Enter a forest and observe your senses coming alive.

Meditation For The Senses

The other day my three-year-old cat who I found as a kitten in Nevada, the size and weight of a feather, developed an abscess above his left eye. It was from a catfight no doubt. When I initially found him as a two-month-old, black soot poo exited his derriere and his fur was thick and chalky with desert particles. 
Yesterday, once again, I was to care for him, dabbing his puss-y sore with warm salt water and cutting away the fur to see the yellow oozing honey-like substance. Usually waking me at the first sign of light, that day he stayed in his bed, his brow low, not moving.
I was reminded of the day I found him and his sister outside the chicken coop of the ranch where I was staying. The two of them were stuck together to form a solid ball of fur like that Star Trek episode The Trouble with Tribbles. She died after a day, but he got stronger. The first indication I had that we would survive was when he pawed me as I walked by him as he lay spread eagle in a sunbeam on the kitchen floor. "You're a fighter," I said. 
There's something about caring for fragile things that makes me recognize the frailty in myself and the need to attend to myself as though caring for a wild, ailing animal. 
We often don't realize something's wrong within us until we get sick or have a meltdown. Because we're taught for the most part to "keep calm and carry on" the layers of our fragileness get pushed down and we forget just how important it is to acknowledge them.

Mindful Writing Exercise
Write about the last time you cared for a fragile living thing. This can be a person or a plant or animal---anything living. How did giving of yourself in this way make you feel? List some ways that you can apply this level of care to yourself.

Mindful Writing- Fragile Things

What is mindful writing? Mindful writing means using the act of writing to discover stillness within yourself. Mindful writing can help you create space in your day for rest and rejuvenation. Taking time for stillness and rest can help you to become more aware of your emotions and actions, more confident, more empathetic toward others, and more awake to the possibilities of your life.

What Is Mindful Writing?

This is a mindful writing exercise for peace. Take out a pen and a piece of paper or a notebook. Write what is weighing down your heart. Now imagine what would need to change in order for peace to take hold. You can make a difference. Breathe in the possibilities.

Mindful Writing For Peace

This is a sneak peak at my online 21 Writing Meditation course through DailyOm. Listen to the first meditation and read the first writing exercise below.

Through daily sitting, writing, and listening, this course will teach you how to deepen your attention and create a space for your writing. 

Writing meditation can be a powerful way to bring the active mind in closer alignment with the mind of meditation. This course will help you develop tools and insights for overcoming habitual mind states, self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors. After about only one week you will feel yourself opening up to others and to your creativity and imagination.

Lesson One
I initially came across the expression “first thoughts” in Nathalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, Freeing the Writer Within. In her book she counsels to keep writing even when you feel like stopping to read what you’ve written. Allow the pen to continue across the page and don’t cross out anything. Goldberg’s “first thoughts” or what other writers might refer to as “free writing,” helps you trust yourself and open to the creative process. This exercise allows you free reign to write and not worry about what you are writing.

More precisely, what you are doing here is connecting to the ‘original mind’ or your true self as your ‘first thoughts’ come before you have a chance to censor yourself or rethink what you’ve written. These thoughts are important information for you to deepen your awareness of who you are but also to trust in the process and not worry about the outcome.

In this lesson you will practice ‘first thoughts’ and begin with a meditation to help free your mind and prepare the ground for deep creativity. Meditation can help you give way to the mystery of existence by allowing you to encounter your core consciousness. In wisdom traditions we often hear of the space between thought as a window to God, our spirit or our truth. This space is an area of infinite possibility but also of unbridled creativity and imagination.

In this first meditation you are going to practice saying a mantra, which will enable you to focus more easily. The word “mantra” is a Sanskrit word combining the words “man” which refers to “mind’ and “tra” which means “instrument.” This “instrument of the mind” is a tool, which yogis used to go from a place of scattered thought to a place of stillness.

Before you begin the meditation make sure that you have a pen and paper or notebook beside you as you are going to begin the writing exercise shortly after. 

(Listen to the meditation, then do the exercise.)

Exercise
Going back to the idea of “first thoughts” and connecting to your core consciousness, pick up your pen and begin to write down the first thought that comes to you. Keep writing, staying with that first thought, and not looking back to judge whether what you wrote was good or bad. Enjoy the flow of the thoughts that are coming to you and just write them down. Try to stay with this burst of thought for as long as it carries you. It might last five minutes or it might only last 60 seconds. Once you feel that the first thought is complete, put the pen down.

You can check out the course here: http://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/courses/courseoverview.cgi?cid=563&aff=

Writing Meditation (excerpted from DailyOM)

This clip includes an excerpt by Ernest Hemingway on listening, and a related writing exercise.

Writing Exercise: Listen Now

At first, your mind might have a hard time imagining you as part of nature. Yet, if you find yourself questioning the exercise just bring your awareness back to your senses. Whether you realize it or not, your body has a memory of being intimately connected to the natural world. 

At one time your ancestors might have lived by the sea, or in the desert or perhaps in a lush valley or forest. Although modern life—at least for most of us—is spent in cities, your body hasn’t forgotten the relationship it once had to nature. In fact, some part of your body’s story still remembers and responds to the sound of birds in the trees, wind moving across the fields or sands. 

And in some ways, because your ancestors lived for many years with nature and relied on it for their survival, your body not only recalls this bond, but you might even say on some level it makes no distinction between you and nature.

Nature And You

Find a comfortable place on a sofa, chair or on a cushion on the floor. Make sure that your back is supported and that you are sitting upright. You may cross your legs if you wish or just sit with your feet planted firmly on the floor. Allow your hands to rest on your thighs or knees, palms facing upwards, and gently close your eyes. Take a few moments to sense the inflow and outflow of breath. Allow your awareness to follow the breath as it expands your lungs and abdomen and exits through your nostrils.

Feel the tension and places where there is tightness or discomfort. Now sense the space between your ears and imagine that your mind isn't fixed, but is fluid and open. Begin to navigate each eyefirst your left, then your rightwith your mind and senses. Feel the front, the back and the top and bottom. Sense the skin around your eyes and your cheeks. Relax the muscles in your face and drop your head forward so that your chin points down to your chest. Let your head move back and forth a little to release the tension in your neck and shoulders.

Feel the weight of your arms hanging from your torso and sense your fingers partly open on your thighs or knees. Move your awareness to your chest and stomach. Feel your chest expand as you inhale and sense how it and your belly contract when you exhale. When you are ready open your eyes or wait for the sound of the meditation bell.

Photo by Daniel Apodaca.

Awaken to the Body

Winter’s a perfect season to reflect and go inside ourselves. As we prepare for spring we can take stock of our lives, reassessing who we are, what we’re passionate about, and what we’d like to see grow and mature in the coming year. 

Join me for this special winter meditation + a poem about the dark to prepare for winter and the coming year.

Winter Meditation

Is trying to de-stress stressing you out?

Have you tried different ways to feel less stressed (e.g., yoga, meditation), yet still feel overwhelmed? Is your to-do list getting longer, yet you've little fuel in the tank to tackle it? 

All you need to start is a pen and paper or a notebook. Do these writing meditations at your own pace and on your own time.

Write to Calm

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