Riding the energy

Last night during my women’s spirituality circle, we were instructed to go on a guided meditation from our heads to our hearts. In my mind’s eye, I traveled down a square staircase, down into my heart chamber.

Upon arriving there, I found my heart covered with stained and old gauze. Left over from when my heart was hemorrhaging and needed to be bound up, my sense was that the strips now constrict my heart’s beating and bring a catch in my breath.

In my meditation, I was not sure if I needed to unravel the gauze, or cut it away in a smooth line. The cut, which would cause the binds to fall all in one piece, seemed too risky to consider. I pondered whether to allow my beating heart to loosen it own bonds over time, but somehow felt this alternative seemed too slow and left too much to chance.

Toward the end of this morning's session, my mind went back to that image and wondered in what direction the gauze was wrapped. In my mind’s eye, I contemplated its unraveling. When the alarm went off and signaled the end of the session, I was almost sad to leave that sheltered heart space behind.

I logged in a second 20-minute session between finishing the required reading in Howard Thurman’s “Jesus the Disinherited” and the writing of two-page reflection. The session was relaxing, went quickly and I was comfortable sitting upright in a soft dining room type straight chair in front of my window.

I had a lot of energy after lunch and got through my editing work for The River Reporter with more vigor than what I consider normal. I asked my dorm mate Suzanne, who is experienced with meditation, whether my energy level would increase after five 20-minute sessions.

“Oh, yes,” she replied. “I always feel like I am charging my battery. But I just don’t keep up the practice.”

What is it about human beings that makes it so easy to ignore that which makes us feel better?

Father Thomas Keating believes that if more people would practice contemplation, there would be more peace in the world. I suppose I’m one of his converts.