Your Crowning Glory - Go Within – Meditation

A man goes into the Himalayan Mountains to find enlightenment. He travels for many miles to find an empty cave to live a spiritual life. He settles in to meditate, study ancient spiritual scripture and do his yoga to keep limber. For many, many years he practices all day and night, until one day – poof! – He’s enlightened.

So as the man emerges from the cave to greet the world, a bird flies over and shits on his head. He immediately becomes enraged and starts cursing at the bird.

What’s the moral of the story? It’s easy to be spiritual in a cave high atop a mountain and far away from everything that could potentially disturb your peace; the real task is to keep peace amidst the challenges we face in the world.

My original attraction to Yoga wasn’t a quest for inner peace or a desire to levitate over Manhattan; I came to Yoga purely for the physical practice. Over time I started exploring all the facets of Yoga and discovered that the physical practice was actually for the “soul” purpose of meditating more easefully and peacefully. Now that was quite an eye-opener for me because no one had explained that when I’d originally signed up. I’d been tricked into thinking I was doing something good for my body, unaware that I was simultaneously doing something good for my mind and soul.

The first few times I tried meditating I made every effort to sit quietly, yet nothing happened. Well, I shouldn’t say nothing happened. My mind ran amuck. It traveled from one thought to another, without taking a break. I felt frustrated and limited. Why couldn’t I just keep quiet for one moment? I was sure everyone else in the room had it down while I was the ONLY one still thinking. But after sharing my experience with others, I realized even the most experienced and self-actualizing people also have days when their minds run seemingly out of control.

And what was the purpose of all this quiet time anyway? After all, I hadn’t had it since kindergarten, and even then I wasn’t very good at it, having been dubbed a social butterfly by my teacher on my report card. But everything I read—spiritual, self-help and even business—talked about the benefits of meditation, so I kept exploring.

Introducing a meditation ritual takes practice; the more you practice the easier it gets. Think back to when you may have learned to ride a bike. You probably fell down a few times and skinned you knees before you got it right. When you started cooking, you probably burned a few things, including you hands. So with regular practice, mediation can get easier.

I believe the only evidence you’ll ever need to prove that mediation works is to try it yourself. Become your own scientist and experiment with different techniques, notice how you feel, draw your own conclusions and experience the results.

Starting my own ritual of meditating was not easy for me; I fell off the Yogic wagon several times. Eventually I found that the best time for me to meditate was when I woke up in the morning. When I tried earnestly to get up with the sun, inevitably I felt tired in the middle of my day. As much as I wanted to get up at the crack of dawn, by the third day I couldn’t keep it up and stopped meditating completely. I discovered that meditating when I got up, regardless of the time, was much more effective.

Upon waking, I cleanse and then meditate before doing anything else. This works best for me. I created a ritual, which became an integral part of my daily routine. If for some reason, I miss my morning meditation, it now feels like I didn’t brush my teeth. Introducing a daily ritual into your routine takes about thirty days of repetition. Find the rhythm that suits you and your life. If you’re not a morning person, meditate in the afternoon; if you are a night owl, take advantage of the stillness of the dark. Start with just five minutes every day and let it grow from there. After you have created a daily habit of meditating; sit for ten minutes, then twenty and so on. If you start your practice with the goal to meditate for an hour and then fail, you’ll get aggravated and give up.

You can create a special, sacred space for your meditations, but remember it’s not completely necessary. No matter where you are, you can always go within. If you like, find a place that is clutter-free and quiet. You can use a special pillow and any accoutrements that feel good to you. I know a woman who has seven children; she meditates in her closet. Keep in mind as you practice more meditation it will get easier for you to just go inside, even in the midst of chaos. Over time you won’t even need any special tools to provide the answers you are seeking. There is no right or wrong in meditation, no pass or fail. All you have to do is try and you will reap the benefits.

Meditation is the key to living royally. When you quiet your mind you free yourself from the chatter, enabling you to see your self-worth clearly and pave the way to a more easeful, peaceful life.

Stacey Joiner
Taken from the teachings in You Deserve The Royal Treatment – A Woman’s Guide to Living Royally.

Travel as a Mindfulness Practice

I am heading out on a mammoth trip today. My itinerary looks like this:Monday – drive to Port MacNeil on northern Vancouver Island

Tuesday – Facilitate community to community forum with North Island First Nations and local governments. When finished, drive back to Campbell River and jump on a plane. Fly to Vancouver, then Toronto then Ottawa.

Wednesday – Facilitate workshop in Ottawa with the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

Friday – Finish workshop and return to Vancouver

Saturday – Facilitate one day Open Space for the Ministry of the Attorney-General Family Court Committee. Return home Saturday night.

This is a little unusual for me, in that I usually don’t do a red eye flight across two thirds of the country. I know I will be tired, and I know I need to stay focused on these three jobs and what I am doing. And believe it or not, I woke up this morning deliciously anticipating the journey ahead.

For me, this kind of travel and work is a mindfulness practice. I use these journeys to be very mindful about where I am and what I am doing. Often, when I am en route, I don’t speak to other people at all, preferring to travel in silence, reading, listening to music or podcasts or writing. If I do speak it is only to be polite, get where I am going or ask for help. As a silent meditation I find travelling in this way to be incredible practice, and it brings me to the work I have to do with as much presence as I can. In general I don’t check my emails when I am on the road, preferring instead to give as much attention as I can to the work I have at hand. Fortunately I have my partner Caitlin Frost is back in our office, answering phone calls, sorting logistics with clients and flagging important emails for me. This is an incredible gift as it allows me to be on the road, safe, undivided and present for my clients.

Seeing travel as a meditation retreat for me shows up in many ways. For example I have a few practices I cultivate on a daily basis and being mindful means focusing on doing them in unfamiliar places with limited access to tools. I try to exercise everyday, and have developed several “hotel room” workouts, that can be done between queen sized beds in small roadside motels. These are 20-30 workouts focusing on strength, flexibility and cardio fitness. Of course, access to a weight room or a gym makes this easier, but it isn’t necessary. Sometimes, if I’m driving and I get tired I pull over and go through a circuit of push ups, sit ups and squats or I run through some of my taekwondo patterns to get the blood flowing and energize my body.

Eating is another area that becomes a mindfulness practice. Because it’s so hard to find good and healthy food on the road, I think carefully about everything that enters my body. Instead of defaulting to restaurants, I’ll often stop in to grocery stores and stock up on fresh fruit and vegetables, pre-mixed salads or healthy instant soups that can be made with only boiling water. Travelling does not have to mean bread, oil and potatoes.

Travelling offers several benefits to the emotional side of mindfulness practice as well. It is a rare trip when everything goes according to plan and delays, changes and inconveniences force me to be mindful of my emotional states and to practice equanimity with people, machines and other pieces of reality that are out of my control. Some of my favourite trips have been those which have gone horribly wrong, with missed connections, bad weather and few options. If I come through those with a minimum of anxiety, the journey and the return home seems sweeter for it.

Travel can be stressful because it breaks our routines and rhythms. We need to become completely dependent on our own resources, carrying everything we need with us. It forces us to make careful choices about what we take and what we do on the road. We have to live differently than we do at home and that forces us to pay more attention to what we are doing. THAT alone is a gift, for if we can use the opportunity to focus ourselves and work with our mind, we can not only travel better, but understand ourselves better as well.

Slow down, be careful and attentive and see what you learn about yourself.

~ Chris Corrigan
Originally Posted at Parking Lot

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I Have Rituals and They Change in the Details of How They Unfold

I have rituals and they change in the details of how they unfold.

I have a morning practice that I do at least 5 or 6 days a week. The goal of the practice is to have some time for moving my body, some time for meditation and some time for written reflection. Having said that, the details depend on the time available. Some mornings I have only 30 minutes and then it gets pretty compressed. Mostly, I like to have an hour. An hour and a half is delightful (although more and more rare). My morning movement varies – mostly yoga stretches. I try to do at least a few minutes of some kind of stretching.

Recently, I was doing the Presence Process by Michael Brown. Doing that work, my meditation takes 30 minutes to an hour which pretty much squeezes out the other aspects. It also has added an evening meditation.

Other rituals – I call my Uncle Walt weekly. He is 91 and living alone in his own house. Actually, I have a ritual about calling all of my family – so I am in touch at least every couple of weeks.

I do intensive exercise – preferably NIA or yoga 2-3 times a week and try to do some exercise daily. Lots of walking.

I now have a ritual of taking an extensive set of supplements in the morning – but that is new in the last six months.

I mix my Alexander restorative rest and a series of healing visualizations.

So, as you can surmise, this all rises and falls depending on the time available. Some days it is very compressed and not all of it happens and occasionally I actually do it all!

Karma Ruder
kruder@ethicalleadership.org

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One Good Thing for Someone Else Every Day

I have two steady rituals: the first is that I begin every day with meditation and prayer for good health, loving family and friends, and opportunities to do good work. I also try to do at least one good thing for someone else every day. The latter began when I was thinking about giving up something for Lent, as I have always done. I thought that that was not doing anything positive for the world, so determined that it would be better to do something good for someone else every day--and then not just for Lent but throughout the year.

Dee Dickinson
www.newhorizons.org


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Rituals in the Classroom

• We sing a song called “The Earth is Good to Me” before eating dinner
• I usually eat something small but yummy while I read right before bed
• In the classroom, for group well-being we meet at the start of the day to greet and start our work together
• At the end of yoga we think about our intentions for the day at the end of meditation.
• Saying namaste, thanking each other for practicing yoga together.

A frequent wish of mine over the years is that as a [school] community we would have some rituals together for the well-being of the community, like regular assemblies, singing the school song, etc. An updated version of the old rituals of the pledge of allegiance or patriotic songs. We were trying to think- when do we see ourselves (literally) as a whole community at our school?

~ Anonymous

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Gratitude, Prayer, Meditation and Life Affirming Actions

One of the great truth that has changed and continues to change me came from my study with Dr. Angeles Arrien in Calif. She taught me that all traditional people believe that in order to live in a sacred blessing way, you need to have these three practices in your life daily. I call them rituals and express my original medicine with them. They are the practice of GRATITUDE which I take the time once or twice a day as I feed my horses to look around and say thank you for all the wonders etc in my life. The practice of PRAYER and MEDITATION is the second ritual and that is something that is evolving daily with my spiritual and soul growth. The third is to practice LIFE AFFIRMING ACTIONS everyday. This is the fun one as it reflects the first two. As Rumi says, "Let the beauty of what you love, be what you do"....or something like that!!

~ Anonymous

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Journaling and then Meditating

For about 10 years I have been journaling every day. It is about a page typewritten. Then I meditate/contemplate for about 20 minutes. This order seems to work better for me than the other way around--perhaps I get the junk out on the page and then can be clearer in the m/c.

For about 6 months I have been attending a Friends meeting, and that is a welcoming and welcome time each First Day, as Quakers say. Now it is interesting to call all this ritual, the Quakers being so plain and not liking the word! But then again, some people think open space has no structure....

I also like to read a lot--mainly spiritual type reading. Just finished John Shelby Spong's A New Christianity For a New World; before that it was Walter Brueggemann's The Prophetic Imagination. These both excited me and reverberated through my life. Of course, Lawrence Thornton's Imagining Argentina, and Peter Block's Community are spiritual books to me!

The big ritual I am working on now is to invite without ceasing.

You may also want to look at www.FootprintsintheWind.com and read the article "12@21" (right hand column) for a romantic kind of ritual.

Doug Germann

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So That My Body and Soul Get Juice

The 3 main rituals I have that are scheduled-type things are...

1. I cuddle with my dogs each morning right when I roll out of bed. I have a meditation space off our bedroom and I go sit on a cushion in there and they join me for belly rubbin and lovin. It's a sweet, gentle, delightful way to start my day. Some days it only lasts 30 seconds and some times we go on for a while.
2. I go to a yoga class 2-3 times a week. I try and pick classes that have a mind/body/spiritual component so that my body and soul get juice.
3. Every Thursday night my girlfriends and I get together. We alternate who makes the plans so sometimes it's a yoga class, happy hour, dinner, movies... having that close knit community of women is incredibly nourishing.
   

Other things that I do to fill me up daily are: laugh, dance, hug and kiss my beautiful mate, and listen to music.

~Cyn

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Wow!! I Do Take Care of Myself With My Rituals

For me… I do a meditation/clearing/intention time each morning consisting of energetically clearing out my house, my office space, and my boyfriend’s house, then putting in white light of the highest vibration into each of these spaces where I spend the most time. Then I call in all helpers/angels etc to assist me for the day (in general and in specific if I am working on something), and then I do the same for my daughter. Sometimes I do it at my altar, other times in bed before I get up.

Currently for the next 2 weeks I am cleaning out my energy field 2x/day after a shaman session I had recently.

I work out 3-4x/week…hike, swim, cardio, weights…

Before I go to sleep I go through the day and get into a space of gratitude for all the things that I enjoyed throughout the day. Occasionally I’ll get to write in my journal.

I have a spiritual book club that I attend 2x/month. I belong to a women’s prosperity circle that we talk 1x/week and do emails during the week to keep our vibration high!

I get Acupuncture (1-2x/month), Massage, Anat Baniel, Chiropractic etc as needed.

WOW!! I do take good care of myself with my rituals!

W.W
Source for Wellbeing


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Sharing New Things Each of Us Learned

Give thanks before every meal, joining hands with all gathered around the table

Bless the car and everyone in it as I begin driving

Bless our daughter, Adonia, each night, cuddle and give thanks for the day and look back at what went well and what could work better another day

Share with each other at supper time what new things each of us learned during that day

Pray/meditate each night before going to sleep, even if just for a short while

Touch in with my husband each evening to get a sense of the next day's flow and how we will weave each of our schedules and rhythms together in mutual support and awareness

Do a cleanse in the spring time -- which includes a yearly wildcrafting of nettles

That's a start for now... wanted to write some down right away before your email scoots too far up in my inbox (another "ritual" I am trying to enact more and more ;-))

~anonymous

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Paying Attention to Relationships and Cats

A full account of my own rituals and their history could be a tome in themselves and it's a little daunting to try to share just enough to fit into an email. I'll limit myself to the present and near present, skip a lot of detail and going into why's and wherefore's. You'll see that for me healthy living includes paying attention to relationships.

This morning the clock radio went off at 5:30 p.m. tuned to the CBC radio station with some pleasant classical music. As she does every morning, L said sleepily "Hit the button?" Sometimes it's "Eight minutes?" During this time I slowly come to a sense of the day, the temperature, my urge to cozy down or to get up, what it's like outside, where the cats are - which is usually somewhere on the bed on my feet or in the crook of my knee or between us.

A while later in the kitchen I drink as much water as is comfortable and go into the living room, lay on my back and do some core muscle exercises while stretching my hands over my head. My big cat, Socks Bear, who we have taken to calling Kung Fu Panda, has his own rituals that he performs in a dance with L and me in turn. Cats are very addicted to rituals. Since my hands are out there he butts them and I absent mindedly, since I am concentrating on pulling my stomach in or lifting a leg in the air, grab a front paw or a back paw and tug. He loves it and purrs and pulls until I let go, and there is more of that.

I then move to the cushion for some half lotus Zen sitting. This is the one element that has almost always been present for over three decades. At this point my other cat Diva, who we have called ninja kitty for some time, as well as various babyish names, comes over for her turn. Little Bear heads off to some ritual with L that I haven't inquired into. Diva used to be able to climb into my hands and curl up completely inside them. Now she climbs in, pushes them apart and settles with chin hanging over my forearm and a slight purr. I wonder briefly about attachment to the pleasure of this trust as I concentrate on counting my breaths from one to ten, eyes open. The world of sound/sight /touch fills my senses, stray thoughts come for an instant or longer and pass by as I return to my breathing. I am amazed at the fullness of life. L comes in for her own meditation and then goes in the other room to turn on the TV for the news. I switch to chakra scanning which shuts out the announcer. As I finish - and Diva knows how long it usually is and will be unbearably cute if I meditate too much longer, doing things like standing up, looking me in the eyes and putting a soft paw on my mouth - I lift her to my shoulders and begin to stand. Socks comes over with a mew, and I pick him up in my arms then proceed to do a Zen one step per breath walk into the kitchen with the two of them. He jumps down to see if L will put her breakfast plate down for him and Diva stays on my shoulders fascinated by things I do in the kitchen. Finally I cut up a few green beans I keep in the fridge and bend down so she can jump off then give them to her as a pre-breakfast snack.

L usually leaves 10 or 15 minutes before me and I have insisted on a ritual good-bye kiss so she calls and I come to the door. We exchange a few sentences, often about logistics. Today it's about the rain and how wet it is.

The meditation awareness comes back to me during the day and often I tune to my breathing and notice the widening of awareness and relaxation it brings.

~anonymous

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Centered, Grounded in Purpose and Possibility, Limber and Healthy

My morning ritual:

Before I'm awake enough to talk myself out of it, I do the 5 Tibetan rites. 20 minutes of mediation follow and then, as I take a shower, I say a multi-part affirmation that I began doing in 1986.

The affirmation was really my first experience of meaningful ritual. It grew out of a workshop called The Wall that was offered through Context Trainings, a cousin to Landmark's Forum. I have no idea what prompted me to begin saying my "definition of success" to myself every morning but I did. Through the years, I have added other elements, including a "stand" (I am Reflecting Pool: nurturing wholeness, creating space for limitless learning, nourishing through purpose) and a question (How am I a spark to grow love's capacity in myself, others and the whole? and its recent partner question: How can we call into being our collective soul so that our many storied world can find its way and each of us our roles in it?).

I added the meditation and Tibetan Rites in 2000 following attending Nine Gates Mystery School.

I believe the meditation centers me and the affirmations ground me in my sense of purpose and possibility. The Rites keep me limber and feeling physically healthy.

Anyway, it is a great way to start the day and I can feel it when I don't take the time in the morning.

Peggy Holman
Open Circle Company


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Family Rituals Creating a Physical and Emotional Glow

Funny you should ask. This has been a big new (or lots of little new) bit in my life. I have started to meditate 20 minutes every morning. I have dance 1x/week and yoga 1x/week plus I'm wearing a pedometer to help me raise my awareness of my activity level with a goal of 10,000 steps a day. This means at least one walk a day or a number of shorter ones. Good for spring weather.

To engage the whole family in better awareness and care of our bodies, I have used the game-generation approach and we have a Wii Fit board which engages with quite a bit of hilarity, a little competitiveness (I am the mother of two boys, remember, one of whom is a gamer who does not leave his chair.) For the last week every evening before dinner we play together. It has created both a physical and emotional glow.

ALl these things help me separate a bit from my work - so much less blogging and blog reading. It is interesting to see the teeter totter of our life's rhythms.

Nancy White
Photo by Nancy

Sometimes Rituals Turn up. Sometimes They Vanish.

Rituals. Mmh. At certain times in my life, certain rituals turn up. Like meditation in the morning. Sometimes they vanish again. Partly because of a lack of discipline on my part. Partly because of completely mysterious reasons.

Right now, living the pretty scheduled life of a working father, my rituals are (randomly):

• Deep muscular core workout every Tuesday evening
• Anusara-Yoga at Sunday nights
• Singing a good night song to my son three times a week
• Talking my son to sleep. A little ritual I created when Finn couldn't find the gateway to the causal on his own. It's partly progressive muscle relaxation combined with a form of prayer. I always let him decide whether he wants to fall asleep alone or if I should guide him. Finn is 4.5 years old.
• Group meditation (1 hour) and energy work every Thursday night
• Trying hard to drink at least 2 liters of water every day and mostly succeeding
• A cup of strong black coffee in the morning
• Sensual love including oil-massage as regular as possible
• Sitting in a café drinking latte machiato and reading the paper on lonely Sunday mornings

That's it for now. My regular patterns. Rituals in the broad sense. Nonetheless..

Jan Koch
jankoch.email@gmail.com

What's Most Needed that I'm Most Ready to Do?

not sure i have any rituals anymore. i meditate on el trains and airplanes. i clear the email inbox once a month or so, if i'm lucky. i keep working on the house, picking my way along rather than pushing for a schedule. i do open space when people ask. i'm slowly reforming my late-night habits so that i get more cozy time with jill in the evenings. i've volunteered as the steward of a piece of riverside nature trail behind our house, so i am thinking about making trash pickup while walking that space a new sort of ritual, i guess. that will be weather dependent. that's sort of how more and more is happening around here, based on the weather, inside and outside. maybe it's ritual giving way to being in it all the time and just doing the thing that i can, whatever i can, os, email, community, carpentry, food, laundry or whatever that is most in need of doing and that i am most ready to do. it's either brilliant or i'm full of it. flip a coin!

Michael

Zen Meditation and Residing with Juicy Emotional States

As for me, one ritual (activity?) that I've been practicing pretty regularly for the past 1,5 years is at least 30 minutes of zen meditation (as taught at the Zen Center of San Diego) twice a day.

Even if I'm not mindful the whole rest of the day, this regular meditation helps me stay at least a wee bit more in touch with myself and be in touch with myself at least a wee bit more when irritation or anger comes on. Meditation has become a friend. How did I live without it all these years?! And I just love that the explicit invitation in the larger practice of zen is not to stuff the anger or other juicy emotional states but to just physically reside in them!

Anonymous

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Ritual as a General Way of Life

In the broadest sense, I see each day and each waking moment as a Ritual - an opportunity to ‘practice the presence’ (allowing spirit to bless each interaction - whether this be between humans or between trees, animals, rocks, angels or any other manifestation of the One Life).

For me, each day upon waking I attempt to remember who I am and where I am and what opportunity awaits me during the new day. I always begin with a cup of hot water and 30 minutes of meditation before heading out on an 8-mile neighborhood run (on weekends year-round I run the local Issaquah Alps or the Cascades in the summer months for 3-4 hours to commune with nature). I’m then ready to open emails and have client meetings or go volunteer my time. Whenever I can, I stop and give thanks during the day for the gifts of life and ask that I be shown where I can be of most service and where my next classroom for personal growth is happening.

Although ritual is a form that brings certain qualities and blessings into a focus, it is now more a general way of life. That’s all for now.


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