Thursday, November 12, 2009

Can I have a side of sunrise with that?

Jumpy jumpy. This morning sitting still seemed impossible, and somehow, not right. I was sitting at my bedroom window, facing east into darkness but there was a thin crescent moon and I couldn't take my eyes off of it. When I tried to close them, it was that clenched closed, when the lids quiver with effort. Not very restful. So I left them open.

The movement that came was from some part of me that knew exactly what to do. I felt my spine, the sticky places in my neck, the morning stiffness in my back. In the first meditation class back in September my teacher spent time describing the physical process of preparing to sit and included the feeling of moving back and forth, just slightly, till you felt that place where your head was perfectly balanced on top of your stacked vertebrae. I was circling that this morning.

I loved this sensation of so many small motions--so different from the yoga I've been doing, but similarly joyful. To sway side to side, front to back, to follow the gathering weight and kindly bend over, dripping the springy tension from sleep-tightened muscles. My head made gentle figure eights, reminding me of the book "Smart Moves," that my mother gave me when we were working with Theo's sensory issues. The figure eight aids your mind to process stimuli from both sides of the body as you cross the midline, both hemispheres of the brain working together. Integrating, transitioning.

As it got light the tree that fills the eastern view from my window grew distinct, the pearly light picking out each needle. Shifted into slow motion, it felt like the time when I was in third grade and, sitting in the car beside my mother's bag, picked out and put on her glasses for fun, and then, shocked, said "I can see every leaf on that tree!" (Glasses for me followed.) As the tree, backlit, became clearer and distinguished from the sky I felt the world moving forward and away at the same time, sliding into 3 dimensions.

Was that meditation? I don't know but it's time to get going. After many long days of rain, yesterday was stunning blue and this early light bodes well for today.

No comments:

Post a Comment