Skip to main content

meditation


I sat in meditation. It was morning, early by my standards. Bodhi sang his little boy songs at my feet, humming a "vrroooom", "vrrrrrooooomm", with his wooden cars and an "OUCH" as he turned them unceremoniously onto their sides. Our cat Eli, purred enthusiastically on my right, in a lusty bid for attention. Owen lay ensconced in his bed, playing his banned gameboy beneath the covers, thrilled by his own daring, while Shane slept, wide mouthed, beneath a downy comforter. I finished my inspirational reading. I closed my eyes for the minute or two afforded me, each morning. I breathed. I opened. I breathed again. Bodhi put his head on my lap and Eli nudged closer, while the gentle sound of snoring and forbidden gameboys echoed in the back ground. A soft smile overtook my face. I opened my eyes. I picked up Bodhi, he hugged me briefly, arched his back and called, "DOWN". Eli nuzzled closer, I stroked the soft white tuft of fur behind his head, twice, before he bit me (that's Eli). I stared out the window. The window! The windows were filthy, water spotted and a mess. I continued to look out the window, savoring these few moments of inactivity and then it dawned on me, "My meditation windows are filthy!". Well the irony of this wasn't lost on me. I grabbed my glass cleaner and cloth. Like a hybridized zen monk and obsessive compulsive clean freak, I washed the inside windows. Bodhi worked at my side, his little hands navigated a small cloth, smearing the windows with pride. I went outside. I spritzed and wiped away the grime while Bodhi laughed at me from the other side. I smiled. I was focused and thorough. I thought to myself "I am cleaning the window of my soul, I am washing clean my own eyes", quotes from the Buddha and Christ surfaced in my mind as I labored... I was happy. I admired my work from the outside, with more than a little egotistic abandon. I came in. Bodhi met me at the door. Together we stood and stared at my handiwork. My mouth dropped. The windows were filthy... smeared and streaked. I stood there, all my ironies dancing to the forefront and then I began to laugh. I laughed until my stomach hurt. I laughed until I was done. I stood up straight again and surveyed my handiwork. At that moment Bodhi lifted his precious arms to me and said, "Poop, Mama, poooop", while emanating a breathtaking odor. I swooped him up, tickled his belly and my real meditations began.

Comments

Sandy said…
What a wonderful story... you are a very gifted writer.
September 29, 2008 at 2:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Coraggio

When everything looks bleak and the darkness cramps against the cold, it takes courage to simply look out from imagined isolation toward the wide horizon of beauty available in every moment.  It takes courage to lean into the sea of life and trust the tide. When weary limbs no longer support us, it takes courage to trust our inner buoyancy and float.  It takes courage, in the face of darkness, to remember the light and sit in all our apparent blindness and listen, silently, to the still, small whisper within.  It takes courage, in that dark hour, when nothing else remains.  Eyes closed.  Eyes opened.  A glimpse, a memory, a fleeting vision of a light so bright it blurs the borders of things seen and things perceived into a comprehensive wholeness of being.  It takes courage.
4 comments
Read more

tree digging

Yes, I know it doesn't look like much.  It was only about 5 inches in diameter and 8 feet tall.  The root ball was no more than 3 feet deep.  But it was a sweet red-bud tree that we planted the year Bodhi was born, his placenta was buried in it's roots and like many of the trees in our neighborhood, it died (see this post to understand why) . I can't say that I mourned its death in a tangible way, rather it produced in me a sort of unnameable melancholy.  I am a woman who loves the spring.  I nearly live for it.  When the first signs of life emerge like a haze of hope, I drink in green with the passion of a desert crawling woman sipping at an oasis.  I gorge.  This year has been hard.  Our neighborhood isn't leafing out in native splendor, instead the tired trees seem to begrudge the effort, only offering a tender shoot or bud occasionally.  The north side of many trees appear to have given up all together, too tired after a long winter...
2 comments
Read more

grief

Grief is defined as a deep or intense sorrow. I have been thinking a lot about grief, about it's wide and sticky reach, about the watery quality of it's absorption and the agonizing effort of swimming to shore. Intense sorrow happens. It is a part of life. Yet we press against it. We try to eradicate it. How? We encapsulate our grief in a story, thus effectively removing us from the immediacy of the pain. The mind promises salvation and begins to tell a story, over and over and over. We listen to the inner ramblings, the constant diatribe, the neurotic attempt to avoid the experience. When someone is hurting we listen to their story, we talk about it, we recount our own story, but we certainly don't jump in the waters of sadness, instead we sit on the bank of our familiar longing. Once, when I was floundering in deep grief, my youngest brother knelt next to me and held me for over an hour. He didn't speak. He didn't commiserate. He just jumped in the ...
4 comments
Read more