Always around this time of the year, the shift from outdoors to inside happens – and truth be told it’s been happening for longer than it probably should have – one doesn’t waste a single summer day without regretting it come winter. My outside energy is mostly spent – the gardens are now headed into their long slumber mode having put on a spectacular show, mostly just for me and Andy over these past few months. That’s my favorite kind of show, and despite my grumblings I’m grateful overall for how lovely the summer days have been – if I’ve been quiet of late it’s because I’m working on a number of things. To maintain the sanity in such busy times, I rely and lean into my daily meditations – keeping my baseline at a calmer level of vibration, less likely to get easily riled up at the slightest provocation.
Striking a Tibetan singing bowl, lighting a couple of candles, and burning the end of a Palo Santo stick, I settle into the lotus position and begin breathing deeply, slowly, deliberately. My breathing elongates, each inhalation expanding a little more, each exhalation growing in duration, until I’ve slowed down all thinking and senses, and that beautiful expanse of emptiness manifests itself in my mind, pushing all cares and concerns entirely out of consciousness. This is the high of meditation for me – that blank space void of worry or tension or fear. It doesn’t last forever, but I can extend it when I need it, and just dipping into that stillness is enough to access a sort of calm I never understood before I started meditating. It’s a calm I’ve never been able to adequately explain, in prose or in person, and selfishly I’ve never bothered to try. It’s enough to know it, and I can only recommend starting your own meditation journey to discover it (it took me several months before discovering it).
Now I’m just teasing, and the point of this post was to share a little of the peace I found on a rainy candle-lit evening.
