During the last hours of a winter storm, the snow slows and falls more delicately. The wind has subsided and the evening has arrived, and at this late hour I began my daily meditation. After going through my usual litany of meditation focuses and intentions, I opened my eyes and watched the snow fall, choosing to make the pretty scene part of the practice. In the same way I once sat outside in the summer and did my daily meditation by the pool, listening to the birds and the insects and gentle rustling of the leaves in a warm breeze, I made the winter snow part of this meditation.

It is a decidedly different feeling when meditating on a winter evening. That one world could look and feel so completely changed in just a few months is a remarkable wonder, yet as far away as summer felt, and as distant and dim were the echoes of its memories, the warm heart of it all still beat beneath the ice and snow. It was there in the candlelight, there in the hints of blue that the sky insisted on bleeding into the night. 

During the past two years of my meditation journey, I’ve been using an imperfect piece of rose quartz, found at a little gift shop beside the Red Lion Inn in the Berkshires. At first I wasn’t sure of it – it was off-center and assymetrical, and looked weirdly off-balance depending on how one viewed it – yet in my hand it felt at home, and so it was home where I brought it, embracing its imperfection, hoping some of that acceptance would rub off on myself. Through the ensuing two years, I held it in my hands for each of my daily meditations – by the end of each it was warm and seemed to glow with the energy and spirit of the calm that came by the end of every session. 

Last week, while holding this crystal in my hand, I noticed another imperfection in its surface, something I’d glossed over for these two years, which is odd for my critical nature. Also telling. It wasn’t perfection I was after when it came to meditation, and so my practice has always been forgiving and humble, something sorely needed when I first began meditating. By this point, I am open to acceptance. In a book I’m reading now one of the meditation practices involves focusing on what is bothering us, acknowledging it and giving it a moment, then accepting it, and finally letting it go. The practice also speaks to accepting what our body is telling us – whether in the breathing process, or whatever else the body whispers when in a state of meditation. 

Sometimes that arrives in a pain of the ankles, from sitting lotus-style on the floor. Sometimes it’s a knot in the shoulders or back from a day of work stress in an office chair. Sometimes it’s a sense of dizziness that borders on a headache. In each instance, the practice advises breathing into each little pain and then exhaling out and letting it go. If the pain or bother persists, and the focus veers from the breathing, one is supposed to focus again on the pain and what the body is saying, then shift back into deep breathing. 

As I felt the suddenly-slightly-ragged piece of rose quartz in my palm, I breathed in deeply, then slowly breathed out. Next, I listened to the body, and felt the stress-agitation in my shoulders and neck. Feeling the twinge of an ache there, I lowered my shoulders a bit, breathing deeply in and then slowly out, and somehow the pain lessened. Maybe it was the relaxation and the dropped shoulders, or maybe it was something deeper. The body and the mind work together always – perfectly imperfect.