Labyrinth Walking Meditation

Walking a labyrinth can be a profound experience. In our town, we have a simple labyrinth, marked on the earth with stones in a circle of redwoods. I love to walk it, using it as a moving meditation. There are many ways to walk a labyrinth. You can find very specific instructions for what to do as you walk one - even eHow has a page on how to walk one.

I like to approach labyrinth walking more casually, without a set procedure. Sometimes I set an intention, but more often I simply start to walk and see what experiences it brings. It always takes me out of linearity. We are so accustomed to seeing life - our hours, days, years - as a line that progresses from one place to another. The latter place is usually a goal. We try to find the straightest way to the goal. We measure the distance in our minds. If it's a car trip, we watch our progress on a map. But getting to the center of a labyrinth is like the "long and winding road". You come closer to the center and your mind may start to try to measure how close you are to the "end". Just then, you find yourself taking a turn that leads you back out toward the edge.

For me, the labyrinth mirrors life, which isn't really linear. Walking it is a great way to relax into the twists and turns of life, to let go of the constant focus on future goals and the tendency to try to see how everything leads to something else. It's a way of being in the Now. Martha Cuffy, who is seen in the photo walking a labyrinth with friends, expressed similar sentiments in a lovely post with a perfect title - Walk your Life in a Labyrinth.

I was inspired to write this post by Eleanor, a seminary student in Hong Kong, who left a beautiful comment on the website about her experience walking the labyrinth. It's moving and inspiring to read how she uses her walk in the labyrinth to process emotions and gain insights into herself and her life. She has quite an inner journey, and comes out of it with beautiful observations on the nature of silence. This is a beautiful example of the power of walking the labyrinth. Not every walk will be this profound - one needs to let go of expectations and see what special gifts the labyrinth holds each time it is walked.

Have you walked a labyrinth? What was the experience like for you?

Present Moment Awareness Meditation

"Present moment awareness" isn't something that can be captured in words. It is a holistic awareness of "what is". This short meditation is an opportunity to explore what is "here and now". This is a more advanced meditation in that the instructions are very subtle. The words I say in meditations are never meant as instructions to be followed precisely, and that is even more true for this meditation. Since there's so much interest in the idea of the "present moment", it might be easy to get caught up in concepts about it and what it is. Any idea we have about the present moment, however, is not what it is. As you listen to this meditation, listen easily. Treat it more like poetry than prose, allowing it to reveal something to you that can't be named. Let go of the need to understand!

We'd love to hear your experiences with this meditation!

The Yin Yang of the Solstice

It's the summer solstice where I live - the longest day of the year. A lover of warmth and light, I celebrate the day with a mixture of emotions. At the same time that I rejoice in the light and beginning of summer, there's the knowledge that from now on the days will gradually shorten. The concept of Yin-Yang expresses this perfectly - in the light half resides the seed of darkness, in the dark half resides the seed of light. It seems as I grow older, the two sides of the coin of life are more evident in every experience. When young, I would be totally happy or totally sad, and at some level there was actually a belief that life could be all one way or another. As I age, with more and more up and down waves of living under my belt, there's a sense of the impermanence of all experiences. Love is tinged with the knowledge of loss, and life takes on an increasingly bittersweet quality. Sadness dances in happiness and joy dances in sorrow. There is an incredible aliveness in this. Life itself dancing in my heart!

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Related post: Musings on the Winter Solstice six months ago -- Finding Harmony in Diversity with Meditation

Meditation in Motion - My Healing Hula Lesson

Sometimes I am mesmerized by my hula teacher's hands. They move with such grace and fluidity, offering no resistance to the aloha spirit that moves through them. Although I relaxed early on into the body movements of hula, I've had a challenge with my hands.  Despite repeated reminders that the hands should move from the wrist, my hands would seemingly stiffen up and refuse to follow. I felt so awkward, not to mention frustrated! At yesterday's lesson, my teacher danced very close to me, demonstrating with her hands as I watched in awe. I wondered how anyone's hands could move so beautifully and effortlessly. I hoped that maybe, just maybe, I would catch on through "osmosis" as she danced close to me. At one point, she held my wrist and moved my hand for me. I started to feel the right movement. My hands cooperated for a while, only to get quickly "blocked" again.

Once back home from the class, I started to practice in front of a mirror. I did an exercise of slowing waving my arms up and down at my sides, allowing my hands to follow the movement of my wrists. I then placed my arms in position for the basic kahalo step. Suddenly something clicked - a split second before I started to move, an "aha" happened in my brain. The right synapses must have started to fire, because I saw my hands in the mirror undulating like waves, effortlessly, as I started to dance! It was like a frozen river that unfroze and started to flow.

It felt so easy and natural for my hands to move that way. What on earth was stopping them before? As I tuned into the feeling of inhibition that had been in my hands, I remembered how my mother had always tried to get me to stop moving my hands. I am by nature a very expressive person. When I hear music, I can't sit still. My mom found that trait charming when I was a baby bouncing up and down in my crib singing "hubba hubba hubba" to the music, but later she felt she needed to teach me restraint. What particularly worried her was my tendency to gesture with my hands while talking. I would be enthusiastically describing something, hands moving all around, and she'd say "Mary, stop that, stop moving your hands!" She had explained that a refined, lady-like person doesn't do that. (Heaven forbid I should grow up to be unladylike!) This irked me no end, but I somehow took her words to heart. Although I was never able to stop moving my hands entirely, they had been quite well "tamed".

By now the origin of my hula hands block must be obvious. Allowing my hands to move so freely wasn't something I could easily do. It involves a kind of letting go. It's a lot like the letting go of meditation. In meditation, we let go of resistance to what comes naturally. We learn to let go of resistance to the natural movement of the mind. In hula, it's about the natural movement of the body. The traditional hula hand movements are natural and flowing, like the nature they depict.

My teacher has mastered hula with her whole being. Although she may give instructions, her most powerful teaching is from embodying hula. When my teacher danced right next to me, I absorbed something at a deep intuitive level about how she moved. It was as if the "aloha spirit" was being transferred from her to me.

I found a beautiful discussion of the "aloha spirit" at the Cyber Shaman's website:

"The Aloha Spirit is a well known reference to the attitude of friendly acceptance for which the Hawaiian Islands are so famous. However, it also refers to a powerful way to resolve any problem, accomplish any goal, and also to achieve any state of mind or body that you desire."

"In the Hawaiian language, aloha stands for much more than hello or goodbye or love. Its deeper meaning is the joyful (oha) sharing (alo) of life energy (ha) in the present (alo)"

I tell this story in honor of the aloha spirit, and my teacher, Betty Ann. For me, it is a story of healing, and it's healing for me to share it with you. May all of us experience "the joyful sharing of life energy in the present".

Aloha!

Grief and an open heart

Some of us react to loss by "shutting down". We don't feel we can bear the pain of grief, or we don't want to risk loving and losing someone again. Rachel, whose comment is quoted below, feels her heart has been "shut for business" since she broke up with her ex four years ago. When she experienced an emotional release in the Opening the Heart meditation, however, she felt hope that she'll eventually be able to move on and find someone new.

"I felt a significant release with tears when trying this meditation. I split with an ex over four years ago... I haven’t been able to move on at all romantically as I haven’t been able to let go of this past relationship. My heart shut for business to anyone else. I’m really hoping this meditation will eventually help me move on and find love again."

Rachel has every reason to be hopeful now that she's been able to start grieving the loss of her ex. If we can grieve a loss fully, feeling the pain all the way through, it leaves us with an open heart that can make new connections. It's said that the only way through grief is straight into the heart of it. You have to fall into it completely. An open heart is one that can grieve. We can't really feel love and joy if our hearts are closed to feeling pain. Grief is a natural process that allows us to let go of one relationship and let in another.

Life is full of losses, large and small. Large losses, like losing a  loved one, a job, moving, or falling ill, cause us to grieve. But so do smaller losses, losses that we might not even recognize as something to grieve. This really struck me yesterday as I was inhaling the wonderful fragrance of the jasmine flowers gracing my patio. Spring is my favorite season, and the return of the jasmine nourishes my being and brings me joy. But yesterday I noticed that almost all of the buds had already bloomed, and most of the lovely little flowers were on the decline. Lots of spent blossoms were at my feet. I felt as if I wanted to hold on to the jasmine forever, to never let it go. At some point I noticed a tight feeling in my heart. I felt that holding on feeling so clearly and sensed it as a tightening up against life. I felt I needed to let go and when I did, I felt grief. It was a surrender to the inevitability of loss that is part of the fabric of life. In that surrender I felt my heart relax and open. Though I felt sad, in that moment I felt fully alive. I was open to whatever might come next.

My sense is that we can't let go and be truly open without feeling the pain of loss. What has your experience with this been?