Meditation 14.23 minutes

I am the diverplunging below.I am the water,I am the flow.I am the rock, the crab and the fish,I am the golden coinmaking a wish.I am the shipwreckon ocean’s deep floor.I am the treasure -a wealth to explore.

https://youtu.be/OnvQggy3Ezw

Meditation - 15 minutes

I Go Among Trees

by Wendell Berry

I go among trees and sit still.

All my stirring becomes quiet

around me like circles on water.

My tasks lie in their places

where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes

and lives a while in my sight.

What it fears in me leaves me,

and the fear of me leaves it.

It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.

I live for a while in its sight.

What I fear in it leaves it,

and the fear of it leaves me.

It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,

mute in my consternations,

I hear my song at last,

and I sing it. As we sing,

the day turns, the trees move.

~ Wendell Berry from Sabbaths

https://youtu.be/3ZCyb_DECsc

I go among trees and sit still…

Really? I have to sit still? But there are so many fun things to DO!!!

When the energy of spring is rising, it’s tempting to rush into all those projects we’ve been sitting on during the winter. To throw all our energy at them, in the hope of quick results. But then here comes Imbolc, the Celtic festival marking the beginning of Spring. Celebrated on or around February 1st, the word Imbolc is thought to come from Gaelic meaning in the belly and is a timely reminder that creativity begins ‘in the belly’ and needs a while to cook before it sees the light of day.  Jumping in too soon can be like dragging a seedling out of the ground to see if it has grown roots yet!

In Wendell Berry's beautiful poem, despite his taking time to rest, the day, in its own time, turns. The trees, in their own time, move. Even bees rest, you know?

Meditation : 15.11 minutes

What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

This line from one of Mary Oliver’s most famous poems came to mind while we meditated on a cold, winter beach. Ironically, the poem is entitled The Summer Day,  but I spoke it aloud to honour, after her recent death, the woman, her work, and the wildness that brought our little group together this January morning.

“When, during the guided meditation, you mentioned ‘wild’,  I was actually feeling very peaceful” she says, her expression quizzical. She is finding it hard to equate these two. Wild and peaceful. As though they live on opposite sides of her experience. And so there, huddled together on the beach, we discuss what it means to be wild…

Being a multilingual group, we consider words like the French sauvage and Spanish salvaje, both of which arise from the Latin silvāticus, which literally means "of the woods”, from the word silva, meaning “forest” or “grove”.  And we agree that the forest can be both wild and peaceful. That wild flowers are not threatening. And that wild means also natural.

Over time, as we have strayed further and further from our wild, natural state, the words wild and savage have come to mean uncultured and uncivilised. Something to be feared. But we can reclaim it, especially as civilisation does not seem to be serving us very well.

Knowing that wild is also peaceful. Also natural. Can this help us re-connect with it?

Wounds into Wisdom - Meditation 20 minutes

Turn your Wounds into Wisdom

I saw this written on the side of a bus in Sitges yesterday. I was a bit confused. What was such a thing doing on a bus? But there it was. In English. On a Spanish bus. Que raro!

The words stayed with me, and then showed up again in the meditation session on the beach this morning. The quote is from Oprah Winfrey, so I can’t take credit for it, but I feel the meditation we expanded a little on how we might do this. If you have 20 minutes to spend in a relaxed position, listening to the sound of the sea and being guided to ungrip in body and mind, you might like to take a listen.