photo by Melissa Groves and Photography by Melissa
This blog was originally written for Jennifer Miller who introduced it in this way:
Note from Jenn: 3 years ago I stumbled into a yoga class quite by chance on a Thursday morning. I've been back 1 - 3 times weekly since. In fact, I don't quite remember myself before yoga and meditation led me deeper into relationship with God. One of my most consistent teachers has been Kate. I used to dread her class because it didn't offer the distraction of music. There was nothing to focus on. No beat to let consume my thoughts. The silence was too loud. And then I realized one day, like a light bulb moment, that it too was a way of teaching. She taught us to meditate for 75 minutes every Thursday morning without ever uttering a word about it. I knew when I started this blog I wanted her to write for you and for me on meditation. Check out her bio at the end of her writing. She's fabulous and I'm convinced you'll want to know her better. - Jenn
What do you think of when you hear the word: “meditation”?
Do you think of still minds? Of monks in caves and on mountains? Of enlightenment? Of peace? Of perfection? Can you see yourself in it or does it feel unobtainable? Boring? One more thing that needs to be done? Separate somehow from the chaos that is your life?
It is true what they say that wherever we go, there we are. And inside each one of us there is a quiet voice that fears that who we are is too small and also too much, unloveable, not good enough, inherently flawed. So we bring that voice with us when we approach our spiritual practices, the practices that are supposed to bring us comfort and connection. After all, what we believe about ourselves dictates how we act in our relationships.
All our relationships.
Including the one we have with God: the Supreme Divine Mother/Father, the Love that animates all of Creation. Which, ultimately, is our relationship with ourselves.
So when we sit to meditate, we bring all of our trying, all of our masks and roles, all of our lists and priorities and avoidance patterns, all our shame and fears and guilt. And then we wonder why it doesn’t work, why it feels hard, why we don’t feel peace. We project what we fear about ourselves onto a screen in front of our eyes and then use the movie we created to prove our fears right. “You see, I can’t meditate because I never do anything right. Because I’m too broken. Because I have to get myself better first. I need to be different in order for this to work…”
And yet… there the practice of meditation sits. Quietly. Patiently. Waiting with palms open to receive.
To receive what?
All of you.
Meditation doesn’t care if your mind was only still for a millisecond before, “Hey! Look! I did it!” drops like a heavy stone sending ripples. Meditation doesn’t care about the roles you inhabit in your day-to-day life. It doesn’t care whether you are healthy or sick. It doesn’t care about your degrees and qualifications. It doesn’t determine your value based on your accomplishments or the busyness of your schedule. It doesn’t care how many mistakes you have made. It doesn’t even care whether you feel badly about having made them. Meditation doesn’t ‘do it for the ‘gram’. It doesn’t care whether your house is clean, whether your hair is brushed, whether you have it together or even appear to have it together.…
It simply doesn’t care.
Because meditation is not a judge, nor a measuring stick. Meditation is not a spot on a map. It’s not a specific length of time. It’s not a test we fail or pass. Meditation cannot be bought, hung on a wall, diffused throughout a room; nor is it a look we put on in the morning and freshen up during our bathroom breaks. It does not have a right or wrong. Sometimes, I think I hear meditation laughing gently - “Why are you hitting yourself like an idiot?” it teases, smiling.
Ah. Right.
I have to laugh a little in response. I feel some tension leave my jaw and shoulders. Perhaps a sigh escapes. All the suffering and the struggle… I brought that. And I can choose to put it down.
Try it.
Whatever you are using to beat yourself up, lay it down, at least for a moment, and come sit with me. Or lay down if sitting isn’t comfortable. After all, we get to say what works for us and meditation will meet us there.
Feel your breath move in and out. There’s no need to change it. Remember, there’s no right or wrong.
There is only presence instead of hiding.
Watching instead of doing.
Listening instead of speaking.
Not praying, but embodying the prayer.
Not asking, but wringing out the juices of your precious, beating heart with all its deepest, most sacred and secret longings and then offering them up to the One who Holds with compassion and humility and gratitude.
And when fear comes, that’s OK - we fear what we don’t know. And meditation turns the unknown to the known.
It’s the flash of lightening that gives us a glimpse of what’s in the dark room.
It’s the battlefield where we steel ourselves to face all our most gruesome monsters who, when we actually stop running, hiding, and fighting long enough to look… reveal themselves to simply be children: hurt, sad, scared, misunderstood.
We open our arms and they climb in and so meditation becomes the embrace through which stranger becomes Self.
And when stranger becomes Self fear becomes love, violence becomes peace, what is broken is mended, and we can see our stumblings for what they truly are: the very grace of God, moving through the world as us.
“Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
—————-
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense.”
- excerpts from Rumi’s A Great Wagon