SUNDAY REFLECTION

This week it is a simple, but profound theme.  It’s an extended meditation of sorts.

First, let’s take a moment to breathe and “arrive”.

Feel the place where you are, and take a minute to acknowledge the people, plants and animals that have called this place home long before you.

Next, take a minute to welcome God/Spirit/Divine in all it’s forms.  I

n whatever way is meaningful to you, welcome God to your reflection.

Now; pause, how are you feeling right now?

How have you been feeling lately?

I’ve been feeling lately a few things:

-excited about my entrepreneurial endeavours that are gaining momentum

-saddened by some heart-heavy news in my close circle of friends

-jubilant for springtime and the warmer weather.

How have you been feeling?

I also notice that sometimes my body and mind can be far ahead of my spirit, almost like a busy collie racing around biting at the ankles of anything in sight.

Sometimes I feel immensely frustrated; sometimes by petty things, sometimes by larger tides I fear to name.

Sometimes I feel surprised by how my emotional body can respond with more force to a tiny disappointment than to large world events.

Sometimes I feel so entirely subjective; as a human having my small but all-consuming experience.

Can you feel your own subjective experience? Can you feel how you are having this experience?

Think about your day/week/year.  Can you feel that you’ve been having a certain (maybe multi-flavoured) experience? Can you feel that you are colouring your world with your perception?

Now; think of someone else either beside you, or near you, or even far away.

Think of one person in particular and see if you can transfer your awareness of you having your own experience, and realize that they too are having their own experience.

Try brooding it for a moment, realizing that they have been having their own experience all day, all month, all year.

Get curious for a moment about what it may be like to be them.  What do you notice?

Now; if you want to , try extending your awareness further.  Try stretching and glimpsing for a moment that each person is having their own experience.

Maybe it’s like looking in on a house when you drive by at night and the lights are on.  Maybe it’s like being in an airplane and looking down on a city.

Stay with the feeling, whatever it is.

Now, gently, come back to feeling that you are a person having an experience.

Maybe notice the texture around you, the temperature.

Now, try switching again to a larger awareness.

Now feel the space in between; maybe it’s the air between you and the next person, or maybe it’s the perceptual intellectual space you leap over to try and understand their perspective.

Whatever all that space is; is that not where the Divine also is?

There’s this pithy bible verse that is an oft quoted command: Be Still And Know that I am God.  (Psalm 46:10)

I feel that, in whatever our understanding of the divine is, maybe the stillness itself is divine.  Be still.  Feel this now.  Feel the space between you and the others.  This is all God.

Now, can you feel some of your business?  Can you feel some of your racing mind?  Maybe imagine a time this last week when you’ve been particularly busy.

Imagine you are back in that scenario and you insert a large pause, like a rest note in music or an inflated balloon of time.

What if everything stopped for a moment? Perhaps you would notice the tuip toque on your table, or the sunlight catching dust particles.

Maybe the words someone just spoke would actually penetrate your ears and heart.  Maybe you could notice your own emotional reaction.

Maybe you could feel the Divine still present.

Still.  It’s interesting how that word has two meanings in English.

Still, like without moving, and still like it hasn’t changed yet.

Maybe, when it comes to God they are related.  Maybe in our stillness, we realize that God is still there.  The underlying patterns of the universe have not been moved.

We may have altered so much in our lives and worlds of late, but can you feel in the stillness that something is still the same?

Anything in particular come up as an example?

Please feel free to share.

As I said, perhaps a simple idea, but a profound one.  I invite you to revisit this meditation whenever you feel frantic or ahead of yourself.

I’m wishing you a beautiful week; filled with stillness amidst all the springtime energy.

Blessed Be.