Exhale
Meditate on Mother Nature
Asking only
What have you done for me lately?
Meditation is difficult. Meditation is exponentially more difficult for each additional minute attempted. The chattering monkeys of the mind interrupt accessing the sacred silence offered by deep meditation practice. Many meditation techniques are based on accepting these interruptions for what they are and moving gently past them.
The meditation offered in this poem is surely not an all-purpose formula for effective meditation practice. Still, centering on breath as both a process and content of meditation offers quick access to the gratitude inherent in our very existence. The phrase “waiting to exhale” is reversed here, replaced with “waiting to inhale.” “Waiting to exhale,” in popular usage, can be a long and winding road to either letting go or relaxing into a situation. “Waiting to inhale,” is grounded in one of the most powerful and immediate life forces present in our life, the need to breathe. This force will easily overpower us if we somehow feel a desire to resist. This overwhelming invitation to appreciate such a life force is built into our very human existence. Breathing has been a perennial focus in meditation practice because of the somewhat odd reality that such a basic life function, necessary to sustain our life over the horizon of seconds, is directly subject to our willful control. This interface between conscious and unconscious forces is ripe for fruitful meditation practice, offering a bridge between conscious and unconscious realities. Why we have direct willful control over breathing escapes me. When is our conscious direction of our breathing superior to the unconscious regulation our bodies provide? I suppose if you have an infantile desire to seek a terroristic ransom from a parent by threatening to turn blue from lack of oxygen, it may come in handy. Nevertheless, even in this case, unconscious forces of a more benevolent and enlightened nature will come to the rescue by robbing the most willful of their consciousness and return them to a greater bodily harmony.
Postmodern society suffers from chronic disconnection from nature and experiences of God. This is wrapped up in our physical and technological infrastructure which isolates us from regular immersion in unspoiled nature, and from an ideological infrastructure of a distant or nonexistent God, isolating ourselves from the moment by moment and close-to-one’s-heart miracles of life present in such experiences as breathing. Of course, ever-wanting belief and skepticism routinely intervene to relegate nature, the creation of a distant or nonexistent God, to a mundane status quo, of which taking for granite, our stoney heads and hearts fail to consciously access ever-present life forces which quietly and persistently answer the question: what have you done for me lately?
May you be overwhelmed by wonder and gratitude in the presents offered by the mystery of mysteries of life.
