Category Archives: Mindfulness

“In times of stress and grief, walking meditation is a wonderful way to reestablish peace and calm in the body and mind. Spending time walking in nature every day helps reconnect us with our body, the earth, and the wonders of life. Nature has the capacity to embrace our pain and transform it.

We do not walk with the aim of getting anywhere, we just walk for the our joy of walking. We enjoy every step we make, savoring our breath and releasing our pain and sorrow to the earth. Every step brings us home to the present moment, the only place where life is possible. 

We become aware of our breathing and the contact of our feet on the earth. We feel the warmth of the sun on our face and the breeze on our skin. We become aware of the sounds of the birds, and the fragrance of the trees and flowers around us. We enjoy every step; with each step we make an imprint of peace on the earth. We can practice in a park or some other beautiful, quiet place. This nourishes our spirit, strengthens our mindfulness, and helps us heal.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

In times of trouble and strife, I tend to go away and be by myself. One of my favored jaunts is the quick trip to the Berkshires in neighboring Massachusetts, where I can stop by the Red Lion Inn for a cup of tea, and then drive up to the nearby outlets at Lee if retail therapy is needed. On a winter trip there, I found a little path in the middle of town, right beside and behind their charming library. What hustle and bustle the busy season might produce on the Main Street dissipates and disappears the moment I start down the stone-lined garden walkway. 

A bee gets busy with the mounded flowers of the Monarda, emblematic of its common name ‘Bee Balm’. A few benches invite me to sit and dwell there, but my mind is on walking so I merely pause, always grateful for an invitation. On this summer day it feels like the world has paused, and it’s a fitting feeling. 

Stands of Japanese anemone are just beginning to bloom – one or two flowers offer more pollinating opportunities for the bees, while loads of buds hold the promise of fall just around the corner. Rushing through summer is a sacrilege, though I won’t pretend I don’t welcome fall this year. When summer is cruel it can be worse than winter – mostly because it’s not supposed to be.

I walk on.

“When we walk, we can take the hand of our loved one who has passed away and walk with them. Our legs are their legs, and our eyes are their eyes. When we see something beautiful – the blue sky, a brilliant sunset, a majestic tree, or an animal – we can stop walking to allow this sight to penetrate our consciousness and nourish us deeply. We allow this beauty not only to nourish us, but to nourish our loved one in us. We enjoy everything, not only for ourselves but also for our loved one who has died.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Every last one of us has been (and is still going) through an incredibly traumatic event, one that has at times made it feel like there are no safe spaces left: a worldwide pandemic. Whether or not we have collectively acknowledged and reconciled this is the stuff for future historians to figure out. My guess is we haven’t even begun to come close, as it’s still going on, but the world moves forward regardless, too selfish and stuck in its ways to do otherwise. To that end, some of us have had to devise ways of dealing with the stresses and worries that accompany the seismic changes at work now, and I’m thankful that for me one of the coping mechanisms has been meditation. 

The beauty of meditation is that it can be done anywhere, at any time, in almost any format that works best for the practitioner. You can do it first thing in the morning, or last thing at night, or on a quick ten-minute work break in the middle of an office day. Once you learn to access a form of mindfulness, meditation becomes a valuable and integral tool in coping with a world that has, for most intents and purposes, seemingly gone mad. 

As a tried and true Virgo, I appreciate a more rigid and defined schedule, opting to engage in my twenty-minute daily meditation right after I finish the work-day – when working from home it affords a demarcation that divides work from home, and allows a full decompression from any tension that has built-up in a work-day. This method has been in place for a solid three-plus years, which has given me practice in understanding how it works. The moment I start the deep breathing I can feel my body and mind relax, and I immediately begin to inhabit the present moment, eradicating worrisome thoughts and the meddlesome wandering of the mind. 

During periods of stress or anxiety, I can usually start the deep breathing exercises, and more often than not it will take a bit of the edge off of whatever is going on at the moment. If I’m in a place where I can get away for a few minutes, that brief moment of mindfulness bordering on meditation becomes a safe space – a space I can conjure in more circumstances than I once thought possible. 

We have arrived at the last day of March, and though it’s supposed to be departing like a lamb, the weather seems hell-bent on proving contrary. While antsy and anxious to get outside and start working on the yard and gardens, I bide my time in relative peace and quiet, choosing to focus on my daily meditation, and making use of some mindfulness cards that were a gift from a friend this past Christmas. 

Many of the emotional maelstroms of my younger years could be attributed to things that simply fomented and simmered in my mind rather than anything that actually came to fruition. It’s taken many years to see how I was creating such tension and consternation, and I still occasionally fall into the trap of worrying about all the ‘what-ifs’ instead of focusing on what actually is. That’s where daily practice of mindfulness comes into usefulness. The repeated intentions of being present and mindful as a baseline and at-rest condition ideally do not allow much room for the imagined perils that may or likely may not come true, and once you access that frame of mind, it’s easier to keep the nagging worries at bay. 

As we close out March and enter April in dreary and rainy form, I look to the beauty and peace and extra time to sit quietly indoors. There will be time enough for work and play in the days to come. Worrying over it now does no good, so let’s inhabit this moment together, in full awareness. What do you see around you? What do you find most beautiful in this specific moment? There is always something…

While I make it a point to meditate for 20 minutes every day, I won’t pretend I’m always loving it and looking forward to it. After a day in the office and running around on whatever errands need to be done, then cleaning or cooking for the evening, the thought of meditation is just one more task added to an exhausting list. Those are, in the way the universe so cleverly (and annoyingly) works, the times when I need meditation the most, so of course I want it the least. 

Far more enjoyable are the meditations that come on a Saturday or Sunday or day off. I thought about that this weekend, when a rough week of work was willfully forgotten by Saturday, and I went into my daily meditation with vigor, embracing every minute and soaking in the momentary stillness and calm. As I sat there, I slipped much more quickly and easily into a state of calm and stillness, the beautiful and desired space of blankness. More importantly, I moved into a deeper state of meditation and mindfulness, pushing further into the practice, finding another level of peace that quelled all the worries of the week. That was notable, and something new.

When I looked back at it wondering why it was easier to meditate on a Saturday, it dawned on me that I was entering that particular meditation from a place of calm. I’d already inadvertently created a space of stillness, because I’d already relaxed my mind and let go of my worries. In other words, my meditation had a head-start, allowing me to move more quickly into that state of calm which usually only arrives after a number of moments of deep breathing and focus. By the time I’m typically at such a state, I’m already fifteen minutes into things, with only five minutes of deeper meditation to go. 

There are ways around this – longer meditation is the easiest route, but comes with a greater time investment. During more difficult periods, I find half an hour is a good amount of time to gain a full and deep experience. Another idea I may implement is simply preparing myself and relaxing beforehand, so when I actually sit down to do the thing I’ll be ready to quickly and easily enter into the space. Whatever the case, I’m always happy to discover a place of deeper connection to a sense of calm, and to try to return there in the future. 

Every now and then I miss having a bathtub. Not very often – I’m a shower guy through and through – but on cold, damp nights when the air can’t decide whether to rain, sleet, ice or snow, and the chill soaks into the bones, I would love to slide into a hot bath with some soothing lavender salts and a layer of bubbles. 

Lacking that dream bathroom scenario, we must make do with another bath – this one of light, and it’s just as soul-sustaining, especially coming at the tail-end of winter when a snowstorm is the last thing anyone wants. A candle glowing of three wicks, gently warming and perfuming the air, bathes the room in light, calmly flickering and letting its shadows dance across the ceiling and walls. It gives off a different kind of warmth, emanating a different sort of glow. When you stop and still the scene, pausing for a moment of mindfulness and serenity, it can be just as powerful as a more traditional bath. 

Sounds baths, I imagine (as I’ve never tried one), may be similar in their calming power. It’s the same idea: a bath in something soothing – whether water, light, or sound – is a way of immersing the senses in a single sensory experience, allowing the mind to focus on one thing, and let go of all other concerns. 

Incorporating a daily meditation practice into my life has kept me more or less calm during a time in our collective lives that would have broken or damaged a previous version of myself.  The past three years or so have been traumatizing for all of us – and I mean all of us. Anyone who has been alive and aware on this planet for the last three years has experienced the trauma of a worldwide pandemic, and I fear no one is fully acknowledging and confronting the demons unleashed through this. Rather than bringing us together, it feels like things are splintering further apart. Maybe we need to break down completely before we rebuild for real. Humans are so often stupid that way, and I mourn for our nonsense. 

When confronted with that dismal realization, and how awful we can be to each other, I tend to retreat a bit, to return to our home, and to the centered and calm heart of the day, which is my meditation practice. Whatever bothersome thoughts race across the mind at the start of the session eventually slow and still and dissipate, so that by the end of it, after the focused deep breathing, the stillness and silence, all that remains is a blank space of peace. The worries and concerns return, of course – that’s the reality of life – but they feel blunted, their power diminished, their hold not as paralyzing. That’s the magic of meditation. 

Scarlet burns the little pool of light. 

On this night, winter wants for the warmth of such a candle.

Warm to the touch, warm to the sight, a candle is a thing of might.

Watching the flame perform its dance is a mesmerizing study. Some use this as an entry-point into mindfulness and meditation. If you’ve ever paused to watch a candle burn and gotten transfixed in its light and motion, you’ve partaken of a practice of meditation. 

Mindfulness need not be a complicated endeavor. Sometimes the more simple a practice is, the more powerfully it can transform us. Learning to be mindful in the most mundane of moments is a method of finding magic in all the minutes. It will be a trick that comes in useful for every trying time in life. The older I get, the more trying the times seem to become. Being able to slip into mindfulness – to achieve that place of calm breath and easy existence no matter what is going on around us – this is the goal of my daily meditation practice. Every day it gets a little easier, while every day a deeper calm exists just beyond me. The beautiful journey has no end. 

When I first started exploring meditation and mindfulness, I began with Thich Nhat Hanh’s book ‘The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation’. It was a very good place to start, even if my skeptical mind wasn’t quite ready at the time to receive much of its wisdom. In fact, the chapter on finding mindfulness when washing dishes at the kitchen sink almost had me giving up on the whole endeavor. 

Back then, I wasn’t about to discover mindfulness while washing dishes at the kitchen sink. I wasn’t about to discover anything while washing dishes at the kitchen sink other than annoyance or agitation, because how on earth would any sane person find something as wonderful as mindfulness in such a position? It took a while, and a lot of dishes, before I pushed through and began to understand. 

My unlocking of the possibility for mindfulness came to me in the shower, as so many things do. (I need a waterproof board and marker for all the genius thoughts and ideas that have gone down the drain because I couldn’t remember them thirty seconds later.) I’d been reading the book and trying to put Hanh’s words into practice, taking the time and making the effort to be mindful and present in the moment, just experiencing every sensation and granular movement in and of themselves, and suddenly it clicked. That shower remains in my mind as a turning point, when I realized that, with some care and focus, I could find mindfulness in the most mundane of tasks, and a certain peace could result from doing so. 

That was two years ago. I’ve been meaning to revisit Thich Nhat Hanh’s book to see what I likely missed that first time around. On a recent morning, two years ago to the date of that mindful shower oddly, or not oddly, enough, I found myself washing the pan and plate from a quick breakfast I had made. As I ran the dishes under the hot water and watched the soap bubbles gather, I remembered the notion of ‘washing the dishes to wash the dishes’. Over the years, my repulsion of doing dishes had eased, and I took these moments as opportunities to be calmly with myself, especially on mornings where Andy was in bed and probably wouldn’t be thrilled to come out to a sink full of plates. 

As I rinsed off my plate and turned it round within a dish towel, I felt the texture of the fabric in my hands, the residual warmth of the clean, smooth plate, and the delicate scent of lemons drifting up from the soap. My eyes moved to the window, where I watched an icy mix fall almost imperceptibly from the sky – gray precipitation from a gray bank of clouds falling on gray fences and gray land. I saw the beauty there – the subtle beauty of winter – and I felt the beauty by being absolutely present in the stillness. There, then, was the moment of mindfulness. All other worries and tensions eased while the dishes were being washed. Appreciating them for their service – the vessels in which a sustaining meal was carried to my mouth – I placed them carefully back in their places. 

“If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not “washing the dishes to wash the dishes.” What’s more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can’t wash the dishes, the chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future—and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, ‘The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation’

The rose has found itself celebrated and beloved in these parts, thanks in part to the most basic floral interpretation of its existence, its namesake in other situations, and its fragrance in still more variations. Today’s glory goes to the rose in its stone form: rose quartz. 

When I meditate, I hold this specimen in my hand. It takes up the full palm, and it is heavy and substantial. It is a grounding totem, literally and figuratively, and though I don’t place much actual faith in the power of crystals, I do believe there’s something to the practice if you truly believe. In other words, if we think that holding a certain stone will lead to something (in the case of rose quartz, it is said to emit vibrations conducive to love, joy, and healing) perhaps it’s not the stone working some sort of magical spell and more a case of we as humans manifesting those things through intention and unconscious propulsion toward those states. 

Practically, it is a focal point for my meditations – an object I can hold in my hand and feel whenever the mind starts wandering. Sometimes, a simple and singular focus is all one needs to keep a meditation on track and achieve that slightly-absent-minded state of blankness and stillness and peace. 

Rose quartz is also imbued with some happy memories for me. It was an early gift from Andy, when we were first dating, given as much to symbolize our love as it was for its healing aspects. Whenever I had doubts or worries, I’d hold onto that stone and work to calm my heart and quell my anxiety. Was it the stone working its power or was it my intention bringing it to fruition? Who can say and why does it matter? It brought me peace then, and it brings me peace now. 

“Spirituality dawns when individuality vanishes. When our ego becomes aware of something that is higher than it – the individual Spirit, or Soul; then spirituality dawns.” ~ Swami Rama

One of the best realizations in recent years has been understanding that my entire life will only ever be a state of barely approaching some sort of enlightenment or spirituality. For a previous-perfectionist, that’s not a simple statement to make, or an easy acknowledgment to admit, yet it’s been one of the greatest things for helping me evolve into someone a little kinder, and a little more understanding. As someone who enjoys a challenge, it also inspires me to push against years of socially-conditioned behavior, even as I thought I was going against everything. A little bit of humility goes a long way, and admitting your failings and flaws is the absolute best way to improve, or simply accept who you are. Sometimes, the worst things we think of ourselves aren’t really bad at all – they tend to be more about perception and inner-analysis. Letting go of that is another step closer to finding peace, or spirituality.

That’s the other idea I’ve been slowly coming to understand: whatever name you assign to it – spirituality, inner-peace, calm, tranquility, mindfulness, centeredness – it’s all the same thing. It is, at its heart, a connection of the soul to the universe. Finding that place – our place – while we are on this earth, is the journey we are all making, whether we realize it or not. I’ve only just begun, and it is challenging, rewarding, and enlightening work. 

Beginning the day with a meditation has often been an effective method of dealing with periods such as when Mercury is in retrograde or a full moon is on the horizon. It works on all the other days as well, probably even more-so, in that it sets a tone and intention for a day filled with calm and serenity, lending a flexibility to what has been the bane of many a Virgo: our rigid need for structure and control and order. I find that if I start from a place of peace and calm, it’s much easier to deal with the hiccups and setbacks of every given day. 

So it was on a recent Friday morning that I found myself on a badly-needed day off from work, sitting lotus-style in my usual meditation spot, gently gazing around me and settling on the Norfolk Island Pine in our living room. 

Beginning the meditation by slowing my breathing, inhaling deeply in, then slowly letting it out, I allowed the eyes to close, clearing my mind by acknowledging the rush of thoughts that occupied this average morning. The human brain is startling in all that it accomplishes in a single moment of time – the decisions and connections and routes it takes for a thought to form and flood into consciousness are myriad and complex – and we don’t even think about it. That’s the secret to finding a balanced sense of mindfulness – knowing when to think, and when to simply exist. I’m not quite there yet, and I probably never will be. I am embracing the journey and the path, wherever it takes me. 

Setting the theme for a day just as it begins is a luxury I should plan for and implement in my schedule, as it does work a bit of magic in such trying times. 

Though I haven’t written about it as much lately, my meditation practice continues each day, lending me stability when life forces shift and the world sways and rocks in ways we didn’t think we’d ever feel. Life is entirely different than what we knew just three years ago, and it feels especially harsh in the winter, which has only just begun.

And so I lend light to the long nights with candles, finding calm in the deep, slow breathing. The practice of meditation has survived for centuries. It has lasted throughout all the winters, all the summers. I’ve only just started to find my way into its effects. Sometimes it feels like magic. Sometimes it feels like nothing. Always, it feels like I’m connecting to something. 

Even though I haven’t been talking as much about my meditation practice on the blog, it’s still happening – each and every day for twenty minutes. It usually takes place in this room, after the work day concludes, to provide a demarcation between work and home – a helpful buffer to separate the stressful from the serene. It’s important for me to maintain that line – and it helps on both fronts. 

Here is where I sit and light a stick of Palo Santo, close my eyes, begin the deep breathing, and meditate. It always begins with a head full of racing thoughts and dilemmas – plans that need to be made, items that need to be accomplished, and I acknowledge each thing that comes across the mind, then let it go. Eventually the thoughts slow, and the breathing becomes the focus. Sometimes more thoughts will come – what I need to get at the store, what I need to print out for work the next day, whom I need to call or text – and once I acknowledge these thoughts they leave. By the end of the twenty minutes, my mind is clear and calm. It returns to a base level of peace and unruffled contentment, and if I was agitated or annoyed at the start of the meditation, it has invariably eliminated that. It sounds too good to be true, but it has always happened this way. 

That is partly due to the fact that up until now my worries and concerns have largely been small. But even when things turn serious, meditation has proven a helpful exercise in putting things into perspective and calming me when I’m lost in the muck.  It’s a common place to find myself these days.

With some fiery soul-searching going on here this fall, a recent rainstorm provided the perfect window for an afternoon meditation, and a literal and metaphorical cool-down for this site, and everything going on in the world, and in my mind. 

It had been a surprisingly-sunny and warmer-than-expected day. When I went out to get the mail, it was muggy and almost hot – a deceptive throwback to summer weather, the kind of day that sometimes deels like a bonus, even if we are not quite at the point where we need it. In fact, the mugginess was a little too much, and after a few days of decidedly-fall-like weather, it felt like we were being jerked backward just as we were getting our autumn bearings. That’s when the rain began. 

Big drops, heavy and loud, began smacking the pavement and the roof. They landed in wide circles on the sidewalk out front, shimmering on the driveway as they increased in speed and quantity. Immediately, there was a shift in air – it was cooler and the sky grew darker. Fall was insisting on being present here, even if it meant kicking summer back with a thunderous clap. For once, I didn’t mind the rain. 

The skies opened up fully, and a downpour raced down the roof and into the sudden pools of water beside the house. Opening up a window in the living room, I sat down to do my afternoon meditation to the sounds and scent of this rainstorm. 

Fall is welcome here.