So today I will sit somewhere I like to be and close my eyes. That is what it says…meditate!

However, life doesn’t necessarily agree with that use of my time. I got up this morning with office work to do, pictures to sort out and find; plus a few to finalise the drawing of….oh and one I need to start cos it matters to start it. I thought I’d pick a card with a centring thought but maybe no one that is asking for hush. Meditation for that is what the act of being somewhere I like and close my eyes and justing being there for a bit is in my world.

I am still reading the mediation book I started last week. This is one of the things they take about. Making time for centring self, for being quiet a little and sitting somewhere that is familiar and brings the feeling of being present to the mind and body. I have all those things, just need to do it.

The following of rituals that support our sense of inner being is often forgotten in a world that values output and achievement. We have all kinds of rituals involved with them that begin with an alarm clock and showering, perhaps missing breakfast as we build the work frenzy inside….cues that link us with being present as an employee where we want to be seen as diligent and successful. You might wonder why we then do not consider the necessity of being present to our selves as important and a priority in life. Some call it self-care but perhaps it is more about self-awareness.

No one said the ritual of hush needs to be in the morning, perhaps it serves self better in the middle of the day. When adrenalin is waning and lunch time is calling, perhaps it is then that taking self to a place that you have chosen as pleasant and closing eyes for s few breaths really matters. To release the holding of the activity of the day from the body through just simply breathing and holding the breath just a moment and then slowly releasing. Hush! That is where it begins….with something that triggers an internal shhhh and allows the rest of the day to unfold.

I am old enough to remember when people took proper lunch breaks and went outside to see the sky. It was back in the day when reading the paper for 15 minutes at lunchtime was acceptable and there wasn’t the constant beep of a mobile phone coming from right beside you. I am pretty sure people were as productive as they were going to be even without 24 hour communication and seven day a week work schedules. My father speaks of how my grandfather would have a twenty minute ‘nap’ by pulling his hat over his eyes in the middle of the day. Exactly twenty minutes every time and then would get up and work hard for many more hours.

Mediation is so not new, even in western society. We just have language for it now we hadn’t encountered before. Science has researched it to some degree. Facebook and the media have made it a buzz word for enhancing life and productivity. it always had value and rituals that went with it. I am glad there is respect for the idea and now it really comes down to doing it doesn’t it. It is a shame that many still think of it as a therapeutic response to stress or life rather than simply a way of life. But then that is their loss if that is all it can be…medicine in a different form.

So sometime today it is going to happen that I sit in one of my favourite places and close my eyes. To me that is ritual enough to breathe and be present just to that moment. I think maybe in my sophist garden: the free-form living space at my backdoor that exists despite my lack of gardening skills where an occasional flower burst forth and holds the idea of sitting and closing eyes….to be present in shhh’ed hush! Maybe a great idea will burst forth! Who knows….

Happy Day

Sandy