Friday, January 25, 2013

Meditation Imagery

As a creature of habit, I am aware that when I meditate, I go to a place of familiar solitude.  When I first started meditating as a teenager I used to go along a path and end up in a circular grove surrounded my willow trees, whose branches gently kissed the full green grass.  In my mind, I would sit on the edge of the circle and let the branches whisp over my skin.

In college, I would go to a warm gray boulder in the afternoon sun that sat on the bank of a river within a forest.  I would lay on the rock in a sundress with the sun warming my skin.  The last couple of months have been a difficult time to meditate.  I couldn't focus, or maybe I just couldn't let go of my mind and my consciousness.  I started to realize how stress has such a strong affect on my physical being.  My skin, my appetite, lock jaw, and I even noticed that I completely stop breathing when I am feeling stressed.  My physical self could not let go of reality, so I was not able to put my physical self in my meditation imagery like I normally do.

But I found myself in my meditation today, sitting atop a cliff overlooking the ocean at dusk.  How amazing to notice the change of scenery.  I know it represents a shift in mindset.  I was in a place of relative comfort and a place where I could heal while I was in college.  Somewhere that was new, challenging but ultimately safe.  Now, I am facing the world of possibility.  I am joyful, but taking on the world with a somber seriousness.

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