Hello…Thank you to those of you nudging me into action on the blogging front with emails and texts. I am a reluctant user of technology on many fronts…social media and an online presence in any respect hasn’t been my strength.
This is such a strange time for so many of us and as more and more avenues to subtle acts of kindness seem to close, others open.
This morning I was out for a short run and someone along my street had both their garbage collection bins pushed over from the garbage pickup. Normally I would feel good about righting them again but today I paused thinking it might freak someone out to see me touching their bins even if it was meant to be helpful. This kind of second guessing can be heart-heavy. I want to be a source of sunshine in the world but this is no longer possible in ways that feel familiar. At least not for now.
A friend told me a story the other day about witnessing a father using a raised and firm voice telling his little girl while they were on the sidewalk, “I told you not to walk toward people. It’s dangerous.” What kind of imprint does this leave on a child when every person she passes is a threat? There are many disheartening stories like this at the grocery store…online in hate-filled comments and maybe even from people you love in your life who are struggling with fear and anxiety.
Amidst all of this though, there is beauty. I received the loveliest message yesterday from a friend who shared a photo of the sun breaking through the clouds accompanied by what he explained as an internal feeling of hope. I received wedding photos today from another friend whose daughter was married last week (without guests) but who felt that this was what it was all about anyway…she didn’t want to wait to marry the man she wants to be with through thick and thin. Over the last few weeks, I have connected with people I haven’t spoken to in a long time, I have said hello to more people on my street than I have since I moved here ten years ago and I have been part of a writing group that has brought me a great deal of clarity around my feelings of the swift changes to life as we know it.
I also have had more time to think about how I might contribute to the health and wellbeing of others. This blog might be a teensy way toward that end. So I have decided to post some guided meditations and other inspirational things over the days, weeks and more to come.
So to begin…I have posted my first guided meditation for you to try. It is one I have been using lately. It is imagining your own inner light or love as moving from the core of you toward your skin and then falling through the body into the floor and beyond the floor, taking all worries and tension with it. This might be how you work the entire meditation to feel strong within yourself during this time of uncertainty. If you felt steady and it was comfortable to do so, you could expand the light into the world, as a healing gift beyond your skin. You could allow this light to absorb any suffering and then using your body as a kind of filter to release this suffering (the world’s and your own) as you did before. Please try it and let me know what you think. The audio file has been added to the site.
Also…here is a poem I wrote for my writing group that I want to share. Maybe it will also make you feel hopeful..maybe it will make you feel like you have just watched the sun break through the clouds.
Much love to you and every single being on the planet,
Katherine
Something Feels Different
Cruising has become
extreme travel
without a mooring point
without a safe harbour
My body
Definitely, my body
feels different too
It feels just like this
what once was rote
is no longer the route
My mind was proficient
at holding firm at the helm
leading my body here
now there
now here and there
Hurry. More.
Not enough.
The body has now
taken up navigation
What else is
there to do?
Go. Run.
(It tells my mind)
Be Yoga
Breathe
Cruising has become
extreme travel
without a mooring point
without a safe harbour
This makes me
hopeful
about where
the wind might
take all of us
who remain afloat
