Stillness, Presence-Meditation on Sensory Awareness-Precariousness-A Barred Owl and Snowshoe Hare

We live in a culture of chronic inattention. With inattention, we miss the meal in front of us, the changing scenery, the open-hearted connection with the world. With mindfulness, we can awaken. ~Jack Kornfield~

Reflecting on Day 3 of a series of 40 daily, guided meditations, I feel refreshed and invigorated after only 10 minutes of meditative quiet. I am reminded of a recent glorious woodland encounter which left me feeling the same (and which I will tell you about momentarily).

Feeling a connection between the two experiences is a powerfully alive feeling after an evening/morning of learning of two random, upsetting personal events--a close friend of my mother's whom we all adore suffered a non-fatal, brain aneurysm and my west coast sister had a large tree fall in an uncalled for, severe wind storm, crushing her gazebo and hot tub (but thankfully not hitting their home like in another wind storm there last week).

Life is precarious and best handled with an immensity of caring.

Today’s meditation was guided by Jack Kornfield, one of my husband Paul’s two meditation teachers for his (almost complete) two year, mindfulness meditation teacher, certification program. Jack and Tara Brach, the other instructor, take turns round about, delivering this course of daily practice.

It is over a dozen years now since these two became household names for us. I am grateful for the learning I have had through their gentle, humourous, humble approach to orienting oneself in sensory awareness of the present moment.

Being of a mind which constantly attempts to make connections and forge meaning out of the random abstractness of life, I appreciate the mind training which meditation has offered me over the years. An anxious person, I deeply value the space meditation has afforded me between anxiety provoking stimulus and response. While a tendency to reaction still exists (and at less skillful times, occurs) I deeply value my ability to pause and look more critically at a situation as it presents itself to me in daily living.

Naturally wired to be a quiet observer of wonder, I am also grateful to meditation for better honing my observation skills, some of which were dulled by the busy exhaustion of earlier parenting stages. I am still a busy, exhausted parent of three youth, each trying to make their own way in this beautiful, mixed up world but I can pause in the midst of it all and see things more for what they are.

This pause naturally brings increased peacefulness.

Seven years ago last fall, a dear friend gifted us a book called The Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman. Her vivid descriptions of the living, breathing universe read like a passionate love story—everything she describes becomes enlivened by the power of an awareness distilled to its purest essence. Today’s meditation reminded me of that book.

Living in this digital age, our very sense of aliveness is threatened to be extinguished by technologies which demand so much of our life energies, drawing us further and further away from the vibrant urgency of the whole, wild, world outside our doors.

We scan small screens instead of the life around us. We immerse ourselves in judging the details of the lives of others instead of seeing the wondrous, minutiae of the living world nearby.

When we choose to re-orientate ourselves in nature with the anchors of our five senses, we come alive again. We remember our connection to the living Earth because we sense it, real time, through the portal of our own beautiful bodies. Very young children have not yet forgotten this. Even the educational institutionalization of their wonder does not fully quell their innate curiosity for life.

What might it feel like for you to pause in the quiet of your home for a short meditation and then take a walk outdoors to see what you might see? Approach it as a child might and give yourself permission to playfully explore the world outside your door.

Each day when I walk through the nearby trails, I live this.

An Encounter:

Late yesterday afternoon, our oldest, Maria, and I headed out for a woods walk. About fifty feet in on the gravel road we were both stopped short by the most brilliant sight. There on the wire, like a sentinel for our times, poised and alert, was the Barred Owl we have had the good fortune of seeing on occasion.

Typically, we see it in the woods, perched on a tree, partially obscured by branches. There, on the wire before us, its head on a swivel, the magnificence of its sizable body was in full view. We stood at a respectful distance, it watching us with a meditative gaze which appeared penetrating and disinterested both—its stillness, between head swivels, astonishing.

Not wanting to disturb it, we turned around rather than proceed further towards it and continued on a different section of trail. Moments later, our presence startled the smaller Snowshoe Hare of the two we are accustomed to seeing. It was feeding on low branches in the relative safety of a thick canopy of snow -covered evergreens. We knew the owl was near and I am quite certain the hare did too. Likely, it does not draw a breath without knowing that its life is in mortal danger from foxes and coyotes, hawks and this owl.

Watching the hare nibble its late day meal in the dwindling light and knowing the owl nearby was scanning, hungrily too, just made the living we witnessed in those brief moments seem so much more poignant.

This is one of the greatest gifts meditation has given me; the gift of poignant awareness of the wondrous beauty of being alive, hammered down to the moment at hand. And in times such as these times we are living in, gifting yourself with reminders of the goodness of being alive is truly beneficial to personal well being.

When I fall back into mindful, non judgmental awareness of the present moment, I am reminded of how precious each breath I share with the world is. Like the breath of the Barred Owl, the breath of the Snowshoe Hare and the very breath of the forest itself, I free fall into an awe of the humble beauty of each chest rise and fall I get to bear witness to.

Breathing in I know I'm breathing in

pause

Breathing out I offer the world kindness.

I sincerely wish you the same gift of wonder at being alive.

Thanks for reading,

Be well,

Jill