MerryWeather and RainSky

  Photo by Andreas Rasmussen on Unsplash  *** Well.  This week was one of the techniques you hear about first when you decide to try meditation.  The sensation of the breath.  Not following the passage of the breath in and out (which I see is a later weeks task), or counting the breaths (another beginner technique).  This one is simply to feel the breath as it comes in and out of your nose - the way the air feels on your nose.  Or the way your stomach rises and falls, internally and externally - the feeling of that. I've always thought (and still do) that methods of meditation relying on breathing awareness can be very difficult for anyone with any respiratory issues, asthma, or any panic attack issues.  Concentrating on something that is being a bit difficult or strained may make you feel worse.  So  I'm not a massive fan of these kinds of methods.  I often find that focussing on my breath for any reason - to breathe more deeply o...

Photo by Conscious Design on Unsplash  ***   I had far more enjoyment with this meditation style.  It was hugely relaxing! I found a meditation on YouTube that would work for this week's theme, free - I used this one:  https://youtu.be/wGFog-OuFDM?feature=shared The idea of this one was to listen to the chime of a bell, just one chime, and listen as the sound continued, fading, to be replaced by the next one.  The idea of Western concentration pulled into a wider field of mental capacity by the silence after each chime, when you would concentrate on everything else you heard: the sounds of the house (or wherever you are, so few places are silent), would take over.  You would be giving them your attention too.  But the concentration in the silnce becomes different, wider and more all encompassing. Its like two different discplines in one meditation.  The initial laser-like concentration on the sound, followed by the wider more open concentrat...

  So - here's one of the books I'll be working through.  This is quite a new one, but the approach called to my faddy self.  His idea is that there are many ways to meditate, but a lot of us seem to have an idea we have to be peaceful to begin, sit on the floor with incense, and compose ourselves to think of nothing for maybe ...an hour!  In other words, our idea of perfect meditation right from the start.  It's so perfect, it's not doable. He suggests we junk this idea, and instead spend 3 minutes every day doing a meditation technique.  Each technique is practiced for 7 days, so you get a feel for it.  Then you move on to the next one.  And go on like that for 14 weeks.  So that because its such a small amount of time, you'll feel its doable to try. One of my biggest problems with anything spirituality related is my inability to be consistent with a practice.  I'm either working 14 hours a day (summer) or I'm frantically trying to catc...

  Before we start - pic taken by an old friend, near his Sainsburys.  Amazing sun, huh?  Anyway... It's quite amusing that I laid out what I was going to do, then didn't do anything for months! This was for 2 reasons: (a) my summer facing job just stayed busy - people at the restaurant took holidays, I was needed to ccover, as was my eldest, one of the chefs, who is wasting away for lack of holiday time off as we speak, and then there's my other job, also extremely busy, and then theres home life...and (b) I was/am overwhelmed with the amount of reading and study I've already done since the 90s - which was when I got into my spirituality in a big way. I'm a total bookworm.  If I like a subject my first thought is to buy a swathe of books about it from various angles, create a mini library and then begin.  In a sort of hither and thither slapdash way, bit of this, bit of that, on the subject.  Then, as I always know it will, my focus will change, and I'll be...

I created this blog ages ago, then sort of forgot about it, as I wasn't sure what its main theme should be.  I have another main blog, that used to have everything on it, but has now shrunk to book reviews, as I slowly lost confidence in my own meandering voice, after several years.  There's been nothing there since January this year.  That's partly because I got very busy in the physical world, and partly because I had no clue what I wanted to say.  Its not necessary that I talk for an audience, thinking aloud; but then I wondered if there were others out there feeling as lost as I have come to feel.  The strange and unsettling combination of being an introvert, an instinctive pagan (societal cues from my growing up in the 70s, sure, too), and quite lefty in a world of loud and angry rightwingers.  Cognitive dissonance on so many issues from the minute I wake to the minute I sleep. There's the cost of living crisis, which has prompted me to have to have tw...