Tuesday, March 1, 2011

on being water - more of Palmer Fishman's nature metaphors

I've never had an easy time meditating.
or sitting still
the two together have been disastrous

once I was with a good friend
 watching water falling off some rocks and into a river.
When I concentrated, I became The Waterfall, Itself -
that particular space through which the water was falling.

The Waterfall, Itself isn't any particular molecule of water, or bubble, or twig
No, it's the water-filled path between the edge
and the pool below
So the water molecules or bubbles that I could follow with my eyes are like my thoughts -
 just falling through -
and similar in their ability to distract me from
 my integrity, my wholeness, from the Waterfall, itself.

More recently I have been trying meditation anew
my therapist sometimes talks about 'surfing' various emotions.
I was walking my dog along a beach favored by surfers, and I saw them sometimes catch a wave, take a ride, and sometimes just get pounded.
Either way they always ended the ride sinking back into the water.

I thought I'd rather think of myself as the ocean itself than as the surfer -
whatever storm would, like the twigs in the waterfall, just be passing through, and even
during the fiercest storms some other part of me would be calm.

That is what I need right now, the presence of mind to keep some part of me whole and calm,
even when other parts
of me are getting rocked by a hurricane.
Whatever wave is an energy passing through me,
 but it is not me,
as I'm trying to learn
 even when I have thoughts of ending my life, these are only thoughts,
they are not me, and certainly
not all of me.
They are a fierce turbulence that will pass.