some meditations on meditation
Do you meditate? It’s something I fall in and out of, though my intention is always to be a regular super-meditator– someone who gets up every morning and reconnects with myself and the stillness and the breath. I’d love to be the person who, when asked “how do you practice self care?” or “what stress-management strategies do you use?,” can say that I always meditate, sometimes for an hour even. I’d love to be beholden to a strong, regular meditation practice, or a strong, regular anything practice. At this point, all I have is a strong, regular TikTok-scrolling practice. But I’m working on it, forever working on it. Forever striving. Maybe it shouldn’t be so hard, but I can only work with what I have and who I am, right?
prompt #14:
(I’m warning you now that I was really on a roll when I wrote this and that it’s just as much meandering chattiness as prompt, so be ready, my friend.)
For today’s prompt, I’m bringing you along on my little meditation journey. It’s a little bit of a cheat, I admit, but my hope is perhaps you, too, are striving for more mindfulness, stillness, breath, or calm in your life. Or maybe you’re already a master meditator, in which case, bravo; I hope this fits within your practice.
You can use an app (am I right in imagining that everyone in the world has at least 2 meditation apps on their phone from the many times they’ve tried to become a person who meditates, or is that just me?) or a YouTube video. Here’s one, but there’s a lifetime of them that you can search through.
Give yourself a little meditation time. Maybe three minutes if the thought of sitting quietly in silence sounds terrifying, five to ten if you’re game and looking forward to it, and if you’re a master meditator, please go for as long as you’d like. I can’t pretend to know what your norm or comfort level is because I’ve never progressed to your world (yet? yet!).
So complete your meditation, remembering that there is no correct or incorrect way to do it, and that it’s called a practice for a reason.
When you’ve finished, pull out your writing tools. I’ll be honest, for some reason I imagine a post-meditation write as a pen-and-paper type of practice (I say this as a recent convert to fountain pen life for both sustainability and pleasure reasons); however, far be it from me to be the kind of writer who judges anyone else for their preferred writing tools. I’ve seen high school students regularly write multi-page essays by iPhone (no, I could never, and yes, sometimes the formatting is off). So grab whatever tools make you feel comfortable and excited to write and use that meditation energy to flow.
Maybe your mind wandered and kept travelling paths that you can now explore on the page? Maybe you reached that zingy, sparkly point of empty mind bliss? Very cool, too. If so, I’ll bet it opened up some wells in you that can be explored. This prompt assumes that meditation is conducive to the writing process; however, you may, instead feel stopped up and blocked. As always, no shame. There is no right, there is no wrong, there is only you. So please write about how very horrible the meditation was for your writing process. If that was you, I’m sure you’ve lots to say on that point.
So, yes, write for as long as you meditated, or longer if you please. Do what feels best to you. It’s a good excuse to get wrapped up in something that is yours—all yours—for a nice chunk of time. And maybe turn it into a poem or an essay or a song or a story or a speech or really anything you want. And then please send it my way to read and/or share. I’d love to read it. I truly would.
ashley’s piece:
I’m always begging, demanding, for apologies and stingy with offering my own. Stingy with the forgiveness.
But when it’s good, it’s like a cleansing of all my cells.
I feel like I have to hold on to everything so tight. If I don’t demand it, nobody’s going to give it.
And then the world is fresh and bright and clean.
But my body feels so rotten and full of bitterness and anger sometimes.
I’m still thickly in the middle of it all.
It feels kind of revolutionary in a way.
I did the best I could with what I had at the time. Forgive me for being volatile and selfish and scared.
You can be a human, just a flawed person, who fucks things up. I forgive you.
I forgive you for being so afraid of being stepped on that you couldn’t step back.
We’re all just growing. We’re all just trying to be seen and hoping to be loved.
I am a new person.