Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Breathing In The Rain At Night (A Meditation)

Late night alone, rain on the roof quiets the mind and awakens the watcher within.  Not the thinker of all those random thoughts, twisting and turning like rabbit-holes, but the steady presence that watches it all passing.  Silently watching, seeing it all come and go. 

Even taking a breath feels different somehow.  It’s a little deeper, and all that is moving in that breath is present.  Sitting upright lets go of aches, shows joints and muscles that are holding a posture or position separate and stiff.  Allows them to rejoin the body and leave behind resistance and pains felt upon arising.  Allowed to move, no cramping is present.  A small movement leaves behind the pressure felt from sitting in one place.

Can that relief be obtained without moving, but just by breathing?  Attending to it, the feeling begins to subside.  I return to breathing and can feel it from my toes to my scalp.    

Allowing the hands to rest, the tremor is felt.  Joining hands the tremor is spread but in spreading it is reduced.  It brings no fear, only notice, and the hands return to the fleeting attempt to speak for the watcher, who yet watches them.  Again the breath sweeps away what was and rejoins what is. 


Attention returns to a knee that aches, even as it is observed, it subsides.  The knee speaks again, softly, then subsides.  The breathing is consciously deeper, then letting go, it settles into more normal rhythm and the body quiets itself.  Sleep will soon return.  Good night.

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