April 2014 Audio Meditation

During a recent attunement, I experienced myself orienting to my usual resource, steadiness, and I suddenly found myself “being a mountain.” My felt-sense experience was of the strength and steadiness of a large mountain and, what added to the experience, was the felt-sense of literally being part of the body of the earth. I could feel how I, as the mountain, had an unbroken connection with the entire mantle of the planet, that I arose from the depths of the earth, and that it was impossible to fall over or become disconnected from the stability of the earth itself.

As a regular practice, I invite myself and just about everyone with whom I connect professionally in the course of any given week to take a moment to feel into the steadiness that is an inherent part of their embodied, core presence. I remind people that the experience of our ever-present steadiness may fall into the background of our awareness and be momentarily unavailable, but it represents a part of us that cannot be disturbed. It’s an inescapable aspect of our wholeness and resides within our core presence.

Sitting in Central Park one morning, I thought about an On Being interview I heard about the importance of hope when looking toward what needs to change in our collective world of human presence and activity. As I listened, I thought about the war in Ukraine and about the powerful polarization that exists in my country, the U.S., and also in other countries around the world.

From a spiritual perspective, I interpret this polarization to involve those who, perhaps because of fear, orient to a stance of individual rights, discomfort with “difference”, and what I would call an orientation to separation. And, on the other hand, there are those who orient to collective well-being, interdependence, and an underlying sense of oneness within our human family and with nature. I’m sure there are many people in the middle, but in our seats of power it seems that the polarization expresses itself in fairly distinct ways.

I’ve written before about a dynamic in Nature, emergence, that has given me hope over the years, even in times like these where our human family seems to orient to short-term goals and tribal kinds of interests. What emergence refers to is the tendency of Nature to generate unexpected and unanticipated solutions, creating new options to meet and shift existing conditions. The example I usually offer is how Nature somehow brought together molecules of air that, when combined, created liquid—when oxygen and hydrogen came together to create water. I don’t think anyone could have imagined that air could create liquid and yet our lives depend on this moment of emergence from so long ago.

I think of emergence, in a sense, as Nature’s creative intelligence grappling with and solving challenging problems and issues that arise in the course of life’s unfolding itself. When I look around the world at this time, I find myself thinking a lot about emergence and wondering how to “call on it” to help us resolve all the various ways in which our human family is harming ourselves and the planet.

A while back (764^th Week’s practice), I wrote about choosing frequencies and engaging practices that make that process more fluid.  Another helpful approach is to cultivate an awareness of the “foreground/background” dynamic that is present in every moment.  Whatever is in the foreground of your awareness, there is likely to be something different in the background.  

One way to think about these foreground/background dynamics could be the distinction between moments of upset in the foreground and an awareness of the present-day observer in the background.  The observer is the part of us that notices what we experience and is able to make choices about what to do with what we notice.  In this case, we’re exploring finding ways to shift from the foreground upset to a background of a more regulated quality, if that’s what you choose to do.

Drawing on an awareness of foreground/background allows more choice about whether you want to continue with the focus of your attention and experience or if you want to shift frequencies to something else that you may find in the background.  For example, you may be upset over a news report you just heard, with your body tense, fear in the foreground, and thoughts of what terrible things might unfold.  These responses are natural in these times, but you don’t need to live there.  Once you notice how distressed you are, it’s possible to become curious about what might be in the background.  Perhaps you notice a quality of quiet, or ease, internal steadiness, or reassurance of some kind. This doesn’t mean you are ignoring or denying issues that are realistically upsetting. Instead, it means that you will be able to respond more coherently if you aren’t caught up in the activation related to them.

Walking across Central Park one morning on my way to my office, I was aware of a cacophony of insect sounds all around me.  It reminded me of when I lived in the Berkshires, where summer nights were filled with the songs of tree frogs and insects.  Something about being enfolded in all that beautiful sound also reminded me of times I’ve been in landscapes with waterfalls, or near the ocean, where complete silence is never present, except in the momentary pause between waves on the shore.

As the enthusiastic insect songs accompanied me that particular morning, it got me to thinking about the place each of us has inside that embodies silence, no matter what may be going on around us.  Our culture doesn’t tend to promote a conscious relationship with this aspect of ourselves, but deep inner quiet is always available somewhere deep inside each of us. Read More “727th Week: Finding Inner Silence”