undividing attention

  

     It has been one of those weeks where it feels as though so much has been happening, mostly internally, that the feelings of change are too great to keep up with. It's exciting and sometimes makes me wish for more hours in the day.  Excitement and change can also be seductive.  The energy of them make me feel as though I can do more than I actually can, physically, so I'm riding along only realizing after it's too late that something like two appointments in one day - normal for many - is not something my body is up for.

     The past two days have slowed down and become cool and dark outside, creating the perfect environment for what I know I need to do - take it easy and nap!  My body feels that deep and heavy lethargy wash over it that comes out of no where with some auto immune diseases, and all you can do is give into it. Resistance, as in any part of life, creates more pain and separation from peace or contentedness - for me it is simply is not an option.

"Real meditation comes when the meditator dies." 

Breath by Breath, by Larry Rosenberg

     When I am able to attain this kind of surrender, it washes away all resistance and suddenly meditation isn't what I am doing, it is what I am.  In order for me to meditate, I must apply this to my experience with pain as well, and it can be amazing when practiced for those of us that suffer from chronic pain - emotional or physical.  Rather than resisting the sensations, I sit with them - meet the pain or the emotion completely, breathing, merging, and melting into it, fully present with the experience of what is.  

     To merge myself into wholeness, I have to fully enter the experience I am having. If it's pain, I must become completely aware of, and feel, the pain.  I must enter it, and allow the pain to enter me.   What eventually happens is transformative.  It isn't that pain or disease are necessarily eliminated, but the division and conflict within Self is gone.  The energy used to resist is freed and there is no more trying.

click on images for closer view

     I will let there be no difference between "good days" and "bad days", they are all simply days, each offering a different experience.  I am no longer "healing" or trying to be healed, I am healed in this day; tomorrow is another day and may have a different form of healing in it for me...

Now, I am off for that nap!

The above artwork are older pieces. The first two are from a series of personal daily art pieces I did in 2005.  The first is a pencil drawing; the second is oil pastel, covered with a layer of finely crushed chalk pastel which a rubbed into the surface, and then scratched through to create the drawn lines.  The bottom piece was done at a workshop with Alex Grey, during a guided meditation, and is colored pencil on black paper.