Wow.
I have a post-it note with the words: The sacredness of experience in the midst of ordinary life, up beside my computer. It’s been there so long I can’t even remember what book that sentence came from. But it sure came to mind tonight.
After a very zoomy (and exciting, and inspiring!) day I could finally come home… and sit. Took my meditation outside: wrapped in a blanket, moon peeking through branches, the smell of blossoms still in the air, and just sat. And all the the thoughts, ideas, business of my day just fell away. Quiet.
Couldn’t have done that this morning. Too much going on, I was raring to go and my first attempt to sit felt like the bad kid in the naughty chair: I didn’t have to like it, but I would have to sit there ’til my time was up. Bleh, meditation isn’t naughty chair time out, it’s oh baby you so deserve this time out. I’m a grown up, I’ll sit when I want!
So I did. And I’m glad I did. Tonight I was ready for it, as soon as I sat, it all just fell away. Quiet. Deep. The sounds of all those things you think you can’t hear, just there, immersed in them, not bothered, just aware.
Daily sitting does build up some reserves in the serenity bank. A pool of peace that’s there for you when you sit still enough to tap into it. I noticed an interesting kind of Pavlovian response tonight, I assumed the position and my body just knew: Oh it’s time for this – and dropped right in.
Night sitting, so quiet, and yet so much in that stillness. Nothing more than a girl sitting on her patio, but a moment that felt special and sacred and brought me peace.
So, if you’re reading this and it’s dark outside: Go Outside. Wrap yourself in a blanket
and sit…
and listen…
and breathe.
Valerie Roney 
I’ve been waking with the sunrise again.
This used to be a pattern when I was younger. The winter months I’d oversleep, the summer I’d sleep less and less as the days grew longer. Sometimes it felt like I had infinite energy and drive in the summer months, winter I’d be a zombie walking though the days. Happily it stopped being so much of a problem as the years blended into more equilibrium for me.
So right now I’ve been up for about an hour. I’ve been sitting here collecting my thoughts as the song birds chirp above the sounds of traffic and airplanes and the occasional crash of a train hooking onto another car.
It isn’t the soundless quiet. I’m already looking forward to getting out for the Pleiades meteors in August and having the solitude moment of looking up. I’m aching for one of my friends to pull me into another session of Slooh time and gape at the cosmos. I’m just not there right now, I’ll have to wait a little longer I suppose.
This week I awake with the dawn. Listening is quickly going downhill as the birds are starting to get drowned out by the traffic. But to sit and listen and breathe even in a less than idea environment…
Today’s going to be something special.
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