Mary Jane Meditation

Meditation tends to improve my life in almost every aspect. Despite that fact I rarely sustain a disciplined, consistent practice. I recently started meditating again, and have kept up an (almost) daily practice for about two weeks. I intend to improve my discipline and cultivate a daily practice.

Although my born-again practice is essentially in it’s infancy, I had an inspiring experience the other night. I’ve been doing a “spherical breathing” meditation, which in the past has been interesting to say the least. I wasn’t feeling much from the practice, but I kept doing it because I know it works, even if I don’t feel I’m doing it well. I’m going to sidestep the whole discussion about “successful” meditation (some teachings affirm that each sitting is the perfect practice.) Sometimes in the morning my mind would even drift so much that I would stop focusing on the fourteen breaths I was doing and start thinking/dreaming about people or being at work or other distractions. It seems my mind doesn’t like being told what to do, even by itself. I’ll admit that even though I don’t think one should pursue a goal necessarily while sitting, I was becoming mildly frustrated and decided to try a little experiment.

I find little recreational value in marijuana, but I have noticed, in the past, that it enhances, among other things, my sensitivity to the movement of energy in my body (if this discussion is irritating my fellow skeptics out there, I recommend breaking off now.) Due to the availability now of high-grade yesca I usually have some around even though I’m not even a little bit of a stoner (at least not anymore). So I took one hit and ran through the practice twice.

The second time I did the breaths, all the visualizations were far more intense, strong enough to stimulate physical sensations, which I associate with the movement of energy or chi in my body. The last breath of the technique involves moving a focused ball of energy from one’s third chakra to one’s fourth. When I did this I had the vivid experience of both physical and internal ascension. After the breaths are completed, the practice involves unregulated breathing and just being, adopting a yielding mindset, feeling sensations of flowing energy, and fostering an emotion of complete compassion So I did just that.

I was immediately overcome with a deep sense of real fear, the origin of which was hidden to me. In hindsight, I realized this was probably the same fear I recognize as general angst and social anxiety. The fear was as intense as the rest of the experience, but I resolved to sit there, just be, and stay compassionate. I accepted whatever was going to happen to me, whatever I was afraid of, was going to happen, but for that one moment, I was in no danger and didn’t need anything I didn’t have. That acceptance, which arose from compassion, soon dissolved all fear. I realized in that moment that love and compassion are antidotes for fear. The threat of love being lost can cause fear, but that’s not love born of acceptance

I hope this doesn’t sound like so much rambling. The experience was profound for me, but such experiences are by their very nature difficult, sometimes impossible, to couch in language. I think the weed gave me a boost, inspired me some, but I know it’s not the key for me. I repeated the experiment the next night, and had nowhere near the same experience. I feel it’s probably best to return to as sober a practice as I can manage. I’ve learned the hard way there are no shortcuts to anything worth taking a lifetime to practice.

Thinking About Love

I’ve fallen in love—the real kind of love, the step in front of a bus to save you kind of love—four times. One of those times led to marriage (and consequently divorce). I haven’t been able to stop loving anyone I’ve really come to love, and not for lack of trying. For eight years after my divorce I felt what I thought was absolute hatred for my ex-wife. During a short sabbatical in Reno’s jail (where they’ll leave the light on for you), I realized for the sake of my children, I had to set that burden down. When I did I eventually saw it for what it was: not hatred but deep emotional injury that I dressed up as anger and tried to ignore, which is much like drawing eyes on an abscess and pretending it’s a friendly little head growing out of your arm.

Another of these loves, also wounded by her past, repeatedly fled me, believing me to be unfaithful and dishonest, which I was neither. I’m no psychologist, but I felt like maybe because of her past, she couldn’t bring herself to believe that I actually loved her. Perhaps the betrayals she’d suffered so early in life and so intensely were too much to ask any person to overcome.

What I am struggling with is this: is it enough to love and be loved? I have yet to experience a relationship lasting over four years, so I really have no answers. Can your love for someone be a detriment, an affliction that will harm you more than heal you in the end? And if that is the case, is that real love? I know relationships can be bad for our lives, but can a truly loving relationship (I mean where the love is flowing both directions, or however many directions one is into) be detrimental in the long term? The first example that comes to mind is the classic abusive relationship, but I discount that immediately because if a person is abusing his or her partner, I’d argue the love is not flowing both directions.

This is a purely philosophical discussion as far as I am concerned: right now I am more single than Adam with all his ribs. But if one of the three people who reads this has any answers, right or wrong, I’d love to hear them. They might come in handy some day.

The Way of the Water Spirit

 
 Let me flow like water sublime
           rolling over and around             
                  knowing no obstacle
                         only ever-changing possibility
              drifting with the Tao on the tides of yang and yin
           no hesitation
               cascading into void
                     carving through stone itself
       down                                             
           down                         
                 humbly flowing
             to a stillness so perfect
          the whole world, reflected, cannot mar me
                with its passage overhead 

Drabble No. 1

Despite what one may find in the dictionary, apparently a drabble is a story that is exactly one hundred words long, not counting the title (I don’t think.) I wrote my first drabble and submitted it, and the editor was kind enough to give me the reasons why it was not accepted. I applied the advice as best I could and revised the drabble, which I present here to you.

Playtime

Jenna hated her sister more than Satan’s witches did the rising sun. She pictured that pretty, frail wretch, letting the black ache swallow her. She savaged the mane of her plastic horse with a sharp, steel comb, picturing bloody scratches scribbled across the canvas of her sister’s pale flesh. She let hatred chew on her guts, singing a malevolent lullaby. She watched as the shadows grew around her, strangling the weak light bleeding from her small, white candle. She stabbed the toy horse again and again, reveling in the cries of pain from the room next door. Her sister’s room.