early morning meditation

My feet flat against the mat, belly rising and falling with my breath. The weight of my legs pressing down. There is heat and a rawness on the soles of my feet, almost as if a layer of skin is peeled away. Not painful but raw. I feel my feet as I breath, layering on the other things I can add to my awareness. The chatter of birds. How many conversations can they have in the span of my one breath? Feet? Yes. Are my toes pressing to the mat? Is there a seam between parts of my sole and the earth where there is only light or shadow? I hold all three - breath, feet, the sounds of birds. Did I lock the car? Would someone notice and steal Marcia's purse if I didn't lock the car? Birds nesting, carrying twigs in their beaks or talons. How is that decided? Is it sorted by size? My feet are still hot. So many songs in one breath. Deep listening. The bird feeds her young. Imagine if we fed each other mouth to mouth. The distance we add by using a spoon to feed our young. Would it be more intimate to use our fingers? Breath full and easy. In and out. How large are the creases and spaces of no contact and how do we bridge them? Feet, breath, bird song. Are they filled with light or shadow?

be happy

There's something off about rushing to get to meditation class. What's the point of pressing and stressing in order to enter a state of oneness? So I arrive to class 20minutes late this morning, only to sit on my mat for 3 minutes, feeling the disappointment of entering in the middle deepen when I realize that meditation is actually over. And get this -- I actually start to cry. My pendulum swings between self pity and blame until I let it go when the yoga teacher reminds me that always needing to be right makes it hard to be happy.

signs of us

In stillness, I follow my breath and scan how my body feels. Just noticing changes it. Lying on my back, the gravity tugs me closer to the earth, heavy, solid.

And there is a pulsing in my sinus passage. I've never been aware of my heart beat there, so I stay with it and consider the word sinus -- 'sign us.'

Where is there a sign of us, of me, in the world? Where have I left my mark? Is it in the playgrounds I passed on the way here? Or in my child who I just dropped off for a 150 mile bike ride? What is the print, ultimately, that I want to make in my passage through this life?

There is so much time devoted in daily chores that remove all signs of us: washing and folding laundry to tuck in closed drawers; scrubbing dishes to stack on cabinet shelves; wiping stains from the kitchen counter; shredding junk mail for recycling...I seem to spend more time erasing of signs of us, racing through my days never noticing my breath, my passage.

Then there is the garbage. I try to picture the 1,460 pounds of trash I produce each year and wonder if this will be the biggest mark I'll make in the world.

So what else is it I want to create? This is the question I've been asking myself for the past five years, growing restless now as I sit without an answer. Sometimes I think that breathing is enough -- that it's all that is.

And then a voice from the back of my head asks again, "What is the breadth of what I want to create?" Is it enough to leave the world better than I found it, or should there be a sign of us - of me - of us?

savansana

Starting in savasana, arms lengthened to the sides, there is this place of in-between where I resist the letting go. Where I resist the absolute stillness. Even the background 'om' is an irritant.

If I wait it out, the sounds of trucks and outside noise move from distractions to actual pathways -- portals to someplace deeper. The truck is not a truck, but the pulse of the universe, celestial.

My body is weighted to the floor, anchored solid, heavy, unmoving. Unmovable.

Then comes a line of warmth, radiating across the top edge of my ribs, and I can will the me that's within my body to peel away from the physical as pure energy. I remember the movie 'Ghost,' how when the people die, their souls move out. And this is what it's like. A ball of energy hovering above somersaults forward through space. It flattens, then spins like a frisbee across distance. And then slows and lifts like Tinkerbell.

My body below is dead weight. Shoulders pressed into the floor. Still. Unmovable.

Breathing is slow and easy. And the heat near my heart remains.

Upon suggestion of thought, the energy returns to my body, sliding into that crease of warmth. It spreads across my chest, my arms, down into my legs. Not until it pushes into my hands and fingers and into my feet do I wiggle my extremities, reunited as one. The limitless contained for now within a body, my body.