Word of the Week - 72

Words of the Week:  GRACE AND GRATITUDE

Today is Day 8 of a free, on-line meditation program from Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra, the theme of which is "Manifesting Grace Through Gratitude."  This is the second free course of theirs in which I've participated.  I can't explain why there was any gap between programs.  I will chalk it up to my tendency to wander off.

Here is the link that is sent to participants.  Even though the first days of the 21-day program are no longer available (though they may be found through the purchase of the course), there is still an enormous benefit to be gained from the remaining meditations.  You will need to register if you want to take part.  I hope that information is easy to find.  On Sunday I had difficulty connecting to the page, sent a FB message about my difficulty and received an almost immediate response with ideas for solutions.  Excellent customer service for any sort of program, especially one that is free.

These Seven Myths of Meditation may help to assure you, as they did me, that imperfection of practice is no obstacle to meditating.  In each of the sessions, led by Chopra with a mantra to repeat as a means of focusing, I have found an almost instant stilling of the chattering mind and a sense of what I assume to be the grace of which he and partner Oprah Winfrey speak.  That the road to this enlightened space is through gratitude makes it a good match for me.  I have so much for which to be thankful and my days include conscious expression of gratitude for all things, to the best of my ability.

In discussing the Seven Myths, Chopra speaks of working with a trained teacher to learn the practice of meditation, something which had me believing I was doing it wrong (!) as I had only the teachings of CDs and books before finding these courses.  I know people who have nearly life-long meditation practices which seem to ask more of them than I can give, being unable to sit in uncomfortable positions as my legs no longer bend that way, yet to find the quiet mind and optimism that I have here seems to tell me, as with so many things, we start where we are with what we have and do the best we can.  Chopra is an excellent guide and teacher.

Unless one has already developed a rare sense of peace and stillness, the world is too much with us most of the time.  In these roughly 20-minute sessions I become unknotted, calmed and restored, as in made more whole again.  There is nothing to sell here, only a gift to bestow.  In this practice or another which better suits your needs, meditation offers a respite from overload and my own tendency at times to become a bit wound up, to forget what I know and lapse into jabbering.  It is lovely not to be jabbering, either out loud or in my own head.  Surely that is grace.

Word of the Week - 37

Seaside village from Kirsty Elson Designs.

Michelle Holmes Embroidery.

Word(s) of the Week:  PLAYING FOR TIME

There is a sensibility with which I identify in the work of Kirsty Elson and Michelle Holmes.  Their wooden seaside encampments and understated embroidered vignettes express visually some of what I hope to capture in the ongoing story on my blog of Gloria. The Reading Man and life in Billington's Cove.  In the saga of 60-some episodes (so far), I arrived at a pivotal moment and its details have not yet become clear.

Because the characters and their place found me, not the other way around, I've learned to be trusting and patient.  They will spill the beans when they are ready.  They resist, which I've come to respect, any of my attempts to give them false moments, contrived musings, inauthentic action.  They and their setting do not belong to ordinary reality as to time and space.  I consider them not only imaginary friends but more.  They seem able to gauge the tides of my heart and inform me accordingly.  I have come to know myself better through them.  With their help I am clearer about what I believe, how the world, the universe even, works.

What happens after the dance, I mean THE DANCE, I have no idea.  It is not the ultimate moment in their story, yet it is much more than just a moment.  My great wish is that I not muddy any part of it by rushing them.

Once upon a time I meditated daily.  In the way of things, I somehow grew apart from that beneficial practice.  In the last few weeks, joining Oprah and Deepak Chopra, I've found what may be the way back to the states of mind that result from meditation.  My first thought was unattractively judgmental.  After the first session, I was grateful for the ease of the exercise.  It may be the lazy woman's path and I'm fine with that.  My rather elderly joints and muscles need comfort in order to focus.  I am either dreaming more or am more aware of my dreams.  I've had moments of being more connected to aspects of myself that I forgot existed.  I am able to slip into a state of detachment from daily stuff and let images appear, either during the meditation or other parts of the day.

In one of these "states," I saw a younger Reading Man standing in a field, talking in a soft animal voice to a horse for whom he obviously had great affection.  Their heads together, they seemed halves of the same whole.  Any stilling of the chattering, fretting mind allows the veil to thin.  I love going there.

I hope it won't be too much longer before my undeclared lovebirds and I resume our adventure.  I think of them as absent friends or a phantom limb, not as inventions of my imagination.  Until we meet again.  xo