Yesterday

Do you remember the morning meditation I mentioned in a post not long ago? Well, there’s another meditation on that App (the Insight Timer) that I love. This one is called “There’s Nothing Wrong with You,” and God knows I need to hear that reassurance every once in a while. According to this meditation, I was given (we are all given) a group to travel with. And as outlandish as that may sound to some, it is something I have always believed.

I think the first time I felt that way was the day my son was born. I held this child and thought, I know you. We have traveled together before, in this place but in some other time.

I once had a friend who told me he had a dream in which he saw his wife’s face the day before he met her. When he saw her the next day he recognized her immediately, even though she was standing next to her twin sister.

But, as this meditation reminds us, not everyone who enters our life is meant to stay. Some come lightly, as though on the wings of a butterfly, leaving after only a brief encounter, leaving nothing but a memory – sweet and sure. A memory of yesterday.  

My memoir, Dear Elvis, is available at amzn.to/2uPSFtE

The Seven Affirmations

Every morning, as I’ve mentioned before, I wake up, pick up my phone and listen to a guided meditation I found on an App called the Insight Timer. I’ve been so delighted with the seven affirmations contained in a meditation called Morning Meditation with Music by Jonathan Lehmann, I’ve been wanting to share them with you. So, here they are:

1). I make plans, but I remain flexible and open to the surprises that life has in store for me. I try to say yes as often as possible.

2). I cultivate patience, and by doing so I also cultivate self-confidence.

3). I welcome the opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone and I do not let myself be guided by fear.

4). I love myself unconditionally because it is essential to my happiness. I love the person that I am and I do not need other people’s approval to love myself fully.

5). I am going to drink water, eat fruits and vegetables, walk, take the stairs, exercise. Today I’m giving love to my body.

6). I give everywhere I go, even if it’s only a smile, a compliment or my full attention. Listening is the best gift I can give to those around me.

7). I try to be impeccable with my word and to speak only to spread positivity. It is counterproductive to my happiness to speak against myself or against others.

Listening to this meditation has helped me immensely lately. Sometimes I feel as though I have been driving down a road too quickly, not paying attention to the signs, and suddenly I am lost. Meditation helps me find my way back. It helps me feel grounded and safe.

Dear Elvis, my story about loss and grief, written as a series of letters to the king, is available at amzn.to/2uPSFtE 

It Happened One Morning

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been taking a course in Mindfulness.  The course, based on the teachings of Jon Kabat-Zinn, is being taught at the Bucks County Community College in Newtown, Pennsylvania.  The building we meet in is called the Orangery, which is located next door to the sixty-room Tyler mansion whose formal gardens lie between the two buildings.   

On the first day of class, one of our teachers instructed us to find an object outside as she guided us in meditation.  I had never before done a meditation with my eyes open and I doubted that this would work for me. 

It was a brisk but sunny autumn day with a breeze that was gently shaking the leaves from their trees.  A statue of a naked woman stood on the other side of the largest window in the room.  The woman was holding a jar on her shoulder through which a stream of water moved steadily. 

                                                           

There was a short footpath at the base of the statue and, at the end of the path, was a solitary leaf sitting on the ground.  At first, I expected the leaf to blow away, but it never did.

The leaf was brown and brittle, about the size of my hand and it looked like the letter “C.”  For some reason, it held my interest as the instructor lead us, her voice so low she seemed to be whispering.  I continued staring at that leaf for a full ten minutes or for however long the meditation lasted until suddenly it seemed to become a part of me – a part of my consciousness. 

Hours later, when I was no longer anywhere near that leaf, I could still see it, not only with my eyes closed but also with my eyes open.  It was an experience I had only heard about before.  The spiritual teacher, Deepak Chopra, calls it unity.  The Catholic Church calls it communion.  I call it beautiful.

Later, I realized I had experienced a feeling very similar to this one and that it had happened during a moment I write about in my memoir, Rude Awakening, when I fell into a love, which although it has swayed, dipped, spun around curves, evolved and transformed itself, has never ended.      

My memoir, Dear Elvis, is available at amzn.to/2uPSFtE

A Dialogue

I awoke suddenly in the middle of the night from a dream I could not remember.  I waited a moment studying the darkness until illumination from a streetlight helped me make sense of my surroundings.  I breathed deeply, beginning to relax as a sliver - just a flash from the dream that frightened me - came back to me.    I shivered, then heard myself speak aloud, “I miss You, God.” I said into the darkness. 

A long time ago when I was a child growing up, I believed that praying meant talking to God.  Later, as I started to grow old, I began meditating, believing that meditation meant listening to God.   But on this night, I realized I’d been doing too little of either - praying or meditating.  Perhaps because I believed I could no longer find God there.  

Alone in my room that night, I realized it was neither the talking nor the listening that I missed.  It was the dialogue.  But when did I ever have that? I wondered.  I had no idea.  But I must have had it once, I reasoned, or I would not be missing it now.  

What would the voice of God sound like? I wondered as I got up on my elbows to punch the pillow and turn it around.  Would the voice of God have a loud, echoing resonance that would haunt my dreams?  Or would it have the sweet, gentle timbre of a babbling brook?  Or would it come to me cognitively, without words?

“I miss You, God,” I spoke aloud again as I returned my head to the pillow.    

“I miss you, too,” He whispered so low I almost missed it.   

My memoir, Dear Elvis, is available at amzn.to/2uPSFtE