Hoot Happens
The first time meditation actually “worked” for me, I was sitting in a stifling hot church-room gazing silently at a small yellow flame.
The leader, a guy I loathed, had lit a candle and placed it on a low round coffee table around which a group of about eight of us sat on various sorts of church-chairs and a butt swallowing couch.
At first, I was conscious of the others around me snuffling, and breathing, shifting in their seats. It was daytime, the lights in the room were out, but rather than close my eyes, I focused on the glow from the candle.
I noticed thoughts floating in and out of my mind, and as I did, I became aware that my focal point was shifting. In the horizon of my inner vision I saw mountains in a wide desert tableau, a vast orange pink sky, somewhere in New Mexico, a place I’d never been, but my eyes and my mind were there now, taking in the expansive magnificence of it all. It felt as if I was flying.
Out of nowhere, the leader spoke, breaking the spell. He picked up the candle and, with his fleshy lips, blew it out. I was back in Toronto with a group of people in a small stuffy church-lounge and twenty minutes of my life had passed.
The leader asked if anyone wanted to share before we disbanded and some did, but I clutched my experience to myself, not wanting to spoil it by sharing it.
Meditation is so cool! I thought to myself, hurrying from the church. I’m gonna do it again. So easy. Just light a candle…
And, of course, you know the rest. I never did.
I shouldn’t say never, because I did continue to dabble. Now and then I’d be part of a group, a book club or small gathering that would include a few minutes of meditation. The more I practiced, the more I became comfortable with meditating amongst other people, noticing their small noises, the sounds of the space, trucks roaring past open windows, doors echoing in apartment hallways, cats sneaking by rubbing their tails against my still knees.
Meditations were mostly silently useless and uneventful, and then I had another vision.
This time, I was trying out a new technique I’d heard about at a book signing by an energy healer. She’d said, “Imagine the top of your head is open and beaming up, while at the same time some beautiful white energy is beaming down.” I liked this technique. I liked imagining that the top of my head had blown off, and I was channeling some wild ethereal energy. And then when I was meditating with some friends on a Sunday afternoon, a great snowy owl appeared, wings spread white and powerful. It wasn’t the first time birds had flown into my consciousness as though delivering messages from beyond. But this overpowering, snowy owl with its updrafting wings was encouraging me to write, to take birds into my writing, bird by bird, and all that stuff.
The owl vision was a cool one.
And then one day when I was alone I had another one. I was meditating on forgiveness, and contemplating forgiveness, and suddenly I felt flooded by love, absolutely drenched in it. Above me were all the people I’ve loved and lost to death, and even people I didn’t love so much when they were around, but there they were over my head in that channel, and they were telling me I was forgiven. In fact, I was so forgiven, they communicated, because whatever harm I thought I’d done them was meaningless now. They assured me that they were experiencing something so One, an encompassing exquisite ecstasy, a rapture so rapturous that any petty human slight or wound had vanished long ago and would never be significant again.
Boy, was I relieved.
Before these episodes wherein meditation “worked”, I was like all newby meditators, sitting quietly and still even though my nose itched, my legs felt uncomfortable, and my thoughts squirmed inside my brain as I tried to concentrate on the leader’s instructions, or the bells, or the chanting, or whatever it was I was supposed to be doing. All my usual day-to-day thoughts would crowd into my mind, urging me to put down this pointless activity of sitting quietly and get going on the day’s business, my grocery list, my to-dos, my grudge against someone I dreaded encountering later, the show I watched last night, my bank account, some yearning I had about someone or something, something I ought to be feeling guilty about. And I’d think, “What is the sense of this stupid meditation stuff?” And finally, time would be up and I’d pretend, like everyone else, that it was beneficial.
“Oh yes, I feel totally more relaxed. Does anyone else want some coffee?”
Now, I revel in the mandalas and kaleidoscopes, the positive and negative spaces that exchange places while I meditate. I hear birds and listen to their messages. I allow the wind to blow the leaves and branches and the waves to wash up on the shore, one after another after another. I stare and let it be.
“There is no try,” said Yoda from Star Trek, I mean Star Wars.
Oh, stop it.
What do you think about when you’re meditating?
Trick question!
You’re not supposed to be thinking about anything, silly.
I read a cool thing for anyone wanting to try meditating.
Sit or lie down.
Close your eyes, or stare off into space.
Pretend you’re meditating.
That’s it! That’s all you need to do. Let me know how it works out. I love to hear from you every week.
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Pretend to meditate! Good one! 💛