Meditation, though having a dictionary definition, means different things to different people. It is thought of both loosely and rigidly, abstractly and specifically. Sort of in line with the nature of meditation. It can be done with the eyes open or closed. It can be done sitting, standing, walking, laying. It can be done contorted like a warm, salty soft pretzel. It can be whatever it is to you, and to those of you who meditate, that sounds about right (though some would attempt to argue it is one way, and one way only..."if you do it right", that is).
I used to do it one way, until I was shown another way, and I liked that way. Yes, I did. Very much. This week I had planned to use that way five different times in nature. I wanted to have conversations with nature, not by actually doing so, but by not having any conversation at all...with nature. The anti-conversation would become the ultimate conversation. Beautiful. But alas, there has surfaced a new way.
I have been very busy this week conversing with nature. In particular, I was very busy with it today. I have been acutely aware of this drought lately and have been remarking to myself that I am witnessing nature killing nature. As is the natural cycle, I suppose. The sun, the heat, the air, and a dramatic lack of precipitation have led to a rapid and dramatic loss of life in this area of our planet. Everywhere you look it's beige where green was not so long ago. Everywhere. I guarantee you gardeners have had to dead-head more marigolds this month than you can remember in ages- if ever. Walk through the grass without shoes. Try it. Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch...like walking on fallen pine needles. It itches. It stings. Earth's blanket has been scorched by weeks of heat without water, leading up to today's temperature over a hundred, with no rain in sight, and another sweltering day on its way. The river is drying up; the creeks are already there; and I went from grape to raisin in record time today.
There was an almost audible sigh from the plants in my mother's garden as I watered them at sunset, hoping to give them a fighting chance by letting them revel in it overnight. A few hours earlier and the water would have evaporated on its way out of the hose. A practice I always consider to be meditative, it was particularly satisfying today. I couldn't get to the next plant fast enough when I started. I said to them collectively in silence, "I'm coming! Try to be patient! I will get to all of you, I promise! I know it hurts! It's going to be okay!" They were so grateful. Yes, I truly believe that, because I heard them...I felt it. It was like that scene toward the end of Beetlejuice when they're withering away to dust in front of everyone, and the spell releases them just in time for rejuvenation. I was there with those plants. I needed water too, and I felt for them, and we are all a little more alive then we had been before.
It was my best friend's birthday today. After watering the garden and putting my son to bed, having made a pot of fresh coffee (why we are crazy enough to drink hot coffee when it's a hundred degrees out is beyond me, but it just has to be done...every day, we had a conversation worthy of saying that it was between our natural selves.A conversation you don't have with everyone- not because you can't, or because you would lie about it- there are simply few other human beings in our lives that share certain parts of us. And that is why they are our closest friends. It may still have been indescribably hot, aided by the hot coffee, but we remained on the porch, only to end up seeing eleven UFOs in just over two hours.
That's right. Unidentified Flying Objects. By unidentified, I mean that they were not planes, nor were they helicopters, or hot air balloons, or meteorites, or whatever else. It was the first time in my life that I have seen something in the sky that I cannot explain away. Their patterns of movement were incredible. Their speed and color were new to me. It was like watching a movie, but above my own head, and with UFO number three, every hair on my body stood up. Goosebumps. After the first five, we were on sky watch until it was time to go, amid lessons about stars and space, and conversations about our place in the universe.
I love getting goosebumps...the kind you get when you experience something amazing or particularly moving. The kind you get that feel significant in that moment, and chances are, whatever it was that gave you goosebumps will not soon be forgotten.
As I sit here finishing this Friday afternoon, it is easily hotter than it was yesterday. Hazier too. So, that would make it what? Somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand degrees out here? Poor plant life...it's so thirsty. Poor people who have no choice but to live and sleep outdoors in weather like this...they're so thirsty...and that's a wild understatement.
I spend another day conversing with nature, getting as close to the heart of these relationships as I can. The energy between me and these dying blades of grass, between you and that cloud, between the goose and the fish, between the air and the ground, between me and you and you and you and you- between us and all of it- gives me goosebumps. I love goosebumps.
Conversations about nature, with nature, and among nature. Conversations with all things natural becoming natural. From one piece of nature to another, stay cool and hydrated today. Love to all things.
29 June 2012
28 June 2012
The Nature of Expectation
Well...
It's been a few days since I've posted, and this week's theme is Conversations with Nature; interesting, as it's turning out to be far different than I had originally expected. I have said for years that expectations are dangerous, a concept I came to better understand from reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.
You see, expectations are what we think will happen, what we envision the future will be like. We take what we know of previous situations, conceptually average it out, and create this scenario in our mind from it. The chances of whatever it is actually happening exactly that way are slim to...no...wait...it's impossible. There is absolutely no way that our car will go exactly that speed for exactly that amount of time, or that she will say those exact words with that exact look on her face, or that everything will go off without a single hitch, because we happen to have been subjectively lucky in the past in matters of this kind. Ridiculous. It's impossible. We have already created this expectation though, whether we meant to or not, and whatever scenario we have imagined is swimming around waiting to be fulfilled- whether it was optimistic or pessimistic in nature. Our exact expectations are never met. Never. Ever. And when expectations aren't met, disappointment isn't far behind. It waits in the wings, ready to jump out as soon as this inevitability arises. And with unmet expectation, disappointment, comes a feeling of loss- a loss for something we never even had to begin with. Now, how ridiculous is that...?
For these last few years, I have been ever-striving to rid my mind of expectation. Yes, it's a tough habit to break. No, I am not there yet. Not even close. That said, with practice, I have learned to do this once in a while. The beauty of not having expectations is that you can't be disappointed. When you allow yourself not to know what is to come, and to be okay with that, a phenomenal thing happens: life. Expectation is a resistance to what is, and if it isn't what it is, what is it exactly? Right.
Okay, so I had expected this week to be about meditation. Not just any kind of meditation- a very specific kind of meditation in very specific places. Five specific places to be precise. Five places in nature. Well, Monday came and went without meditating on the edge of a lake. Then, Tuesday came and went without having meditated in front of a tree. And now, you likely expect me to say that Wednesday has come and gone without meditating too. Yes and no. Today, I had expected to find myself meditating in the middle of a garden. Interestingly, you actually have to go to a garden, sit down, and meditate if you want that to happen. Who knew? What has happened this week, you ask? I'll tell you....
Primarily, I have learned a good deal about the natural world. It was only when I stopped kicking myself for having not meditated a particular way, and allowed myself to be where I was yesterday- letting go of the original expectations for the week, that I was able to see the conversations with the natural world I had actually been having. And I wouldn't give them up for anything. The best part is that I don't have to; they're already there, and mulling them over has become a part of what this week is thus far.
I must quickly mention that I have granted myself very little rest the last few nights, and the truth is that my body is tired. So tired, in fact, that I will have to relay the bulk of the last few days tomorrow, because I am headed to my bed shortly. My typing has slowed- it is taking longer and longer to decide what I'm going to say in each sentence, which tells me it's time.
I will say this: nature is anything and everything that isn't man made. Nature is everything from water to oxygen to cliffs and Great Blue Herons. Nature is (for lack of a better term) all things natural. We breathe it, we consume it, we see it, we touch it, we love it, we abuse it, we seek it out, we have it in front of us....it is us. We are as much a piece of nature as any bird or grain of sand or sunflower or sea creature. I think we forget that sometimes. I know I do.
Until then, friends, I can no longer resist the piece of the natural cycle we call sleep...nor should I. Rest up, as will I, and we'll converse again tomorrow. Conversations with Nature.
It's been a few days since I've posted, and this week's theme is Conversations with Nature; interesting, as it's turning out to be far different than I had originally expected. I have said for years that expectations are dangerous, a concept I came to better understand from reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.
You see, expectations are what we think will happen, what we envision the future will be like. We take what we know of previous situations, conceptually average it out, and create this scenario in our mind from it. The chances of whatever it is actually happening exactly that way are slim to...no...wait...it's impossible. There is absolutely no way that our car will go exactly that speed for exactly that amount of time, or that she will say those exact words with that exact look on her face, or that everything will go off without a single hitch, because we happen to have been subjectively lucky in the past in matters of this kind. Ridiculous. It's impossible. We have already created this expectation though, whether we meant to or not, and whatever scenario we have imagined is swimming around waiting to be fulfilled- whether it was optimistic or pessimistic in nature. Our exact expectations are never met. Never. Ever. And when expectations aren't met, disappointment isn't far behind. It waits in the wings, ready to jump out as soon as this inevitability arises. And with unmet expectation, disappointment, comes a feeling of loss- a loss for something we never even had to begin with. Now, how ridiculous is that...?
For these last few years, I have been ever-striving to rid my mind of expectation. Yes, it's a tough habit to break. No, I am not there yet. Not even close. That said, with practice, I have learned to do this once in a while. The beauty of not having expectations is that you can't be disappointed. When you allow yourself not to know what is to come, and to be okay with that, a phenomenal thing happens: life. Expectation is a resistance to what is, and if it isn't what it is, what is it exactly? Right.
Okay, so I had expected this week to be about meditation. Not just any kind of meditation- a very specific kind of meditation in very specific places. Five specific places to be precise. Five places in nature. Well, Monday came and went without meditating on the edge of a lake. Then, Tuesday came and went without having meditated in front of a tree. And now, you likely expect me to say that Wednesday has come and gone without meditating too. Yes and no. Today, I had expected to find myself meditating in the middle of a garden. Interestingly, you actually have to go to a garden, sit down, and meditate if you want that to happen. Who knew? What has happened this week, you ask? I'll tell you....
Primarily, I have learned a good deal about the natural world. It was only when I stopped kicking myself for having not meditated a particular way, and allowed myself to be where I was yesterday- letting go of the original expectations for the week, that I was able to see the conversations with the natural world I had actually been having. And I wouldn't give them up for anything. The best part is that I don't have to; they're already there, and mulling them over has become a part of what this week is thus far.
I must quickly mention that I have granted myself very little rest the last few nights, and the truth is that my body is tired. So tired, in fact, that I will have to relay the bulk of the last few days tomorrow, because I am headed to my bed shortly. My typing has slowed- it is taking longer and longer to decide what I'm going to say in each sentence, which tells me it's time.
I will say this: nature is anything and everything that isn't man made. Nature is everything from water to oxygen to cliffs and Great Blue Herons. Nature is (for lack of a better term) all things natural. We breathe it, we consume it, we see it, we touch it, we love it, we abuse it, we seek it out, we have it in front of us....it is us. We are as much a piece of nature as any bird or grain of sand or sunflower or sea creature. I think we forget that sometimes. I know I do.
Until then, friends, I can no longer resist the piece of the natural cycle we call sleep...nor should I. Rest up, as will I, and we'll converse again tomorrow. Conversations with Nature.
25 June 2012
Week in Review/Lessons in Wellness of the Soul
This past week was focused on health and wellness of mind, body, and spirit. It began as the introduction of healthy habits- eating well, staying hydrated, being physically active. The week ended with my having adhered to the goals I had in mind, but it also ended with a grand dose of family, which was a boost for the soul I had not expected...and in which I am so grateful to have had a place. To the long list of family members (some old, many new): thank you, thank you. Love to you all.
What a weekend!!!!
A whirlwind, it was- this weekend full of family, food, fun, hugs, exhaustion, driving, swimming, laughing, playing, talking, baking in the sun. From a family reunion to a bridal shower- a ninety minute drive Friday, a sixty minute drive Sunday afternoon, and then a three hour drive Sunday evening back home- there was a lot of love to go around. Though admittedly, I am so tired I may sleep for a week. We all might.
My boyfriend's family held their family reunion this weekend. We have been together quite some time, but before this, I had met few members of his family. In fact, it had been years since he'd seen most of them. I have been lucky enough to get to know some of his immediate family and their children, but there were a lot of new hugs this weekend...I feel like I'd waited forever for them. There were a handful of family members I'd heard so much about over the years, stories from his childhood and beyond, and so I was terribly excited to put faces with these tales of life and growing up. Leave it to this family not to disappoint. My son and I felt so welcome in a new place, but a place so familiar all the same. There was so much food!! Holy geez...so much food. There were all kinds of cousins for the kids to swim and play with, and a very devoted older cousin who painted somewhere in the neighborhood of a million faces...beautifully and creatively, I might add.
I can't say enough how much warmth there was from everyone. I felt like I'd known them all forever, and I can't wait to go back. And I did truly have one of the best hugs ever from the loveliest woman...a true matriarch...a good soul. You and your family are fantastic. Thank you so much.
There were two key people missing this weekend, and I look forward to the day I can meet you both. We think of you often.
Sunday, I headed further south to the bridal shower of a woman who's been like a sister since I was very young. Again...so much food!! I'm so glad I was able to make it, to continue to be a part of family functions like this one. I don't see you all enough...I know. It was a great time, and I was even on the winning Pictionary team, and won another game! Woohoo! As far as the game where we had to smell spices and name them- uhh...nope. Was never going to win that one. I tried though! Really, I did!
I ran around taking pictures all through the shower. I love that role- the photographer, that is. It's a great way to get to talk to everyone without feeling like you're invading every conversation randomly. I did a lot of that at the reunion too. It helps break the ice and feel a part of it all. Plus, I just love taking photos. Love, love, love it. It is certainly a hobby very dear to me. Thanks to everyone for letting me get all up in your business with a camera!
Now, finally home again on my porch- my perfect, cozy porch- I admit that I'm grateful to be here. Grateful to be able to sleep in my bed tonight. Grateful that my kids are finally starting to calm down. Grateful that I can get ready for the new week of the project. Grateful that I can sit down and look at all the pictures, going over the weekend in my head, thinking of all the things I learned and experienced and laughed about.
My steps toward health and wellness involved a lot more that just being physically and mentally healthy. I end this week with a feeling of gratitude, health of the soul. When people come together- related or not- and there is a sense of real interaction and belonging, it sure goes a long way.
Hug someone. Right now. Go ahead. There ya go...a really good one.
You feel that?
Me too.
I like it.
Peace and love to all.
What a weekend!!!!
A whirlwind, it was- this weekend full of family, food, fun, hugs, exhaustion, driving, swimming, laughing, playing, talking, baking in the sun. From a family reunion to a bridal shower- a ninety minute drive Friday, a sixty minute drive Sunday afternoon, and then a three hour drive Sunday evening back home- there was a lot of love to go around. Though admittedly, I am so tired I may sleep for a week. We all might.
My boyfriend's family held their family reunion this weekend. We have been together quite some time, but before this, I had met few members of his family. In fact, it had been years since he'd seen most of them. I have been lucky enough to get to know some of his immediate family and their children, but there were a lot of new hugs this weekend...I feel like I'd waited forever for them. There were a handful of family members I'd heard so much about over the years, stories from his childhood and beyond, and so I was terribly excited to put faces with these tales of life and growing up. Leave it to this family not to disappoint. My son and I felt so welcome in a new place, but a place so familiar all the same. There was so much food!! Holy geez...so much food. There were all kinds of cousins for the kids to swim and play with, and a very devoted older cousin who painted somewhere in the neighborhood of a million faces...beautifully and creatively, I might add.
I can't say enough how much warmth there was from everyone. I felt like I'd known them all forever, and I can't wait to go back. And I did truly have one of the best hugs ever from the loveliest woman...a true matriarch...a good soul. You and your family are fantastic. Thank you so much.
There were two key people missing this weekend, and I look forward to the day I can meet you both. We think of you often.
Sunday, I headed further south to the bridal shower of a woman who's been like a sister since I was very young. Again...so much food!! I'm so glad I was able to make it, to continue to be a part of family functions like this one. I don't see you all enough...I know. It was a great time, and I was even on the winning Pictionary team, and won another game! Woohoo! As far as the game where we had to smell spices and name them- uhh...nope. Was never going to win that one. I tried though! Really, I did!
I ran around taking pictures all through the shower. I love that role- the photographer, that is. It's a great way to get to talk to everyone without feeling like you're invading every conversation randomly. I did a lot of that at the reunion too. It helps break the ice and feel a part of it all. Plus, I just love taking photos. Love, love, love it. It is certainly a hobby very dear to me. Thanks to everyone for letting me get all up in your business with a camera!
Now, finally home again on my porch- my perfect, cozy porch- I admit that I'm grateful to be here. Grateful to be able to sleep in my bed tonight. Grateful that my kids are finally starting to calm down. Grateful that I can get ready for the new week of the project. Grateful that I can sit down and look at all the pictures, going over the weekend in my head, thinking of all the things I learned and experienced and laughed about.
My steps toward health and wellness involved a lot more that just being physically and mentally healthy. I end this week with a feeling of gratitude, health of the soul. When people come together- related or not- and there is a sense of real interaction and belonging, it sure goes a long way.
Hug someone. Right now. Go ahead. There ya go...a really good one.
You feel that?
Me too.
I like it.
Peace and love to all.
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