BREATHING AS ONE – A Meditation Greenhorn’s Epiphany

Ages ago Sally and I took a community-ed meditation class. About all I remember is something our instructor called a “cleansing breath.” And that I enjoyed some of his guided meditations.

So I’m far from a sophisticated meditator, but with that modest intro I’ve devised my own technique which works just fine. It helps me relax and keep things in perspective during these nightmarish times.

 

I usually start a session by watching the “shape” of my breathing—visualizing it not as two distinct movements—in, stop, out, stop—but as one continuous, elliptical cycle.

Once that rhythm is set I picture the inhalations bringing in good stuff, like positive energy, light, abundance, healing… and the exhalations expelling all the bad stuff: negativity, darkness, scarcity and illness/pain. It’s kind of like a pump…or better a conveyor belt; you grab things you want as it winds in, and dump your trash on it as it heads back out.

     All time, past and future, has swirled together
     into this little present-moment eddy.

A PRESENT-MOMENT EDDY
During this morning’s meditation I experienced something remarkable. I’d just gotten my breathing down when, suddenly, the space it occupied grew from arm’s-length scale to cosmic.

One second, I’m thinking of myself and my own respiration; the next, I have this profound sense that somehow my breath is commingling with other breaths, those of loved ones and ancestors, strangers on the other side of the world, and anyone who’s ever entered this sublime, out-of-body dimension.

I drift off magically through space and time, feeling deeply that everything under creation is connected, in me and of me. And that all time, past and future, has swirled together into this little present-moment eddy.

It’s not that I’ve never had this sense before, but usually it’s been more a fleeting glimpse, not there long enough to make the leap from the  intellectual to the emotional. This time it does though; it feels so powerful, so very real.

Curiously, as my soul soars like this, I’ve never felt more grounded, more centered.

A SILVER LINING
One of my fondest wishes during the pandemic and the other convulsions wracking our poor planet has been that something good will come of it all. Something transformational about how we treat each other and our precious planet.

If it were nothing else, I’d settle for a very deep, broad, cross-cultural sense that we’re all—we and all of Nature’s miracles—connected as one. And a contagion of empathy.

I think that connection is what I experienced this morning. I hope I can let it percolate through me, flavoring not just my rarefied reveries, but all my comings and goings.

And I pray it might find the light of day, too, in you and in everyone, everywhere…and soon.

THE LUXURY OF HABIT – A Chat With My Older, Wiser Self

Maybe it's all this writing I'm doing about awareness, wonder and gratitude…
or perhaps just something that happens to human beings of a certain age.

Lately I've experienced a series of small epiphanies, flashes of astounding clarity that feel like messages coming back to me from an older, wiser version of myself.



STRUCK BY BEAUTY
They say hindsight is twenty-twenty. The trouble is, of course, that you can't benefit from it until it's already too late to do anything about it…or can you?

The latest of these little flashbacks from the future occurred just yesterday, as I drove to work. I'd been absorbed in the usual trivial logistics of my morning routine: having breakfast; scanning the paper; collecting stuff I might need for the day; rolling the trash can in from the curb; getting in the car and setting off for my office.

Pedestrians and other drivers turned from nameless, faceless obstacles I had to negotiate to living, breathing people I could care about.

When you do the same thing every morning for decades, it gets pretty much programmed into you. I make all the correct turns, stop at all the red lights, pick up a latte at the coffee shop and arrive at my office building—all with hardly a conscious thought of what I'm doing.

Yesterday was different, though. Just as I was turning onto University Avenue, a thought suddenly snatched me from my reverie, a realization of how much of my life I'm taking for granted. I'm not sure what the catalyst was—most likely a stirring piece of music on the radio. But all of a sudden I was seeing everything differently.



The unexceptional clouds became amazing clouds; the snow, no longer just random splashes of white, struck me for its exotic beauty—a wonder most people on earth will never experience; pedestrians and other drivers turned from nameless, faceless obstacles I had to negotiate to living, breathing people I could care about. Peace and freedom, conditions I nearly always take for granted, suddenly enveloped me in a radiant glow of gratitude.

ALL IN THE FAMILY
Where, I asked myself, was this acute awareness, this fresh perspective, coming from?

More than just a passing notion, it felt like my point of view had shifted from that of the man I am now, with all my options still pretty much open to me, to a man 15 or 20 years older. This older man had already endured some of the losses most of us will inevitably, grudgingly, trade for living a longer life.

It dawned on me that this voice was my own, 
that of the man I have yet to become.

He could no longer be trusted to drive. It was assumed he would no longer work. He was unable to walk very far on his own. Many of his family and close friends had passed away.

The one capacity that hadn't yet betrayed him was memory. And here he was, in the car with me—in the welcoming space of my consciousness—sharing the bittersweet wisdom of that perfect, twenty-twenty vision of hindsight. It dawned on me that this voice was my own, that of the man I have yet to become.

COMINGS AND GOINGS 
The man told me he'd had very few regrets about his life, but one would haunt him forever: complacency. Here with me he could see so clearly what he'd taken for granted for most of his life, those trivial events that comprise most of our daily experience and which become so commonplace that we no longer fully appreciate what they mean.

But to this old man that meaning was quite clear indeed:

You, he pined, still have the freedom to go wherever you want, even if that's only these two rote miles to work. To me, that simple jaunt would mean the world.

You still enjoy the sweet blessing of communities of your own choosing. I am, no matter how nicely you put it, institutionalized.

You can still observe, with wonder, the routine comings and goings of your fellow human beings, and feel your shared humanity. My peers no longer come and go any more than I do.

You still bask in the astounding beauty of Nature—the kind to be found in wilderness if that's what you choose, but also in this most ordinary urban day. I will consider extraordinary the day someone takes me outdoors…anywhere.

He reminds me…of the curiosity and playfulness
of childhood that still smolder somewhere inside humans of any age.

 

THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD…?
As I pulled into the parking lot, my visitor went on his way, but not before asking me a couple of questions:

When you reach the place where I am now, will you look back on your life with bitterness and a sense of loss as I do?

Or will you have the grace to remember these moments of clarity you're having now, and focus not on what you've lost, but on the many, many precious gifts you've received…and still receive?

Not just the big gifts like life, good health, a loving family, a relationship with your higher power, but also the simple, everyday wonders of Nature and humanity that surround you every day.

Perhaps most importantly, will you have the well of joy, the generosity of vision, to believe that such wonders still exist, if you let them, no matter how "small" your physical world?

I guess time will tell.

I hope my older, wiser self keeps coming back for these little visits. He reminds me—in the voice of someone who knows and cares—of the very things I believe in and pretend to write about: the curiosity and playfulness of childhood that still smolder somewhere inside humans of any age; patience; challenges that test your faith, connect you with others and make you grow; the eloquence of just sitting silently with someone you care about…

…and yes, I suppose, the luxury, the guilty pleasure, of habit.

SUNLIGHT IN A JAR – Capturing the Sensations of Summer

Summer in these northern climes is a short-lived feast of colors and sounds, smells and feelings. No sooner than we start getting used to all these sensations—and the abundance of daylight to enjoy them—we're seeing reminders that it isn't going to last. The alarming whine of cicadas, sneezes from ragweed pollen, a breath or two of dryer air; nights dropping below 60, and darkness by eight.

Every year at this time, a sense of melancholy starts seeping in through those little cracks in my summer reverie. This is when I realize that within two months the leaves will be falling; within three, snow could fly, extinguishing the last flickers of color from the landscape.

...come January, I'll be able to take those memories off the shelf and enjoy a taste, a sweet distillation of this glorious season's bounty.

Every year I tell myself I'll remember all the little sensations of summer so that, sometime in the dead of winter, I'll be able to relive them—at least in my mind.

Trouble is, summer's bliss is awfully perishable. In fact, the very reason for much of its magic is its spontaneity and impermanence. So by January, little remains, and I'm left scrounging for scraps.

But this year will be different. This year I'm doing some canning. That way, come January, I'll be able to reach in, take those memories off the shelf and enjoy a taste, a sweet distillation of this glorious season's bounty—just enough to get my spirits through until the banquet is spread afresh in May.

Here's what I'm putting up in my mental Mason jars:

• the shady spaces trees create
• the luscious brew of nitrogen, oxygen, moisture, and scent that is summer air
• water that's not hard

• the laughter that wafts in from a night baseball game two blocks away 
• fungus
• the sweet smell of just-mown grass
• dappled sunlight
• the solid green archway fallen trees and grape vine have built over my walking path
• the way my skin feels, exposed to non-air-conditioned air
• two hours of daylight to play after supper

• air and sound pouring into the house through open windows
• the warm, nutty smell of sun tanned skin
• lavish color
• the primeval smell and feel of rich, moist soil
• the pulsing sizzle of an August meadow
• the way a thunderstorm unites and humbles people
• that sour smell of hot pavement just after the rain starts
• the way an ice-cold Coke goes down when you're really, really thirsty
• the curious "ps-s-seew!, ps-s-seew! of twilight nighthawks
• the uncontained music of an outdoor concert

• the way trees stand out, like black lace, against golden twilight sky
• hearing night sounds as I fall asleep
• the throb of crickets chirping in unison
• the one lonely little frog in our stormwater pond
• the special wild place I can, most days, call my own
• walking hand-in-hand without gloves

• babbling brooks
• the way my arms and shoulders get their second wind after hours of paddling my canoe
• a million critters to watch—each with its own desperate drama of survival
• the way road construction delays make you dig deep for serenity
• growing things

• cooling off naturally—with sweat and breeze
• fresh corn on the cob and home-grown tomatoes
• the way the tree leaves show their light, silvery sides on a 100-degree day
• planing my hand in the rushing air out the car window

What impressions have you harvested for canning this summer?