Monday, May 16, 2011

On grace and compression

While struggling to get an image to perform for me yesterday, I had one of those happy accidents that led me down another road, and this image is the end result (I'll put the happy accident, which I still don't like all that much, on my poetry blog today).

I actually really like this image -- and when I showed it to my husband he immediately noticed it would look great printed on metal.  But it feels a little compressed to me; not as spacious as I would like.  And I can't see a way to fix that without destroying the grace of those curves.

Which, I realize, is a perfect mirror of how I'm feeling this morning.  Jack Kornfield, in The Wise Heart, encouraged me to do a walking meditation this morning, to get more in touch with my body.  Not an outside brisk walk, but a slow, carefully paced, inside walk, up and down the hall, 10 to 20 paces, back and forth, paying attention to my body.

So I did that for 20 minutes instead of sitting as I usually do -- and I did it partly because I'd been reading in another book about inner spaciousness, and was realizing I haven't felt that much lately.  Maybe, I thought, if I can't get back to that meditating in a chair, walking could help?

I'm not sure it did, but I did notice that it stilled a lot of the chatter that's been going on in my head during meditation lately.  And it feels like it will be good for me to walk for 20 minutes a day: it's not aerobic exercise, of course, but the muscles that hold me upright have been getting a little soggy with age, so I'm thinking this is a good thing.

But what do I do about this feeling of compression?  As I walked, it felt like my body -- maybe, like 80% of it, was filled up and sort of sloshing with not-me, with thoughts and feelings and judgments that aren't really mine; they're shoulds and rules and opinions and expectations I've been carrying around with me since childhood that need to be released so real-me can breathe and get some perspective. 

Easy enough to say, but how do you open up some space in a life without disturbing the grace of it?  Is this a purely internal activity, or do external steps need to be taken as well?

And now I see that walking meditation is a way of simulating external steps.  Hmm. I guess I'll just keep doing that for a bit; see where it takes me!

2 comments:

Louise Gallagher said...

Ahh the question and the quest -- how do you open up some space in a life without disturbing the grace of it?

Pretty brilliant Diane -- pretty brilliant.

Maybe the answer is found in each step as we take it?

Gaye said...

My spiritual director tells me gently periodically that the "not me" is only the me I don't accept. And that loving acceptance would create space and free up energy that I crave.

Perhaps though your "not me" is not the same as mine?