This is a tale of crayons.  Chicken dances.  Snoring.  And contentment. Mind-Body Wellness. That’s the course I’m taking now… it started yesterday.  My first session.  9:30 a.m. The Brazilian instructor brought all five of us (six if you include the instructor) into a large room, sparsely decorated. There was a large earthen-colored pot on the edge of the room, next to the windows.  Lots and lots of windows.  Dried reeds came out of the pot, twirling and twisting their way upward… as if they were reaching for the sky and knew they’d get there one day. And then… there was us.  A group of strangers sitting on metal, fold-out chairs in a circle in the middle of the room. The instructor laid a small, colorful linen in the middle of our circle.  On it, she placed the four elements — or representations of them — earth, wind, fire, water.  To balance us, she said.  To remind us that we are all made up of the same things. And then, we meditated.  Eyes closed.  Hands on our laps.  While her voice led us through this meditation and deeper into ourselves. I started saying in my mind, silently and diligently, my new mantra for the duration of the course:  Be here now. And I was.  There.  And then. For two and a half hours, we meditated, talked, walked around the room in various fashions.  On our toes.  On our heels.  On each side of our feet, at different times. “Feel the sensations each different movement brings to your body,” she said, as I walked around the room on the sides of my feet and, without realizing it, brought my hands under my armpits and started flapping my pretend-wings, a-la chicken dance. It’s funny… when you take someone like myself and place me into a room with strangers and meditations and tip-toe round-the-room walking.  I will, inevitably, feel as if I’m playing.  And the playing will come out in the form of something silly.  Yesterday, that was a momentary chicken dance. I soon brought myself back to the reality of the room… the purpose and the focus. Be here now.  And I was. We had to create three drawings with crayons.  Crayola.  A box of 64. 1. Ourselves as we are now. 2.  Our greatest problem. 3.  Ourselves as we would be without our greatest problem. And in that mostly empty room, six adult, professional-type strangers played show and tell with crayons and drawing paper. I drew various images on the first sheet — the road (my work), the Blue Ridge mountains (my home, as I still see it now), a representation of my face with arms wrapped around me, holding me, loving me, supporting me.  When the instructor got to me and asked me to share my first drawing, all I could think to say was “I feel very loved.  This is me,” I said, pointing to the lavender face on the page.  “And these arms represent my love… my fiance’.  I couldn’t think of drawing an image of who I am right now without him being entirely there.” And he was.  Entirely there.  In my mind.  And I carried him with me throughout the meditations of yesterday we were asked to do. At one point, the instructor asked us to envision in our minds a sound that soothes us.  Not to think too much about it.  Just to let the first sound that entered our mind come to the forefront of our thoughts.  So I did. And what did I hear?  I heard Jake.  Breathing heavily (we won’t call it snoring on here, now will we???) as we fall asleep. And I realized:  This is the beauty of loving.  When all other things in my mind are quiet and I focus my thoughts and energies on wellness and contentment, the thoughts that come are thoughts of him. I didn’t force them, the thoughts.  I didn’t ask for them, the thoughts.  I simply let them come.  And they did, the thoughts.  And they were thoughts of him. And though I know he is not ALL of me, and I am not ALL of him… I know that we are intricately linked now, in mind, in body, in spirit.  And that whatever adventures we set out on in the future — in our minds or in physical practice — there will be two of us. And with that, my “be here now” mantra morphed a little bit… and by the end of the first class session, became “I am grateful.” And I am.  For the experience, for the next 9 weeks of class to come, for the love and peace I feel in our home, and for the opportunity to learn more about the power of my own mind in determining my own path of wholeness, wellness, happiness, contentment.

This is a tale of crayons.  Chicken dances.  Snoring.  And contentment.

Mind-Body Wellness.

That’s the course I’m taking now… it started yesterday.  My first session.  9:30 a.m.

The Brazilian instructor brought all five of us (six if you include the instructor) into a large room, sparsely decorated.

There was a large earthen-colored pot on the edge of the room, next to the windows.  Lots and lots of windows.  Dried reeds came out of the pot, twirling and twisting their way upward… as if they were reaching for the sky and knew they’d get there one day.

And then… there was us. 

A group of strangers sitting on metal, fold-out chairs in a circle in the middle of the room.

The instructor laid a small, colorful linen in the middle of our circle.  On it, she placed the four elements — or representations of them — earth, wind, fire, water.  To balance us, she said.  To remind us that we are all made up of the same things.

And then, we meditated.  Eyes closed.  Hands on our laps.  While her voice led us through this meditation and deeper into ourselves.

I started saying in my mind, silently and diligently, my new mantra for the duration of the course:  Be here now.

And I was.  There.  And then.

For two and a half hours, we meditated, talked, walked around the room in various fashions.  On our toes.  On our heels.  On each side of our feet, at different times.

“Feel the sensations each different movement brings to your body,” she said, as I walked around the room on the sides of my feet and, without realizing it, brought my hands under my armpits and started flapping my pretend-wings, a-la chicken dance.

It’s funny… when you take someone like myself and place me into a room with strangers and meditations and tip-toe round-the-room walking.  I will, inevitably, feel as if I’m playing.  And the playing will come out in the form of something silly.  Yesterday, that was a momentary chicken dance.

I soon brought myself back to the reality of the room… the purpose and the focus.

Be here now.  And I was.

We had to create three drawings with crayons.  Crayola.  A box of 64.

1. Ourselves as we are now.

2.  Our greatest problem.

3.  Ourselves as we would be without our greatest problem.

And in that mostly empty room, six adult, professional-type strangers played show and tell with crayons and drawing paper.

I drew various images on the first sheet — the road (my work), the Blue Ridge mountains (my home, as I still see it now), a representation of my face with arms wrapped around me, holding me, loving me, supporting me.  When the instructor got to me and asked me to share my first drawing, all I could think to say was “I feel very loved.  This is me,” I said, pointing to the lavender face on the page.  “And these arms represent my love… my fiance’.  I couldn’t think of drawing an image of who I am right now without him being entirely there.”

And he was.  Entirely there.  In my mind. 

And I carried him with me throughout the meditations of yesterday we were asked to do.

At one point, the instructor asked us to envision in our minds a sound that soothes us.  Not to think too much about it.  Just to let the first sound that entered our mind come to the forefront of our thoughts.  So I did.

And what did I hear?  I heard Jake.  Breathing heavily (we won’t call it snoring on here, now will we???) as we fall asleep.

And I realized:  This is the beauty of loving.  When all other things in my mind are quiet and I focus my thoughts and energies on wellness and contentment, the thoughts that come are thoughts of him.

I didn’t force them, the thoughts.  I didn’t ask for them, the thoughts.  I simply let them come.  And they did, the thoughts.  And they were thoughts of him.

And though I know he is not ALL of me, and I am not ALL of him… I know that we are intricately linked now, in mind, in body, in spirit.  And that whatever adventures we set out on in the future — in our minds or in physical practice — there will be two of us.

And with that, my “be here now” mantra morphed a little bit… and by the end of the first class session, became “I am grateful.”

And I am.  For the experience, for the next 9 weeks of class to come, for the love and peace I feel in our home, and for the opportunity to learn more about the power of my own mind in determining my own path of wholeness, wellness, happiness, contentment.

Notes