Meditation is the pudding of yoga

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So, it was lovely to be back in my normal yoga class with the fire roaring inside and a horse mosying around the garden outside, in front of the window.  But at the end of the class I puzzled, as I always do.  When it's time for our final meditation, the vast majority of the class pack up and leave.  Why?  WHY?  I love the asanas, the vinyasas and so on but, well, meditation is the best bit of all.  Isn't it?  Leaving before meditation is like having a fabulous meal at a smart restaurant and getting up and walking out before pudding.   Or, if you'd rather have a sexual metaphor, it's like having tons of foreplay and then going, 'Nah, I won't bother with an orgasm, thanks.'
Each to their own, I suppose, but really the whole idea of physical yoga, yogasana, is to prepare oneself for meditation.
Yesterday Lucy and I were the only two who stayed and Miranda led us in a really lovely meditation.  I thought I'd run through it here in case you wanted to try it.  Truly, there is no one right way to meditate, you can do whatever floats your boat.  This is fancier than my usual practice but I like it.

Sit comfortably.  I tend to sit in half-lotus (purely because it's my most comfortable seated posture) but really just sit in any way you feel comfortable - cross-legged, or in a chair. But do try to keep your spine straight if you can.  If not, again it's fine - you can lie down if sitting hurts (but you might nod off!).  The main thing is to find a position which is easy to maintain.  You may well want to pop on a pair of socks and put a blanket or throw (snuggly of course) around you to keep warm.

Place your hands somewhere comfortable.  I usually have my hands on my knees, palms up, thumb and forefinger touching but yesterday we interlaced our hands in our laps, with our thumbs touching. Curl your tongue up so the tip touches the top of your mouth.

Become aware of all the sounds around you.  There's no need (and no point) in trying to block out the world around you - become acutely aware of it for a while.  If a sound intrudes when you're meditating, simply acknowledge it and then let it go.

Now do the three-part breath.  Breathe in to your belly and hold...one, two, three, four.  Without exhaling, take the breath further up into your chest and hold...one, two, three, four.  Now take the breath right up to the top of your head and hold...one, two, three four.  And then exhale, let it all go.  Of course, if you struggle to hold your breath so long, take it at your own pace.  Repeat the whole process once more.

Now become still.  Imagine you are sitting on the top of the highest mountain in the world.  You're calm, peaceful, warm and safe.  Bring your attention to the area just above and between your eyebrows, your third eye area.

The mountain drops away beneath you, becoming smaller and smaller as you find yourself floating up into space.  The Earth falls away beneath you and it too becomes smaller and smaller until it becomes a pinprick and then vanishes altogether.

You are alone in space, in perfect warmth and darkness.  You feel total peace.  You are a part of the universe and it is a part of you.  Feel it.  As you breathe in, you can say the word Relax in your mind.  As you breathe out, you can say the word Peace.

If you find your mind wandering  (and it will) don't be cross with it, just gently bring it back to the breath and return your focus to your third eye.

Stay like this for as long as you like.  It's pretty addictive.

Once you feel it's time to return, simply pause and become aware of the room around you, the world outside your mind.  Now perform the three part breath exercise three times to bring you firmly back into your body.  Rub your hands together vigorously to generate warmth and then place them over your eyes.  Open your eyes inside the palms of your hands and feel the warmth.

Bring your hands together in the prayer position in front of your heart chakra and give thanks to the universe. Namaste.

via Christina Renee

Ghosts in the salon

It’s not even lunchtime and the day is becoming surreal already. Last week I pitched up to have my hair cut only to be informed I was late – 24 hours late. Too late. So I rebooked and got ready for a second coming this morning.

Chatted on Twitter (as you do). ‘Get them doing conscious breathing, visualisation, meditation, communing with God,’ said one tweepfriend. Well, he didn’t put it quite like that, but that was the gist. ‘Oh don’t be daft,’ I replied. ‘It’s a tea and biscuits place. We’ll talk about holidays.’ Except, I didn’t say exactly that (140 characters and all).

But, blow me down with a feather. I’m sitting there, stroking the head of the attendant flat-coated retriever while having my mop tamed and I ask the hairdresser possibly THE most innocuous question ever. ‘How’s it going?’ Thinking she’d tell me about her new patio or her holiday in Bulgaria.

‘Well,’ she says. ‘I’ve got a bit of a ghost problem.’ And she goes on to tell me about her haunted attic and how her teenage son won’t sleep there anymore on account of all the groaning. And she continues to tell me how she’s getting the priest to come in and do a bit of deliverance. And I sort of mutter quietly about how she could do a bit of DIY stuff, horribly aware that there’s this woman with her hair in tin foil about three foot away who is listening in and probably thinking, ‘Wayhay, local fruitloop alert’. Except she then chimes in and says, ‘Absolutely. You can use sound as well – just make sure you leave the windows open.’ And we’re off – discussing effective space clearing and entity evacuation techniques from around the world – all thoughts of tea, biscuits and Bulgarian beaches out the window.

So, when the snipping is done, I end up demonstrating Space Clearing 101 – with Introduction to Clapping Techniques – to a chorus of affirming nods and claps from Mrs Tin Foil.
I take a bow and go to pay. ‘Sorry,’ I say to the woman on the till. ‘That was probably a bit weird.’
‘Oh God, no,’ she replied. ‘I’ve got an awful entity myself. If the dog doesn’t sleep on the bed, I get this hand stroke my back.’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘God no,’ she says. ‘I sleep on my own. And it’s not even nice stroking.  Sort of a large hand and rather rough.’
‘Can’t you move the bed?’ I say, helpfully.
‘No, the room’s too small,’ she replies. ‘Anyhow, it’s fine. If the dog’s not there, I just use a pillow.’

Ye gods, I love Exmoor people. They're just so flipping pragmatic. Pillow placement for ghost-containment.  Who'd a thought?

Zen and the Art of Tightrope Walking

Every so often (actually quite a lot) I get sick of the sound of my own voice. I bet you do too (mine, that is, not yours). So I shut up and let someone else do the talking.  Hence this is one in a very occasional series of My Favourite Blogs. Every so often I come across a blog which I love so much I have to force it on other people.  

Not that long ago, I *met* Vivienne Tufnell on Twitter. If I recall, she mentioned Susan Howatch (a favourite author) and I followed a link to her blog, Zen and the Art of Tightrope Walking. I read the post – about the wonderful Starbridge novels (c’mon TV people, now there’s a series just crying out to be made) and then poked around a bit more and emerged several hours later with ideas buzzing all over my head.

You only have to look at the sidebar of the blog to see why it drew me in: dreams and dreaming; magic and mystery; parable and poetry; depression and anxiety. What’s not to like?

How does she describe herself? “I’m a writer and poet and a longterm sufferer of depressive illness. I try to keep smiling but sometimes I fail.” Ah, this I get.

“I write about life, I write about what is important to me. I write fiction and poetry and I ought to warn you that some of what is billed as fiction is true and what is billed as….non-fiction may actually be something else entirely.” Ah, any journalist would attest to this. And our ‘fiction’ always finds us out. ;)

Her blog is one of those places I go when I’m feeling out of sorts with the world; when I want to be taken out of my head and into someone else’s. I love the breadth of her posts and the humanity and the sheer poetry of them.

Above all I love her aromatic meditations/visualisations. She has written a whole series, taking a specific scent as their starting place. Scent is powerful – it hits the limbic brain (the oldest, most primal part). It can stir up forgotten emotions, lead you down curious pathways. It bypasses the conscious mind and the ego.

Her subjects range from everyday scents (orange, bread, chocolate, vanilla) to the seasonal (snowdrop, pumpkin, bonfire) to the exotic (sandalwood, amber, myrrh). I’d love to see these gathered together in a book (any smart editors or publishers reading?). I’m also badgering Vivienne to put them out on YouTube. You can find a selection on her blog – click on meditations on the sidebar titled Things to Read and See.

Explore, enjoy...what catches your eye might be quite different from what catches mine. But I will leave you with this, as a taster – one of my favourite posts.

The texture of silence

Silence has texture.

You don’t realise how different those textures are until you stop to listen.

There’s the broken glass, bleeding edge texture of the awkward silence that falls in the ringing aftermath of a fight. You can feel the sharp fractured edges as the shattered peace falls to the ground like glass bird-scarers in an old fashioned kitchen garden.

Then there’s the hungry salivating silence of expectation, that bated breath hush, like the dying tones of the dinner gong where only vibrations and eagerness remain.

And finally there’s the silence you find in holy places, where worlds meet and touch and even overlap. You walk in and are struck by the depth of the quiet, self conscious suddenly of the creak of a door or arthritic knees, yet any sound you make rapidly vanishes, absorbed into the deep silence as a stone dropped into an underground lake. The ripples spread out to infinity and are lost, and the silence returns. It has the texture of the finest velvet, rich and soft as forest moss. When you let yourself be still, you can hear the silence over the roar of traffic or the bustle of a busy kitchen, like a kind of celestial white noise.

When you find a place where this sort of silence prevails, cherish it. Hold it in your heart, explore that texture in your mind till you understand that beyond all the sounds of the world, from the discordant roar of aircraft, the inanity of human chatter to the melody of springtime birds and the wind in the wheat, this silence is the song of the spirit that plays on whether we choose to hear it or not.