Meditation: equal 3

We open with considerations of love, then move to the breath. A fullness, a simplicity; intimate, present.

A brief power outage occurred just as we were OMing. It might be truncated.

And, SK sent this beautiful poetic musing on “love” , after the meditation.

Praise the Positive Deviants
      written in response to the Imagine Retreat with Boris Worm, Cynthia Bourgeault & others

I want to remember how this morning
a man stopped us on the road to tell us
of the yellow mushroom ahead,
how his hands trembled like startled wings
in his thrill to share the strange polka-dotted beauty.
Want to remember the woman who companioned
a sphinx caterpillar across the road.
And the man who stands in the ocean every day,
teaches hope through data, and knows himself
not as the ocean’s custodian but as the ocean’s lover.
Something in the daily way they live their love
ignites brighter love in me, a primal love that splashes
in puddles and weeps salty tears at the side of the sea,
a love that refuses to be restrained
even as we grieve the harm we commit
against this fragile, resilient, changing planet.
Bless those who offer their hearts to the world
even in a state of alarm and despair.
We think hope can’t survive, but it does.
Bless these humans and their contagious, rebel love,
their mycelial love, their wild-flowering love,
may it spread in us, too, growing faster than kelp,
reproducing like rabbits, adapting like mangroves,
a love that bids us to live toward the mutual flourishing of all,
not out of fear for ourselves and our world,
but for love, because love, because love, because love.

—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

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Meditation: equal 2, omni

Before doing the meditative exercise described in Tuesday’s post, we marvel at our planet. It is a planet of light!

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Meditation: equal 1

Pause for a moment. Choose one of your senses. Now, be aware of the manyness that that one sense is currently experiencing.

  • if the visual sense: everything that is within your immediate, long-range, and peripheral view; perspective
  • if the auditory sense: all the sounds in all their varieties – leave none out, including sounds in your mind or inner ears; hearing guidance or troublesome thoughts, echoes of past words or hurts
  • if the sense of touch: the obvious of standing on the ground or sitting on a chair, plus your clothes, hair, tongue against teeth, swallowing saliva, blinking, the air in the room or the breeze, sun, or shade or temperature of night on your skin, on your ears, in your hair; being touched by kindness, by anger, by doubt or fear; in touch with an emotion, a loved one, or an intuitive touch of knowing; the touch of devotion for your teacher or your Path or god or your heart
  • if the sense of smell: your smell, shampoo, deodorant or lack thereof, the scent of food, beverage, pet(s), pet beds, soil, autumn, rain or baked earth, flowers or lack thereof; the scent that you are following -being guided by- on your Path, through your day
  • if the sense of taste: your mouth, what’s in it, taste in clothes, accoutrements, room appointments, body splash or hand lotion, taste in music, reading material, preferences in general

As one does this exercise (just one sense in the Now), one will discover something significant. All of our senses are omni and neutrally take in their appropriate data points as equal. All of the data points, equal. All of the data points in an omni present manner. None of the senses function selectively. They cannot. And, the data points (leaf, wall, speck on one’s shirt, the smell of the trash under the sink, the taste of this morning’s hot beverage) are not only all at the same time, but are equal as data points. An equality. A neutrality. It is the self that picks and chooses, prefers and dismisses, laughs with the nuthatch or laments the lack the rain. These assessments are not made by the senses. This is important. The senses do not evaluate; the self does.

All the while, the senses -in their omni, universal, ongoing and ceaseless ’til death registering of the Allness of Existing in Existence- are clearly the instruments of Awareness, omnipresent Awareness, essence of Being. Awareness does not evaluate. Awareness does not pick or choose. All -inside, outside, and all around- are equal to and in Awareness. And, equally empty while equally awareness being aware.

As one opens to this fact of Being, delight, awe, openness, empathy and compassion somehow increase. Maybe it is Oneness that one is discovering. How marvelous!

{Unfortunately, the audio file was corrupted. Sorry.}

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Yes, Meditation resumes, Tues. Sept. 15.

Thank you, everyone, for your generosity of space and time. Though it was my body that initiated the week off with a gentle but uncompromising “no,” every aspect and dimension of being engaged in the generosity of space and time itself. And, found delight!

The week unfolded as an ongoing openness to inconceivability: to the absolutely profound in any and every feature of ordinariness. An example. As someone raked and laughed in conversation with someone fluent in his language, the birds twittered, the wind blew gently, the corn stalks crisp with their age rattled. My heart and its beat were inseparable from it all; plus the insects and the soil sang. Amused, delighted, open.

As we learn to open to what our senses are taking in every moment, we open to a richness that, heretofore, was missed, even dismissed. Yet, over time, a great simplicity can erupt in one’s mind and our heart explode delighting in the ordinary. Ah.

I will set the alarm. We’ll be back for online meditation. See you then!

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Honoring “no”

As the alarm went off at 6:30 am, the body just said, “no.” Online meditation at 7 am would have to roll on by. I am sorry to everyone who, with dedication and heart, was there and is there regularly. I am sorry to everyone who uses the podcasts, wherever you are, in all the places you are.

Osho once said, “buddhist ‘no’ is a hundred thousand ‘yes’s’.” (or something close to that). When “no” is a yes, hmmm. When “no” is not the parent to the child, the controlling ego to the free spirit, or the echo of hesitation or doubt, is “no” an invitation?

A friend sent a box of emptiness. Its fullness was priceless; and, in one short day, is working a magic most unpredictable. Joyous. Welcome. Freeing.

I am amazed at this “no”; somehow lured by it, turned around and upside down by it. How marvelous!

So, this week, there will be no 6:30 am alarms in honor of the body’s need for “no;” a “yes” to this body so dutiful. As I fell back asleep this morning with a moan in my body and the sunshine illumining the day, a flirtation arose: no musts, no shoulds, no need-to’s. no.”

When I meditate through the day, it will be with you all. I love you. Thank you for Being!

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