My First Labyrinth Walk

So I finally got to walk a labyrinth yesterday. I have been fascinated with them for years, but I didn’t know we had one in Anchorage that was open to the public until recently. I first became interested in labyrinths in my goddess studies, but I walked the local one with my Buddhist Small Group. That is one of the things I love about labyrinths – they are so ecumenical. Pagans, Christians, Buddhists, people of wildly diverse religious faiths all find usefulness and beauty in this walking meditative tool. What could be more UU than that?

This won’t be the last time I use the local labyrinth at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, but on this first walk one metaphor stuck with me. As I walked, there was a moment when I had to step out, another moment when I had to balance precariously, and a final moment in which I stood firm in stability on both feet. I repeated that pattern, which we all do every day without thinking about it, over and over again. That pattern is like life and we repeat it metaphorically all our lives. There are times when we have to get inspired and venture out into something we have never done before, times when we don’t really know what we are doing and might fail, and times when we are stable and sure in what we are doing. To get anywhere though, we have to step out again. The thing that both surprised me and didn’t was how much I enjoy the unstable part of each step. That is something worth paying attention to.

Another group of women followed our group through the labyrinth and they were clearly much more organized than we were. Their beautiful chanting enhanced the whole experienced and changed it for me. The labyrinth walk became an evolution and I learned to step and sway in their rhythm. While I started the walk focusing on Buddhist-style mediation, I finished it like a pagan. I am pretty happy with that.

How To Discipline Yourself to Meditate

I’ve figured it out. I finally know how to get myself to be more disciplined in a mediation practice. All you need to do is get yourself in a situation so over-whelming and stressful that you need the mental time-out of mediation to deal with it. See, it’s easy to be disciplined. It’s like how I am able to stick with my morning yoga routine because my back hurts a lot if I skip more than two days. Apparently, the stick approach is working better for me than the carrot.

I haven’t been writing here for a while, mostly because of the same situation that drives me to meditation. I just haven’t been able to spare the extra mental energy for it and I didn’t want this blog to turn into a whine-fest reminiscent of a 14-year old’s diary. I am working on getting my act together and being there for some people who really need the support. Sometimes people close to you have problems that make you reassess the scope of your own. That is where I am at right now. Hopefully, I will find the time for more reflection here.

A Non-Believer's Hallelujah

Yesterday morning while trying to summon the energy to get out of bed, I was thinking about the recent debate about appropriate UU worship music. Don’t ask me, my mind goes to weird places when trying to justify my body’s sloth. I started thinking about writing a blog post defending so-called 7/11 style praise music. I grew up with these songs, as well as hymns, and many of them will be engrained in my brain until I die. One simple song consisting of just the word Hallelujah repeated with a peaceful and almost lullaby like melody floated into my mind and just stayed there.

After sending Tall Daughter E off to school I had a few minutes to meditate before waking up Tiny Daughter M. As I sat down and tried to focus on my breath, that song just kept cycling through my thoughts and refused to go away. Since I had just been thinking about praise music as a form of religious chanting I decided to work with it instead of fighting it. I generally stay away from Christian terminology in my practices, but I wanted to see where this went so I used the song I couldn’t get rid of anyway as a chant.

Now I know, OK? I know what hallelujah really means. I know it is an exhortation to praise specifically the deity known as YHWH, a deity I reject. I hope that my intentional miss-use of the term doesn’t offend those who use it in a more traditional manner because I sure did appropriate the heck out of it and change its subjective meaning to my own needs.

Having said that… I really enjoyed the results of my experimentation. The melody is so familiar to me from childhood that I never had to think about it at all, which helped me to really be in the moment. The hallelujah that I breathed in and out me became an expression of deep gratitude for everything. I experienced amazement as the intricate interconnectivity of the universe and personal gratitude for my small existence and my part in it. It was a humbling and amazing moment. I don’t really know why this particular combination of notes and syllables worked for me so well. I don’t think there is any magic in the phrase itself, but maybe it is there in the memories.

Then I got up and rousted the daughter from bed because life goes on after the mat. All morning the memory of that moment stayed with me like the song. Hallelujah.

Finding Time For Spiritual Practice

Over the summer I developed a habit of spending a few minutes of either chanting or quiet seated mediation in the morning right after the sun salutations that save my back. Now that school is back in session and the mornings are full of getting children ready, finding this quiet time has gotten really hard. Evenings are full of dinner and homework, etc and after bedtime if for reading, hot baths, and time with the Husband. I cannot possible get up any earlier than 6 AM; it is everything this night owl can do to pry herself out of bed that early, but I miss those moments of peace.

What solutions have other parents found for carving out a little spiritual time? The Husband is very good about making sure the kids give me Me Time for baths, walks, time away from the house and the like, but none of that is the same as just sitting quietly. I'd love to hear what works for the rest of you.

Choosing Chanting

I've started to incorporate chanting into my meditations. So far, I've been using a couple of the most famous Buddhist mantra. So far, the chanting has been much easier for me than simple breathing meditation. I realize that easiness may not be the ideal trait for choosing spiritual practices, but I've been enjoying it. It hasn't changed my whole life or anything, but I've been doing it for the past five mornings and I haven't had a bad morning since and that says a lot.

Any other chanters out there? What works for you? What are you focusing on while chanting? Any fantastic mantra to recommend? I'd be particularly interested in goddess-themed chants, but I would be intrigued to hear what works for you. Do you prefer to chant in English (or your native tongue) or in Sanskrit, Japanese, etc.? This whole practice couldn't be more antithetical to my previous experience and background so I would really love to hear what, if anything, works for other people.

Walking in Mindfulness, Or Not

As is my wont in the summer, I put on my walking shoes and walked over the the nearby lake at lunch. I usually listen to music, but I have misplaced my earbuds so I had to hoof it on my own.

This seemed like a perfect opportunity to practice walking meditation, but it just felt like too much work. I wanted to wind down from work, not work on something else. so, I made a deal with myself, I would let my mind go wherever it pleased to wander on the way to the lake, and I would put my best effort into mindfulness on the way back to work. I am really happy with the result.

I walked in the sunshine toward the Chugach mountains and let my mind leap around like the monkey it is. I thought about blogging, and sushine. I stopped to watch the caterpillar cross the bike path. Why I find caterpillers adorable and maggots repulsive when they are the same thing will not be explored here. I thought about how little and green the new birch leaves are, but how they add up to such great effect, I thought about Star Trek. I thought a lot about Star Trek. I thought about the book I'm reading and how much it changed my philosophy, but felt so true the first time I read it. It underscores for me that there is no separation between the physical and the spiritual even though that is not what it is about. This type of mental meandering is one of the most relaxing things in the world for me and I don't want to give it up to be mindfull all the time. I know it's not disciplined, but it is nourishing.

On the way back to the office, I focused on where I was at the time, my breath, the rhythm of my steps and all the sounds and beautiful sights around me. This is also time well spent, but I don't think I would have been as prepared or as able to commit to the concentration without the earlier mental downtime. I don't have a name for this reverse meditation, but it's peaceful and I need it. An aspect of the UU path I find really valuable is that I don't have to always be doctinaire.

Why is Mindfulness So Hard?

My husband calls me anti-zen, but I really am trying to learn. It's just that doing anything mindfully for more than 10 seconds is really hard.

Yesterday I watched a six-minute video of Thich Nhat Hahn talking about mindfulness and I couldn't even watch that mindfully. I thought a lot about how hard mindfulness is, what I've tried in the past, what has and has not worked for me before, etc. I even thought, I should blog about this. I was on the same subject he was, but I probably missed a lot of what he was trying to say.

I don't think my mind has ever not being doing multiple things at once. If nothing else, I am constantly analyzing everything all the time. I mean all the time. I had always considered my mental multi-tasking to be a strength, but is it really a stumbling block to my spiritual growth? I enjoy basic seated meditation, but trying to bring an attitude of mindfulness into the rest of my life is much much harder. How much do I need to incorporate it into my daily life? If I devote times and activities to mindfulness, can I be a mental monkey the rest of the time?

Sometimes when I am trying to apply mindfulness, someone, like one of my kids, will interrupt me, which is very very irritating. Now am I mad and frustrated because can't she see I was trying to be mindful? I'm pretty sure this is the exact opposite of the intended effect.

I love the idea of mindfulness meditation. I like that it's a calming and contemplative discipline that doesn't require theist beliefs. It sometimes seems like that is just not how my brain wants to work. Does anyone have any ideas that have worked for them? How have you moved mindfulness from the meditation mat out into your life?

Prayer Beads

I'd like to make myself a set of goddess-themed prayer beads for use in meditation. A friend of mine has a beautiful set, but they were a gift and I haven't been able to find what I want online.

My making them, I'll be able to set up any type of pattern I like, but what do I want? I had been thinking about a circle with three sections, each section with nine beads. Maybe I'll separate those sections with larger beads. I could add a tail of three beads with an emblem, but is a tail really necessary or just what I am used to seeing on Catholic rosaries?

I've been searching and I'm putting together a list of prayers to or meditations on the feminine. I prefer the idea of meditations since I'm coming from a Jungian rather than a petitionary framework. I know I want to include a feminized version of the Prayer of St. Francis because it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard.

Does anyone else use prayer beads? What works for you?