Veteran’s Trail, Monterey, California
“If you wake up at 3:00 a.m., you should meditate,” was my instruction. I took this as a generality and gave it some leeway. So I sat cross-legged on the floor in the dark with the night air drifting in through the window.
“Follow your breath and concentrate on your heart chakra,” she said. The heart always seemed to be her favorite. With my hands on my knees, palms up, I gathered myself, and after a time, my force shield dropped. There’s a peacefulness at that time of night; the sky opens to the stars, and the lid comes off. There’s a connection, the one that’s always there, but I’m usually too busy to notice. The one that includes everything.
No passage and no arrival, only my breath and the still of the night, empty and yet full, and like child’s play, no forced attendance, beyond ritual, resistance or allowing, acceptance or appreciation, beyond asking-wanting-hoping, and beyond the past––