I'm like a pencil;
sometimes sharp,
most days
well-rounded,
other times
dull or
occasionally
broken.
Still I write.
j.g. lewis
is a writer/photographer in Toronto.
Month: October 2017
Don’t get too wrapped up in the results or caught up in your intentions.
How you start and where you go are far more important than where you end up. Yes, look ahead, but you’ve got miles between there and here. There will be distractions.
The route may change, you may stop along the way for a time or two and then move on.
We’ve all been places where the days are numbered. You tire of counting. It is only right to be restless
We only know what feels right when we get there. Then you may plant roots, but first you must take the steps.
10/19/2-17 j.g.l.
Meditation, the art or the practice, is simply not working for me.
I have tried; damn I’ve tried, but as I sit, as I try to silence the mind and find this eternally elusive stillness, I often end up thinking my time spent meditating is unproductive if not counterproductive.
I try.
I turn on the salt lamp, light a candle (sometimes), burn incense (more than a lot) turn off the music or the radio, and try to tune out all that surrounds me. Sometimes on the floor, other times in a chair or bench, I sit with my thoughts – the profound, the profane, the questionable and the mundane – and try to channel my mind towards a place of purpose.
Of course I have a mantra, a gift I received when I was about 17, and of course I use it. And for a while it provides a focus.
For a while.
Then as I’m sitting as calm as I can be, another thought; a greater thought or a deeper thought (a random thought) pulls me away from my intended silence and I’m no longer sitting passively. Perhaps the interruption is a reflection of the day, or a scene from last winter, or a passage I read ages ago, a vision of Joni Mitchell, or any number of people or memories that travel through my headspace, and my intention has suddenly been hijacked.
My meditation turns into 15 minutes (more or less) of sitting and staring at a smouldering candle. I get down on myself, for this is time I could be using any number of ways. I’ve got stuff to do, things to write, or commitments to tend to.
There’s the regular stuff to take care of, finding time in between work and words, and sleep. Of course I’ve got to find time for exercise, and to eat, and to tend to the people you mutually rely upon to keep life on its fulcrum.
So my meditation becomes more like incidental contemplation. This frustrates me, more than anything, because I’m not sure I want my attempts to meditate to turn into one of those things I sort of leave behind (I’m a Gemini; we do that). I’ve got a beautiful set of fairly-new Tarot cards I once saw a purpose in, and I studied the cards with great intensity (as Geminis tend to do) and they now look nice on the book shelf. They sit idle.
That’s not like me.
I’m impatient. I’m not one to sit still, I never have been. Even in yoga, I have trouble with the extended savasanah in the middle of the class, the break where you are supposed to let thoughts flow through you like your breath. I can’t. There’s always something else on my mind, even just the next posture.
I had tried transcendental meditation years and years ago. I remember very little, except my mantra.
I do think, regularly. I contemplate, foster ideas, and compose thoughts that grow into poetry, or essays, or excuses.
I have even developed a practice at the end of the day where I will lay in bed, breath consciously, and take internal inventory, slowly allowing the thoughts to slow to a trickle. Some people may simply call this falling asleep, but I believe it is more purposeful. I believe I’m actually emptying my mind so I may find stillness, and – insomnia be damned – perhaps enter the most meditative state of the day. That’s my rationalization, and I’m sticking to it.
But meditation, the sitting-cross-legged-and-sitting-totally-still-type-of -meditation, is not working for me. Maybe I’m not cut out for this kind of inner peace. Maybe just sitting with volume of poems is enough for me to calm my mind for a stanza or too. Maybe letting my head follow the flow of Mahler, or Kernis, or any one of a number of Yo Yo Ma compact discs is enough to relax me.
Maybe this weakness, this inability to settle right down, is not a weakness, but a strength. I just need to fully figure out how to use it.
I admire those who can, daily, for more than 15 minutes at a time, sit and sort out details, or accept themselves, or think of whatever they do that provides the balance and the bounty they require. I’m not so sure that is me.
I’m feeling it’s not as important to meditate as it is to find a practice that gets you thinking about something. Some people may find a contemplative walk is enough, others may get caught up in the rhythm of long distance running, or the intense concentration of power lifting, or archery.
Give your mind the time to do what it needs to do. Do what you need to do.
Find your peace wherever you are, however you can, and more importantly, whenever you are able to.
©2017 j.g. lewis
Posted on October 17, 2017 by j.g.lewisLeave a comment
I would like to think it is nothing, at least I’d like to try. I know I can’t, but I will fool myself into believing it was less than what it is (I’m gullible that way).
Still I know, deep down, it was more than what I was expecting, certainly it was more than what I was prepared for.
It’s always something; really, anything is.
There is something in anything, worthwhile or not, that captures your imagination or sends your soul circling.
Nothing matters then.
It is always more than what you were counting on, even when there is nothing to compare it to.
Always unlike anything else, you try to twist and turn it into something familiar, or something you can relate to, all the while knowing that nothing has been like that, or felt like this: ever.
Yeah, it’s like that.
It’s not nothing, but it can’t be everything. . . or maybe it is.
10/17/2017 j.g.l.
