Meditate Create

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Jennifer

Listening To Your Internal Voice

I have been listening quietly within. I am thinking less, and I am listening and feeling more. I have allowed the sureness of my internal voice to be my guide, and even when I felt afraid or thought what I heard to be absurd, I have listened, and I have followed its guidance. As a result, I have experienced more joy, more moments of being moved to tears, and more awakening or heart opening experiences. I have connected with new people with whom I would not have likely connected otherwise. My life has been richer for being quiet and making time and room to listen to myself.

Make time today to be still and quiet and listen to your internal voice. Take a chance and do what it guides you to do, even if it seems absurd. Notice what happens. Notice the slender threads of connection to which it leads.

Waiting in Response to Uncertainty

I am sitting in the midst of uncertainty. I’m continually amazed at how many people offer unsolicited advice. The most fascinating advice has been “When in doubt, do nothing.” Doing nothing only produces a greater sense of restlessness in my spirit, which leads to increased uncertainty.

Last week, as I described my lack of clarity to someone, he responded that the remedy for lack of clarity is to wait. He suggested that I think less and feel more. “Allow things to come to you,” he said, “like when as a photographer you wait for the right light, wait for something to feel right.” His suggestion felt right to me, so I have been following through. I am investigating this liminal space by being in the every day places in which I am most likely to encounter the sacred—walking by the lake, painting in my studio, making photographs outdoors, or writing in spaces that inspire me. I am waiting. Waiting for clarity, for something to feel right. And in the meantime, I know that the moments spent encountering the sacred in the every day are what keeps me feeling centered, hopeful, and at peace.

Go outside at the end of the day, about an hour before sunset. Watch the changing colors of light on the surfaces that surround you. Watch as the light changes to a warm golden color. Wonder how you could overlook this phenomenon on most days.

"W;t"

This week I have been discussing Margaret Edson’s “W;t” with the students in my English 112 course. In one scene, Vivian Bearing’s professor, E.M. Ashford, objects to an edition of text that Bearing has used to cite John Donne’s Holy Sonnet X. The edition to which Bearing has referred punctuates the line as “And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!” Ashford reasons, “But it is ultimately about overcoming the seemingly insuperable barriers separating life, death and eternal life. In the edition you chose, this profoundly simple meaning is sacrificed to hysterical punctuation. ‘And Death’ capital D...’shall be no more;’ semi-colon. ‘Death,’ capital D, comma,‘thou shalt die!’, exclamation mark. Gardner's edition of the Holy Sonnet reads: ‘And death shall be no more,’ comma...’death thou shalt die’…Nothing but a breath, a comma, separates life from life everlasting. Very simple, really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage with exclamation marks. It is a comma. A pause. In this way, the uncompromising way, one learns something from the poem, wouldn't you say? Life, death. Soul, God. Past, present. Not insuperable barriers, not semicolons, just a comma.”

This scene in “W;t” gave me pause to consider the simplicity of what often separates us from what we deeply desire. Fear, uncertainty, or lack of belief in ourselves can separate us from living the life of our dreams. The need to be right, defensiveness, or an inability to deeply listen to another can separate us from love. And sometimes we make things more difficult with hysterical punctuation, when simply the use of a comma would eliminate the insuperable barriers.

Write about what keeps you separate from what you deeply desire, and then write about one thing you could do differently that would help you to obtain it.

Place, Home, and Community

I spent the weekend immersed in community-based activities surrounding a photography project in which I have been involved during the past nine months. The project is related to East End, a Black community in Asheville that was displaced during “urban renewal” in the 1980s. There was no renewal. The houses were not renovated, and the community was not fortified. Essentially, the people who lived, worked, and owned businesses in the community were forced out, and paved streets, parking lots, and city buildings took their place.

I took a walk by the lake in the snow yesterday afternoon. There was uncommon quiet that surrounded the shades of white and grey of the lake. Even the birds were scarce. I spotted only one lone white goose and two pairs of mallards swimming in the water. In the stillness, I became deeply aware of my feelings of aloneness.

Most of us deeply long for a sense of connection to place, home, and community. We long for a sense of belonging. When we find our place—whether it is through connection to the land, a house, a family, or a community, we feel at home. When we lose that connection because we move to a new place and haven’t yet settled, we have chosen a place that is not true to who we are, or our family or community is disrupted or divided, we feel an enduring sense of longing and loss.

Where do we find comfort while we search for a sense of place and home? I find comfort through attempting to recreate pieces of what feels like home—walking by the neighborhood lake, surrounding myself with objects that soothe me, watching the birds at my backyard feeder, and connecting with my family of friends. When the feelings of longing become too great, sometimes releasing the grief over the places that I have lost becomes essential. Today I’ll take another walk by the lake, and if the snow is cleared from the roads, I’ll get to my appointment for an hour of soothing touch by my favorite massage therapist.

Write about your connection to place, home or community. If you do not have the connection that you long for, write about what brings you comfort during your enduring search.

Listening to the Call

Yesterday I saw two Canada Geese take flight from the lake. In one moment they were sitting together on the water near other geese, and in the next moment they simultaneously began honking, flapping their wings, and rapidly paddling their feet. Within seconds, their chests emerged completely from the water. Next their stomachs and feet were in the air, and they tucked their feet and legs into the soft of the feathers of their underbellies. Their wings, flapping hard and fast as they rose from the water, slowed to a rhythmic pace. These geese left the lake with seemingly no hesitation, no indecision, and no fear. I’m not sure what motivated them to leave at that time. Moments before they had been eating moss from the bottom of the lake at a leisurely pace. Something inside of them changed, and they knew it was time to take flight.

What would our lives be like if we so readily paid attention to the things that we feel called to do? What stops us? Fear? Indecision? Self-doubt? What would our lives be like if, when we felt called to do something, we simply took flight toward the thing that calls to us? How utterly freeing would it feel to listen to our inner knowing, trust ourselves, and, without hesitation, indecision, or fear, take flight toward that which calls us?

Try writing about something that you feel called to do. What holds you back from moving toward what calls you? What do you imagine your life to be if you took flight toward what is calling you? Write about one step you can take to move closer to your calling.

“Saying yes to the calls tends to place you on a path that half
of yourself thinks doesn’t make a bit of sense, but the other
half knows your life won’t make sense without. This latter
part, continually pushing out from within us with a centrifugal
force, keeps driving us toward authenticity, against the tyranny
of fear and inertia and occasionally reason, against terrific odds,
and against the knocking in our hearts that signals the hour.”

—Gregg Levoy, Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life

Deep Listening

This weekend there were two unusual visitors on the lake—a male Redhead and a male Greater Scaup. These ducks seem to have arrived together, and they have stayed together for the past two days now. I wonder how they chose this place, why they have made a temporary home here, and how they will choose their next place.

What is it that makes a place feel like home? A year ago I owned a lovely bungalow with so many windows throughout that each room was always full of light, even on cloudy days. Two of the walls in my writing room were filled with windows that opened out over the back yard so that I could hear the morning song of the song sparrow and the steady splash of water from the fountain in the koi pond. After writing for several hours, I embarked on my daily walk through the flower garden in the front. There was no front yard, per se. The front lawn had been replaced by a marble walkway that wound through an untamed perennial garden that the previous owners had planted. I developed a rhythm of home in that place—writing, working, and tending the garden. I moved out of one and into the next with an ease that felt like home. The garden provided a daily dose of sacred for me with the miracle of something new appearing at least once a week from March through October—daffodils, bearded iris, grape hyacinth, Asian lilies, four-o’clocks, poppies, roses, zinnias, tulips, sunflowers, and choreopsis. The garden turned every day into a mystical journey, and as I wound my way through, I recalled memory after memory of planting flowers with my mother as a child.

The house and garden were a dream come true, but as each day passed, my spirit spoke louder and louder that this was not my place. I knew in my heart that I would never feel at home in the city that surrounded my home. After two years, I sold the house and moved on in an attempt to find a larger sense of place and home. I still grieve the loss of that house and garden, but I know that it was time to let go. When something isn’t quite right, there’s a sense of freedom and expansiveness that comes with opening up to more of what we want in our worlds.

Listen deeply to yourself. Try writing about something that you know you need to let go. Write about how you imagine your life to be on the other side of the letting go.