Meditation is a reliable way to come Home.
Nature and my own Radiant Heart are my churches.
God / Spirit / All that Is,
the Sun above my head, the Earth beneath my feet, the Air we breath,
the Trees, the Water, the Birds, the Fish, the Creepy-crawlies, and all Life,
are my guides and inspiration.
Everything you need to know is available for the asking, if only you let yourself be still enough.
Nature and my own Radiant Heart are my churches.
God / Spirit / All that Is,
the Sun above my head, the Earth beneath my feet, the Air we breath,
the Trees, the Water, the Birds, the Fish, the Creepy-crawlies, and all Life,
are my guides and inspiration.
Everything you need to know is available for the asking, if only you let yourself be still enough.
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen.
It answers, I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost.
Stand still.
The forest knows Where you are.
You must let it find you.
-- LOST by David Wagnoner
Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen.
It answers, I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost.
Stand still.
The forest knows Where you are.
You must let it find you.
-- LOST by David Wagnoner
I started my conscious meditative journey in my mid 30's. I started with Transcendental Meditation, which to this day over 40 years later is my go-to 'resuscitation' meditation. TM is a mantra focussed meditative practice. Whenever you give the mind a single point of focus (viz a mantra), it can relax inside into Silence.
At that time, I had a powerful and very active 2 1/2-year-old, an infant, and a husband who was away at work most of the day. The only time I could reliably find to meditate was when my older daughter was napping and my little one was nursing. The little one, until she was 3/12 years old, would climb into my lap whenever she saw me sit down to meditate, and together we would drop into deep, deep Silence. What a gift.
There is nothing like the sound of water to calm the mind:
At that time, I had a powerful and very active 2 1/2-year-old, an infant, and a husband who was away at work most of the day. The only time I could reliably find to meditate was when my older daughter was napping and my little one was nursing. The little one, until she was 3/12 years old, would climb into my lap whenever she saw me sit down to meditate, and together we would drop into deep, deep Silence. What a gift.
There is nothing like the sound of water to calm the mind:
Over the years, I explored many different approaches to deepening and clearing the mind.
I remember coming out of my first Vipassena meditation retreat, and being able to see 360 degrees around my head.
A steady practice teaches one's mind a place of stillness.
Minds can be a very pesky dictators. Minds love drama and judgment (of self and others), fear and anxiety,
and, if left as the captains of our life's ship, minds can repeatedly run us aground in uncomfortable ways.
Here is a meditation in a 4/4 rhythm. You can start either with your right or left foot.
"I feel the Earth under my feet and the sky above my head".
I remember coming out of my first Vipassena meditation retreat, and being able to see 360 degrees around my head.
A steady practice teaches one's mind a place of stillness.
Minds can be a very pesky dictators. Minds love drama and judgment (of self and others), fear and anxiety,
and, if left as the captains of our life's ship, minds can repeatedly run us aground in uncomfortable ways.
Here is a meditation in a 4/4 rhythm. You can start either with your right or left foot.
"I feel the Earth under my feet and the sky above my head".
In this case, it is the steadiness of the rhythm of your steps that becomes the focal point for your mind.
At one point one of my teachers suggested I choose a single meditation and do it every day for the coming year. That happened to be 1983-4, the year I went alone for 9 months with a knapsack on my back to India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Thailand and Japan. I chose to combine a singing meditation from one of the Dances of Universal Peace, with a spiral opening meditation gifted to me by Brugh Joy via Richard Moss.
Outside, usually at day break, wherever I happened to be on my journey, I would walk and sing to open all my chakras. This took about a half hour. Then, wide open, I would sit in Silence with the question: "How shall I use this day?" My commitment was to do whatever I heard to do. This meant, I rarely slept in the same place more than one night, I was spirit-directed and my journey and life evolved accordingly. I was always guided and always totally safe. To this day whenever I feel this song arise, it comes with multiple day-break images from all over the Far East. I am thinking in this moment of a day in Kyoto when I was invited to comb the moss at the temple grounds before daybreak so that it would be totally clean for the tourists later.
What a gift to be schedule-free and hence able to listen to and have the freedom to follow the deeper yearnings of my soul -- and learn.
In 1993, I was again privileged to be on sabbatical. This time in Israel. While there, I took a ten-day excursion through the Sinai desert: one camel, one Bedouin (we had 12 words of Hebrew in common, my guide and I), and myself. The path we followed was etched in his awareness like the veins on the back of his hand, but with no visible route for me to see to follow.
We slept at night on the ground near Bedouin encampments. There was just enough dew moisture, so that in the morning, footsteps would be visible in the desert sand. One morning, I noticed some very interesting footsteps near where I had slept: someone who walked very heavy on their right foot, with hardly an impression left by their left foot. My first reaction was: with only the two of us there, who could have been walking around our camp at night. Then of course, I recognized the steps as from my own mid-night potty break. This observation gifted me my first walking meditation. Each of us, when walking, will unconsciously favor one foot or the other to place on the 'down beat', as to marching music. Gradually how we use our beautiful and symmetrical bodies becomes lopsided. However, if you sing a waltz in three beat time, the downbeat alternates between the right and the left foot.
We walked many miles every day, giving me opportunity to explore this walking meditation; the night-time potty steps gave me feedback as to how I was doing. By two days later, the impact of my night time foots steps were of equal pressure.
Here is the waltz-time walking meditation I used to balance my gait in the Sinai desert.
Have fun with it, or sing your own favorite waltz:
In the late '90's I developed my Body Pendulum Meditation. This is easily teachable, details upon request. Standing, fully present in your body, you ask to be cleared and shielded, then double check that you are clear, then ask permission to ask about whatever you wish to discern. The body then, without any conscious input from you, will direct you to your answer. Fascinating, and OMG, what a relief no longer to have to hem and haw re decision-making: simply ask, get your answer, and proceed on your way. YES!
Caveat: go ahead and try this, but if you do so, you have to do what you hear to do. Each time you practice you are reinforcing your communication agreement with Source. If you then second guess or bi-pass what you hear in order to satisfy your ego's fear and or attachment needs you break the line of connection with Source.
My barn burned down.
Now I can see the moon.
-- Japanese Zen poet
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My favorite holy day of the year is the Winter Solstice. For 23 years now (yes I did miss one year after the house fire): alone, with one other person, or with a bunch of others, I have gone into Deep Silence for the 4-5-6 days leading into the darkest night of the year, the Solstice Day, the day of the turning of the Light, when the days again begin to get longer.
I love the Sun and am a pretty much a solar driven person, getting up with the light and going down with it. I also crave the renewal of this time each year, the darkest time of the year. Like the trees I drop my external adornment (including no communication with the outside world, no reading, no writing, no music). Silence, deep inner silence gifts us the opportunity and time and space to hear that 'still small voice', the voice that I rely on as the captain of my life's ship. Almost anything you do can become meditation -- like washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, sorting laundry, weeding, drywalling, painting, etc. Every night before I go to sleep I do a short meditation from Rudolph Steiner. Remarkable in effect. See Marianna's Cathedral Rock Meditation below. If you are one of these people who does not believe they can empty or quiet their mind, I highly recommend the door in that Rajneesh (now called Osho) gave us through his meditations, which take you through movement into the silence. They are available on CD: Dynamic, Kundalini and Nataraj, music by Deuter. 60 Day Commitment: Here's another way to set rhythm and focus for your mind. Chose several things that you commit to doing daily for 60 (or 100) days, as conscious practice. If you miss even one item on one day, you get to start all over at the beginning of your chosen number of days. |
Fast-forward many years:
Thanksgiving week of '09 I went to play Handel's Messiah -- Recitative # 47: "Behold I tell you a mystery: Ye shall not all sleep. In a moment your life shall be changed, in the twinkling of an eye" -- I came home 2 1/2 hours later to the ashes of all I owned except my viola which I had with me. From the moment I walked up to the carcass of my house I knew three things: it was • Divine Intervention (I was about to get an amazing upgrade); • would be a Story of Miracles; • and, remarkably, I was Totally Taken Care of. Crone Magazine published a beautiful rendition with photographs of my story, issue # 4, 2010, titled: "Heart Cracked Open". Fast-forward 2 more years, after another walk-about wondering if by taking my home away I was being asked to relocate, I am back in Arizona and preparing to rebuild. With no architectural training, but with the support and guidance of deep, deep meditation, I was able to literally download and design perhaps the best low-end passive solar home in Sedona. It is beautiful, functional, and above all overflowing with exquisite healing energy, including prayers from all the world's traditions and quartz crystals in the foundation. All sorts of magic happened as we built. First and foremost, having fired two other builders who wanted to build their home and not mine, I was gifted with the most remarkable builder -- a fellow musician in the Flagstaff Symphony, Principle cellist, Andrew Hamby. Andrew was in total service to the vision I had been given -- and he completed the entire job from groundbreaking to certificate of occupancy in 4 1/2 months! If you are local (he lives in Williams) and you wish to build, remodel or even do repairs, I cannot recommend Andrew highly enough [928-600-6765]. In deep gratitude, :) Marianna. Yes, we are still friends. In a recent email he said: "It always does my heart good to see you with a viola in your hands. There's no one like you on the planet, and I'm blessed to know you!" |
There are so many ways to meditate, to pray -- just about anything will do as a focussing point for your busy mind, if you let it be your teacher and your guide.
• As a gardener: when I weed, each weed becomes for me something I need to weed out of my life for greater clarity and beauty, so that at the
end of an hour of weeding not only is the garden clear, but so is my mind..
• Dances of Universal Peace: I have been Dancing and Leading and Playing music for the dances since the very early '80's:
joyous meditation in the company of others.
• If you are a mechanic, the concentration required to rebuild a motor can be a profound meditation.
• a Sweat Lodge Ceremony.
One of my daily meditations is to randomly email love notes or blessings to friends at the end of the day.
When you consciously feel love it pumps up the oxytocin levels in your body and everything works better.
On the music page, you will find a Dance of Universal Peace video Hu (the breath of God) Allah, which is the word all Arabic speaking peoples use for 'God'.
Allah, BTW: means 'yes' and 'no' all wrapped into One.
Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better.
It's about befriending who we are already. - Pema Chodron -