cultivating a steady awareness of the object of meditation, in this case, the breath. You can do the same practice using alternative anchors such as bodily sensations or sounds. Staying present  to an anchor provides scaffolding or tra...

 Shamatha, which means “peaceful abiding” or “tranquility," is the foundational meditation of Buddhist practice. It helps stabilize the mind by cultivating a steady awareness of the object of meditation, in this case, the breath. You can do the same practice using alternative anchors such as bodily sensations or sounds. Staying present  to an anchor provides scaffolding or training wheels to...

Lovingkindness, also known as "metta," is a Buddhist practice of cultivating good will and positive regard toward yourself and others. The practice invites us to expand the good will of our hearts to reach ever widening circles, extending to loved ones, neutral acquaintances, difficult people, animals, and the planet itself. A longer version of this meditation can be found under the titl...

Join sculptor and poet Don Freas , author of In-Between: Creativity Set Free and Swallowing the World: New and Selected Poems , in a rich exploration of the relationship between meditation and creativity. Don describes how his practice of Liangong , a form of Qigong , deepens his somatic awareness in the studio and in life. He explains how his process of journaling, partly inspired by Robert A. Jo...

Metta is a Buddhist practice of cultivating good will and positive regard toward yourself and others. A Pali word, metta means lovingkindness. The practice invites us to expand the good will of our hearts to reach ever widening circles, extending to loved ones, neutral acquaintances, difficult people, animals, and the planet itself. Whether done on the meditation pillow or spontaneously in the cou...

A rerecorded, remastered version of Episode 41, this guided visualization is based on a near-death experience described by Carl Jung in his memoir Memories, Dreams, and Reflections . Jung experienced this vision as he hung on the edge of death after a heart attack. Following a brief relaxation exercise, you will be guided through this vision as if you are experiencing it for yourself. Feel free to...

Inspired by the work of Carl Jung, this practice of cultivating a "waking dream" helps you to access the wisdom of your subconscious. In Jungian psychology, this technique is called “Active Imagination." Episode 6 of this podcast offers a similar version of this guided visualization with different music. Jung recorded his waking visions in his extraordinary illustrated journal, The...

This is the 3rd of three progressive meditations inspired by Dr. Patrick MacManaway’s book Cultivating Your Light Body . It builds on the strength and stability developed in the first and second practices. Here, we continue cultivating heart-centered awareness in a cycle of witnessing, blessing, and renewal, and we take the further step of using these qualities to restore right relationship to cur...

  This is the 2nd of three progressive meditations that build on each other, though each can also be done separately. They are inspired by practices taught by Dr. Patrick MacManaway in his book Cultivating Your Light Body . In this meditation we develop our awareness of heart-centered consciousness to include our primary alignment, the center spindle, or vertical axis of our personal globe of cons...

This is the first of three progressive meditations that build on each other, though each can be done separately. Inspired by a practice taught by Dr. Patrick MacManaway in his book Cultivating Your Light Body , this initial meditation is simple and introductory in nature, but subtle and profound in effect. It is designed to guide your awareness toward the heart, and then to bring your awareness wi...

Inspired by Byron Katie , Al-Anon , and 12-Step , these simple affirmations encourage a fresh rewiring of old conditioning. Making the quality of your consciousness your highest priority is the most life-changing action you can take. Moment to moment, are you on autopilot or responding with intention and presence? The more we stop wasting energy trying to control others, the more personal agency i...

It's easy to forget who we really are, to rush through life without pausing to experience our true essence. Yet when we take this pause, we gain clarity, groundedness, and wisdom from which to respond to life wisely rather than reactively. Eckhart Tolle uses the phrases “Little Me” and "Deep I" to distinguish the part of you that runs around on the surface of life from the timeless...

Slip into sleep bathed in the golden light of gratitude. Collect and savor three small moments from your day. Studies show that a simple practice of gratitude can improve well-being, increase resilience, strengthen relationships, and reduce stress and depression. Plus, it's a sweet way to drift off to sleep! Relax and enjoy. Music and Audio by Eric Fischer Support the show Host: Tess Callahan...

This luminous Yoga Nidra  practice invites your body into deep restorative sleep while your mind, like a night-blooming flower, opens to formless awareness. Based on a similar meditation offered by Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati, this includes a complete body relaxation, 61-point exercise, and ascending breath practice. Yoga Nidra deepens meditation and unhooks the neuro-conditioning that keeps you stu...

Studies show that a practice of gratitude greatly enhances overall wellbeing. This talk offers a simple on-the-spot way to  bring yourself into a state of grace, of flow, of alignment, whenever you need it in the midst of your day. I learned this technique from a teacher named Patrick MacManaway, and I heartily encourage you to give it a try. It is surprisingly powerful! Inspiration: Patrick MacMa...

Friends, I'm taking a short break from posting meditations as I work on a deadline for my novel, DAWNLAND, due out next year. During this hiatus, I will post short talks from time to time when the spirit arises, inspired by whatever I happen to be grappling with at the moment. I wish you well. Music by Christopher Lloyd Clarke. Photo by Mario Dobelmann. Audio Engineering by Eric Fischer . Sup...

Friends, I'm on a little break from posting meditations while I finish edits on my forthcoming novel, Dawnland, but will post talks from time to time. This short encouragement offers a simple way to check in with your heart as you endeavor to process difficult events in the world or in your life. I invite you to be gentle with the movements of your heart. Be kind to yourself. Music by Christo...