I found myself stumbling over my
words, in my eagerness to tell a coworker about meditation. And now I
am spinning in the backwash of my own enthusiasm: so much invested,
so much hoped, so much that fell short. And yet. I have only twice,
that I clearly recall, moved distinctly, decisively, to a new and
better state of being. One of those times was when I moved away from
home: the second time was the result of a regular meditation
practice. That's it, in 54 years; two doorways. And the other things
I have invested in – many many things, over the years – have
returned far less.
But have you said
anything, when you say that? As opposed to, say, fingers threaded
through the hair at the nape of the neck, or the shadow of a cloud
leaving the trees? So little comes into focus at one time: and
memory, the neurologists tell us, is rewritten every time it's
accessed, so that what we remember often is precisely what we
remember worst. The more often I've told a story, the less
I should believe it. That, at least, I've known since before the
first door opened.
I sat shamatha this
morning, taking the cushion from the back of the love seat for a
zabuton, and my pillow from the bed for a zafu. After a few breaths I
realized I had forgotten the prayer at the beginning, the prayer in
which one sets the intention. I thrashed a moment or two between the
impulse to start over properly, and the discipline of not following
the thought – any thought – even the thought of the dedication
prayer. You start making exceptions and the whole thing unravels:
everything's an exception. So I shook free, let it go, followed my
breathing: the cold air nuzzling at my nostrils on the inbreath, the
faint rasp of the outbreath, the uneasy multifidi and rotatores
trying to second guess this strange stillness. Sometimes you can feel
the ribs hanging from your spine, like a twelve sets of folded bronze
wings.
The light grew in
the room as I sat. I said the dedication prayer in full morning, as
full as it gets here at the withered end of the year. People
forget that Icarus also flew: the line comes unbidden into my
mind, and my ribs move restlessly, reminding me of the flirt of a
crow's tail while it balances on a power wire in a stiff wind. Or of
the twitch of a cat's ears when they're brushed by a thread. I do
long to fly: or at least to jump from floor to windowsill, and peer
at the open sky.
7 comments:
As the year ends, I am reminded yet again how much I like to read what you write.
Happy new year, dear Dale.
Thank you dear! Happy New Year to you, to, and congratulations on founding your home!
Beautifully written, dale, as ever.
And I found this poem also in my aggregator this morning, and it seemed (to me) to be in conversation with your post: http://thisfrenzy.wordpress.com/2012/12/30/new-year-resolve-by-may-sarton/
Wonderful!
I love this. Oh, 12 wings!
Getting me remembering the days my universe changed.
Back here...having found myself leading a meditation group, I flounder too, wishing I could explain why and how meditation changed my life to people who really have no idea. Everyone wants to believe in love, instead. Of course, the practice leads there, but over mountains...
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