Heart chakra

I've been receiving nice tips from someone in the Magick Forums at the Druidsfoot site in the Indigenous Faiths & Shamanistic Practices section under my post Deathwalker-in-training.

To strengthen the connection with my spirit guide, he suggested that I call this being to link in with my body as I sit in meditation. I should then notice at which chakra the connection seems the strongest.

When I tried this, I didn't feel that I could see the being or hear its speech patterns. But I did feel that I had the strongest connection at my heart chakra, which I associate with the color green. I thought my left brain was feeding me this information until I began to see green everywhere. (I don't know why I don't think that my left brain could also make me see green everywhere.)

When I reported this vague connection, his next suggestion contained the following:

Channelling is a bit like opening a heavy rusty door for the first time - it goes little by little, until the joints ease and you can move it more freely.

This sentence has been enlightening for me. For one thing, his use of the word "channelling" gave me a different perspective on the process. In addition, his analogy to a heavy rusty door is wonderful. One morning during my shower, I felt the door budge just a bit as I was lost in thought and felt something akin to a voice in my heart. Then the door slammed shut as my left brain or ego or intellect or whatever panicked. My helpful friend had also said

The difficulty with this, is letting your ego step aside for 5 minutes -because the intellect suddenly freaks out that it's losing control.

Which is what happened.

So I've been trying to let go, play, have fun while I sit. But my left brain/ego/whatever is still holding on tight.

Last night, though, I felt that I was making some progress on focusing on my heart as I meditate. As I finished last night, I might have received the koan (or it might have come from my left brain): To let go, hold on.