I have a mediation garden in my backyard. Mostly, I avoid it. I built it to support this whole yoga, meditation, relaxation lifestyle...but mostly I avoid the space. I go through spurts where I am in it every single day. But then I also go for long stretches where I treat it like it is some haz mat zone and stay away, far away.
It is outside and not shielded from the elements so all this rain we have been having has made it less available...but that is really just an excuse for me. I have been having a hard time meditating or being still and so this place serves as a place that reminds me of all I am refusing to do, currently.
So funny, a place I intentionally created in my world, in my home, has become something I actively avoid. God, I am a contrary creature. Always going against the grain, my own and others. I am nothing if not contrary.
I don’t know why I stopped meditating. I am pretty sure I got overwhelmed with work and that was the impetus. But what kept me away for so long is that I became unwilling to sit with myself. Afraid of what awful things might land in my head if I was still and quiet.
Now I look at the space every single day because my office desk faces it. And it has become something in my world that I see, but don’t see. And I have been using a great deal of energy avoiding it, thinking about the fact that I am not there and the like. It is hard to know that you need something very much, that your life greatly benefits from the practice but then in some sort of twisted perversion of thought, demonize the very practice that literally saves you. I do it with meetings too. Sometimes, I swear I am never gonna go again...and then there I am at a meeting and find myself enjoying it.
I spent the weekend home alone with the animals. The daughter was camping all weekend with her friends and was not home but momentarily. So it was just me the dog and the cats. And we had a nice time. It is amazing to me that I can exist in such a small place and never run out of things to do. But this place requires a great deal of work to make it look and feel the way I want it to. It was actually a nice weekend even though I was not in the best of moods.
I successfully avoided it all day Saturday. Did not enter the area at all. But by yesterday, the space was almost taunting me. Pestering me with my own avoidance. I could not immediately work my way up to sitting down and actually meditating and yogaing was an even greater ask. But I was able first to work to clean up the area and uncover the swing and meditation chair from its winter cover. Then I was later able to go lay in the swing and read a little. Honestly I was hoping a nap would descend upon me, but no luck there. I went for a long hike with the dog and came home, still plagued by my own thoughts of avoidance. The mocking and beckoning became so loud that I couldn’t do anything but submit.
So in a rare timing for meditation, I went outside at some random ass hour and sat down and did the deal. It was uncomfortable. It did not feel all that great. It also did not kill me or set me on fire immediately. It was just a nice sit, with myself and God. And nothing bad happened and I found myself wondering why I made such a stink about it. Why do I always seem to avoid with such vigor the things that benefit me?
I committed to going back out there today, before work begins and just sitting down and doing the ritual. And maybe even finding some time for yoga too. It is a practice that I love but at the same time hate. And for the life of me, I can’t figure out why I avoid something that is pleasurable and isn’t all that hard.
Obviously I have some spiritual work to do. My life is really good now. I feel good mentally although my heart hurts. I still feel ok emotionally. I feel good physically. I do not feel all that great spiritually. And as always, financially I could use a little improvement. But all in all, all the areas of my life are in relative balance except spiritually. I so want the solution to be something outside of me, because the going inside is so very fucking hard. And I can’t for the life of me figure out why.
Whenever I spend time out there, it becomes something larger than the time spent. I fondly think of my afternoon rest, swinging to and fro, gently rocking myself while I read a book a friend wrote on recovery (very lovely book by the way, if you are so inclined...). When I think of the time spent, I have this almost euphoric recall. So it begs the question if this is how I feel about it, why don’t I do it all the time? And I can’t answer that question...I just know that as much as I love it, I also hate it. And that remains a mystery to me.
Well, at least I want it to remain a mystery to me. I want it to be this unsolvable issue. But it really isn’t. If I am honest, I know exactly why I avoid the space...it is because it is the place I go to know myself better, for all my incongruencies to come together and be allowed and inventoried at the same time. And for some reason, this process is painful. So painful that I avoid it. I mean I write an inventory every single day of my life...but there is something so intimate about sitting quietly, welcoming in the Divinity, allowing yourself to get in touch with the Divinity that dwells within that is psychically painful to me.
So I do what all good drunks do, avoid it like the plague. Except I waste so much energy and time with all my avoidance. It dogged my footsteps yesterday, and became so loud and obnoxious that it was just finally easier to go sit down and just do the fucking meditation than it was to avoid it any longer. I am not sure why I have to push the shit that is good for me like this, I just know I do. Again. Still.
And while I would love to say my mediation yesterday was life altering, it wasn’t. It was uncomfortable and uneasy and filled with thoughts of getting it over with. But I will tell you that I went to bed last night, freer than I have felt in months. No longer running from myself in this almost sadistic way that I do. Punishing myself with the avoidance of peace, of calm of stillness. Finally yesterday bringing myself back into some sort of balance where I can exist some place between the fervor and the quiet repose. It was nice to think of myself as someone who can actually enjoy the absence of activity and just sway swinging or sit quietly in meditation. And in so doing, reclaim a part of myself I ran away from again, still.
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