snowblindfulness
I'm having a great weekend so far. Friday was a snow day -- second in a row and unusual for our part of the country. As our caregiver found a way to make the schlep down the street to our house, I weighed my choices -- stay home for the day to try to work under the thundering hoofbeats of my children, or battle the elements on foot and make the 2 mile journey through ice, slush, and knee deep puddles to my office. It was a no-brainer.
One of the things I love about being outside in the post-storm environment is the way that it changes people's interactions. I passed about a dozen people on my way, and every single one of them made eye contact, exchanged a few words with me (sometimes much more than a few), smiled and carried on. It's too bad we can't always be this way with one another. If you think about it, there's really nothing more eery than walking past a stranger on the sidewalk, when it's just you and them, approaching one another both in full cognizance that two members of the same species, teeming with awareness, emotion, interest, ideas, pain are about to pass within touching distance of one another, yet both are hellbent to pretend that the other one doesn't exist...not even a blip on the radar. I do this too, but don't completely understand it.
On the way home from a blissfully quiet day of fooling around with fun ideas, I walked home. The weather had worsened quite a bit. The wind was pushing the snow almost horizontally, straight into my eyes. Through narrow slits, I could gauge my approximate direction and, if I looked straight down, I could see where my feet were landing, so keep to the sidewalk. After a minute of this, I was taken back to a mindfulness retreat I attended about 2 years ago. It was my first taste of walking meditation -- a form of mindfulness where one is supposed to free the mind of thinking, and wrap all attention around awareness of nothing more than the sensations emanating from movement. One walks very slowly, breathing synchronized with steps, zombie-fashion. After receiving instructions, and filled with skepticism that such an activity was even possible, I staked out a bit of private territory in a small room set up as a comfortable library, and began my walking. It went better than expected, but I'm such a beginner, my mind is a mess. Walking in that storm on Friday was a meditative experience. My attention was completely captured by the sensations of cold pricking snow. My feet were soaking wet because I have gaping holes in the only boots I own which afford any kind of traction on slippery surfaces. I had to slow my usual pace to be aware of the larger puddles, the clumps of treacherous ice in my path, the edges of curbs. Sensing what was happening, I let my mind go as far into my body as I could. It was delicious.
And then I began to feel the skin of my body extend outward into the world. Which was fine, except that it triggered a thought about mixed realities. And then I was back in my head, out of my body, and in the middle of the usual loneliness.
One of the things I love about being outside in the post-storm environment is the way that it changes people's interactions. I passed about a dozen people on my way, and every single one of them made eye contact, exchanged a few words with me (sometimes much more than a few), smiled and carried on. It's too bad we can't always be this way with one another. If you think about it, there's really nothing more eery than walking past a stranger on the sidewalk, when it's just you and them, approaching one another both in full cognizance that two members of the same species, teeming with awareness, emotion, interest, ideas, pain are about to pass within touching distance of one another, yet both are hellbent to pretend that the other one doesn't exist...not even a blip on the radar. I do this too, but don't completely understand it.
On the way home from a blissfully quiet day of fooling around with fun ideas, I walked home. The weather had worsened quite a bit. The wind was pushing the snow almost horizontally, straight into my eyes. Through narrow slits, I could gauge my approximate direction and, if I looked straight down, I could see where my feet were landing, so keep to the sidewalk. After a minute of this, I was taken back to a mindfulness retreat I attended about 2 years ago. It was my first taste of walking meditation -- a form of mindfulness where one is supposed to free the mind of thinking, and wrap all attention around awareness of nothing more than the sensations emanating from movement. One walks very slowly, breathing synchronized with steps, zombie-fashion. After receiving instructions, and filled with skepticism that such an activity was even possible, I staked out a bit of private territory in a small room set up as a comfortable library, and began my walking. It went better than expected, but I'm such a beginner, my mind is a mess. Walking in that storm on Friday was a meditative experience. My attention was completely captured by the sensations of cold pricking snow. My feet were soaking wet because I have gaping holes in the only boots I own which afford any kind of traction on slippery surfaces. I had to slow my usual pace to be aware of the larger puddles, the clumps of treacherous ice in my path, the edges of curbs. Sensing what was happening, I let my mind go as far into my body as I could. It was delicious.
And then I began to feel the skin of my body extend outward into the world. Which was fine, except that it triggered a thought about mixed realities. And then I was back in my head, out of my body, and in the middle of the usual loneliness.
posted by Colin at 10:24 AM
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