By Dawn M. Sanders
In the second of my 3-part many series on my new meditative journey – well this week I kind of plunged back into a depressive downer, so I needed it more than anything.
Last week I mentioned my debit card getting nicked, but luckily my bank sent a new card within days, so I’m just waiting to hear about getting the stolen money back.
I won’t go into the reason for slipping halfway down a rabbit hole, the very next blog posted here goes all into those details, but at least this week I got the last of my interviews done and dusted for the big article I’ve been working on for far too long (any details withheld until it’s published as, hopefully my first commission) so a fairly productive week.
This weather is so warm and sunny, the last place I wanted to be was inside, so I spent much of the day writing and just reflecting up here in the gardens where I’m writing now.
Yesterday when it was time to get ready for the meditation, I went up to almost the same spot right at the top of our communal gardens, but instead of sitting in between the two bushes, I found a couple of trees to sit near, but with a good pool of sun to sit in on the grass.
So, I closed my eyes and just focused on my breathing – a count of 4 in and 4 out and then tried to reverse the pattern.
My mind churned away and wandered everywhere, even though I was well into my surroundings. Sitting on the slightly itchy, prickly mowed grass, the odd light niggling of an insect, the constant twitter of the birds (the seagulls seemed to be away) possibly out at the nearest beaches eyeing up bank holiday-makers and their human food supply.
The cling-bang of someone throwing bottles into the recycling in the carpark below, talking, the mad-sounding laughter of a young person, as the evening buzzed on Lansdowne estate.
I kept to my breathing as it seemed to keep me mostly focused. I remember hearing, at the Buddhist centre in Sheffield, when I first started going to the lunch time sessions, ‘your mind will wander, nothing you can do about it’ so I just let it happen. There was something really just right in meditating outside, like that is the way it’s supposed to happen, not on mats lined up in a row in an immaculately polished rectangular room, to the tune of the timing of the meditation guide, but I did enjoy that.
I stayed sitting in my spot, just savouring the evening sun. The late May evenings always reminded me of the upcoming festivals with big fires at night, music floating through the air, people at their best good spirits, in a real coming together in the best little community anyone could hope for – even if it was for 4 days.
There will be none of that this year which, filled me with a deep sadness, not just because all of us who kept a special place for the off-grid festivals in our lives every summer, but it signalled how the strange world we have been thrust into with this pandemic, has changed or wiped away some of the things we both treasure and take for granted.
Despite what environmentalist say and the best intentions, by those who give a damn, the traffic will be back in the name of convenience, the opening of the economy or freedom in line with this new social distancing.
I have read a few times, of people rewilding. Those who are fortunate enough to even afford a small plot of land, but city dwellers will choke and be blanketed in a radiation fog as 5G is rolled out upon us.
Half an hour meditating before I stood up and went back down into the flat and made a cup of tea, I felt better with my overly active mind slightly cleared.