February 4, 2005
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FRIDAY FIVE1. Have you ever tried meditation?
Many many times. There’s such a broad spectrum from simple to complicated about this practice. You can get elaborate instructions from any number of sources. Essentially, it’s like sending yourself to Time Out, where hopefully you sit (or walk) in a calm, patient, observant manner (observing usually something like your breath in and out or a mandala or the fire in the fireplace) something that is quieting, and then you listen for answers, or just rest your stressed-out weary mind. Now the real gurus say that you can do anything mindfully (like washing your dishes) and it will be a form of meditation. The point is to slow down, get back, zone out (or in as the case may be), and regroup. In the summer, my favorite two methods are sitting on my back porch looking at the garden and observing the sounds and sights or just plain gardening. When your hands are in the warm earth and the sun is warm on your back and the air is fresh, it’s pretty darn organic. In the winter I have a harder time because the sky and air are colder and darker, the world looks flat out filthy some days, and people seem colder too. I do have a fire going in my fireplace pretty much whenever I’m home and that helps. Oh, and one other thing – I discovered those little day-by-day meditation books years ago and have a tiny shelf of them. Sometimes I take one down and read what it says for the day and meditate on that. It can jog me out of dark places. After all, my best thinking got me here.
2. Do you pray?
Here I’m even more of a scoundrel. Wasn’t raised to pray. Was raised on action – especially political action. Didn’t really get around to considering it until I reached age 45 and attended my first 12-step program meeting. Now one of the core teachings there is to find and maintain a spiritual (not necessarily religious) practice. This because first of all it requires a tremendous leap of faith to give up an addiction of many years for a life completely without chemicals (including alcohol). If you haven’t made this leap (and are not an addict) you cannot possibly understand. It’s like trapeze artistry. You climb up the pole on one side of the ring and grasp the trapeze bar and swing out. From the other side comes the catcher swinging out. For a moment in mid-air with no net you must let go and hang in the air trusting that you will be caught. This is the leap of faith. Fortunately, 12-step programs have proven their ability to catch. (Calm down, I’m not trying to convert anybody.) Beyond that, it is said that part of the disease of addiction (and this includes to food, sex, gambling, shopping, love, younameit) is about self-involvement, lack of trust, and a general screw-you-I’ll-do-it-myself attitude. The folks that invented the 12 steps decided it was essential to snap out of this attitude and get back with humanity and the capacity to ask for help. So praying (for higher power’s will for you) and meditating are mentioned frequently there. As for me, I don’t hit my knees, but like the Quakers (see previous post) I tend to feel there is a spiritual source I can draw upon both within and without and I ask most often to be relieved of my various fears. Fear seems to me to be at the root of most of the damage people do to each other. Moving right along….
3. Worst nightmare:
Isn’t nightmare a beautiful word? I picture riding away into the dark on a beautiful black horse.
4. Do trolls live under your bed?
I wish. Instead there are hordes of dust bunnies.
5. Make a wish: World peace of course. (Is that like a prayer?)
Deep Thought: “I’d rather be rich than stupid. ”
Today I am grateful for: Dustpans
Guess the Movie: “D’you know that the human head weighs 8 pounds?” “Did you know that Troy Aikman, in only six years, has passed for 16,303 yards?” “D’you know that bees and dogs can smell fear?” “Did you know that the career record for hits is 4,256 by Pete Rose who is NOT in the Hall of Fame?” “D’you know that my next door neighbor has three rabbits?” “I… I can’t compete with that!” Answer: Jerry McGuire, 1996.
Winner: thenarrator.
The Future of Iraq and U.S. Occupation
by Noam Chomsky
The following is an except from a presentation by Noam Chomsky on January 26th at a forum sponsored by the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe, NM to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the International Relations Center:
Let’s just imagine what the policies might be of an independent Iraq, independent, sovereign Iraq, let’s say more or less democratic. What are the policies likely to be? (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:30 pm
+ = Looks like Dean is a shoo-in for DNC Chair.
- = Like I believe I’ll be safe from having my Social Security benefits slashed.
Comments (16)
(1) Well, I guess I’ve tried. But maybe its always just been best when its informal for me. I mean, what am I doing when I’mstaring at the water in very loose focus or climbing through dunes or even just in ‘conscious shutdown’ while swimming? So, maybe.
(2) Oh I have. But I long ago decided that real prayer was listening, trying to pick up the pulse of the universe if not the universal. I’m not going to sit around asking a deity for micro-interventions: If I was I’d be worshipping Apollo or Zeus – those were involved Gods.
(3) It comes way too often. Its a disastrous moment converted into something far worse.
(4) That would be nice. It would beat the demons that too often hover around.
(5) That all humans had “the empathy gene.”
Jerry McGuire?
Yup smarty, Jerry McGuire.
I can see swimming, just like gardening. As for loose focus – a case can be made for either that or sharp focus when it comes to meditation, I think.
Listening to me is more like meditation where you get quiet so you can, and prayer is more like getting in a mindset of putting good vibes toward the world.
What is the “something far worse”?
I could never share anything this insightful nor self-divulging. I wrote a fat-draft two or three years back about one of my worst nightmares. Maybe sometime I’ll repost it.
Now would be a good time – I’d love to see it.
A lovely post, like having a fireplace with a fire going this morning.
Okay….I will.
The “dust bunnies” aren’t grateful for the dust pan. As a matter of fact, I feel an uprising coming on
I read a book about Brother Lawrence not long ago. He was a common man who worked doing menial work around a monastary, who had a rich inner life that people through the ages tried to emulate. One of his quotes I have above my desk for those moments when anxiety creeps in. It’s this:”When you are very conscious of your faults, do not be discouraged by them but confess them to God. Then peaceable resume your usual practice of love and adoration of God.” I think before I’d always focus on my shortcomings and never measure up, but now I see that none of us “measure up”, and walk back into the safety of God’s grace. Thanks for sharing.
Beautiful. You know me, I use the word God sparingly, but in this I hear that when I become aware of my fears (or other negative feelings) I have the spiritual need and ability to let them go, up and away from me, to whatever that great source is, and to resume being at peace in the knowledge that this is now the first moment of the rest of my life to do the best that I can with.
I like #5 on Ira’s list.
I’ve been very deeply into meditation for a number of years, yet I don’t think it ‘means’ anything or ‘changes’ anything or even is ‘anything.’ It’s just something to do, like gardening. Meditating is listening, being open, being empty, being blissful; prayer is more of a speaking with, perhaps an asking, more wishful… Both, surely, are important for spiritual health, whatever that might be in all its different forms for different people. I like the 12 step program. It makes a lot of sense. I love your image of the trapeze, and how courageous that leap is and how dangerous for a brief moment… xo
I posted it…I took it down..I posted it….I took it down. I would e-mail it to you, but I don’t see a link to do so…..so…so….
lionne@teleport.com
1. Yes–it is refreshing and revitalizing
2. yes, in my own way
3. yes, but I look at them as puzzles-keys to what is going on in my life.
4. yes, I love trolls
5. same as Ira’s-or that I may have another wish
I meditate almost daily, in the Taoist fashion. Sitting erect, in a chair that’s tall enough to allow the hips to be higher than the knees, with one foot set out further than the other I rest my hands in my lap. The right hand is beneath the left so that one palm is directly above the other (the back of my left hand lays in the palm of my right) My tongue is touching the roof of my mouth. There are two paths, a front and back which allow energy to flow. This is called the microcosmic orbit. From the perineum to the navel to the solar plexus, to the throat, to the third eye and finally to the crown point (top of your head) the energy flows. Then, again, from the perineum to the ….I don’t remember all the names. Just figure the points are opposite from the ones in front with a varation at the back of the throat. So once you get it up your back to the top of your head, you bring it down the central channel to your lower dandien (your belly) I could go on and on but I think by now I have lost or bored you. And yes, I pray, too.
I guess I’m an agnostic. Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t a listening God. But ritual and the sound of prayer comforts me. I like being among a group aspiring to a higher plane. If the Mass were still in latin, I’d go more often to chant and smell the incense. In English, I feel too much of a hypocrit. On Sundays I can’t iron without music. Often I put on a CD by Krishna Das called “Live on Earth” and sing along with the choir’s chanting responses. Though my Jewish husband has little interest in it, I enjoy blessing challah bread and wine on Fridays in hebrew. –I do love the sweet taste of screw-off-cap Manichevetz.