Why I Meditate

I consider it a good idea to once in a while check in with myself and ask: So, Nicole, why do you meditate? I figure it can’t hurt to reflect on the things I do on the daily. Ya know, to make sure I’m not just going through the motions. To help keep my meditation practice fresh and alive.

Here’s what’s coming up for me in regards to this self-inquiring question. 

I meditate in order to form a relationship with the here & now. To not just be forever carried away off into the future or stuck in the past. 

I meditate to know what it feels like to settle my body in stillness and relax my mind in quietude, even if only for a few brief moments.  

I meditate in order to feel more comfortable in my own skin. 

I meditate because I think the world needs me to show up as kind-heartedly as I can and there’s something I don’t fully understand about the power of meditation that increases my ability to do just that.

Beloved Community

Last Sunday, my home sangha, Be Here Now, gathered for a potluck & open mic at our local mindfulness center. It wast the first time in over 2-years that we had a social event outside of our weekly Monday night meditation group. Pre-covid, we organized open mic nights once a month through the winter and potlucks 2 or 3 times a year. Words cannot express how wonderful it felt to be together again in these ways. 

Once in a while, folks will ask me what the benefit is to meditating with a sangha, verses on their own at home. And despite my almost 20-years of sangha-building experience in the Plum Village tradition, I will often have difficulty answering this question. Being part of a sangha – or any group that fosters wellness in our body/mind system – is much less of an intellectual thought process than it is a felt sense of connection and belonging. Showing up and participating in a sangha is more than having the support of other folks to practice sitting meditation with. It’s a way to meet people, forge friendships, be uplifted & nourished by others, and share in our common humanity as people on this planet earth together. 

This morning, my husband Mike and I went for a walk around the neighborhood we’re currently house/pet sitting in for a good friend of ours. When we strolled past a community garden, I commented on how nice it was that such things as community gardens exist. Places where folks can go and create a collective energy together by cultivating small gardens in unison. Amid such dualistic times, in our western society that sometimes pays homage to individuality to the detriment of our ability to be kind and skillful with one another, it seems as though we could benefit collectively from having a few more community gardens & sanghas around. 

The Serious Importance of Having Fun

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. In acknowledgment & support, I’d like to share some of my thoughts, experience & practice around what I regard as the important art of having fun.

I want to say right up front that no one has the corner market on how to have fun. So step #1 in the Art of Having Fun Handbook (which is a book I just made up, just to be clear) is: Find Your Own Flavor of Fun. Don’t let anyone convince you that fun has to look or be a certain way.

Step #2 (okay, so, outlining steps is prolly not the best way to present the art of fun but Imma gonna stick with it cuz I dig making lists and it’s a handy/short-form way to deliver content): Try Not to Overthink It. One surefire way to kill the joy of having fun is to get our over-active brain in the mix. The art of having fun involves feeling our way into it and following that feeling through.

Step #3: Break for Whimsy. Just as we might practice to stop and smell the flowers, we can pause in our tracks when we observe or encounter whimsy/fun being had. Case and point. The other day, Mike and I were driving down a long bumpy dirt road en route to look at a property for sale. A few miles in, we came across this point of whimsy on the side of the road, amid uninhabited woods:

My first thought was to keep on driving, so we could get where we were going. But thankfully my feeling-body won out and I cried out to Mike (who was driving at the time) like a little kid: Stop! I want to take a picture! I mean really. What monster just keeps on going and doesn’t stop for a minute to appreciate this strange and delightful scene in the middle of the woods?!

On Clocks

If you're wondering why I've
hidden the clocks - the one
instead of numbers says now
and the blue plastic rimmed
one from Louisville, Miss -
tucked them away in two
different drawers, it's not
because I'm phobic of time.

It's not because I don't
want to be reminded right
at face level ALL of the time, 
that life is short and perpetually
moving, whether I know it 
or like it or not. 

It's not because wall
clocks take too much 
work to figure out and
aren't as friendly or
efficient as their
digital counterparts. 

It's not because they
remind me of school 
and sitting at my desk, 
eyes fixed on the second
hand crawling around the
round disc dictating our fate
in every room, holding
my breath, waiting to be
set free. 

It's not because I'm an 
artist of music and words
and time-keepers are the
killjoy of creativity & flow.

It's due to the disturbing 
ruckus thundering in their
wake. The tick  tick  tick
tick  tick that disrupts 
an otherwise quiet space.
 
The terrible way the 
circular beasts of burden
alert anyone in earshot 
of their sole purpose, 
every second of
every day.