Meditative Acts

Meditation requires mental energy. Who knew? I’m beginning to get a glimpse of how complex and strong meditation can become. I’m the most novice of beginning meditators, but what little I’ve tried has shown me how we often fail to notice and feel the world around us (or within us).

My mind is weak, but I’m trying to identify simple acts which turn my brain towards meditative acts in daily life.

I put a 50mm lens on my camera and wandered around the woods last week. The 50mm lens doesn’t zoom, so it’s generally not my go to. However, it does that cool thing where the background gets all fuzzy. My attention sharpened as I wandered. Little details stood out, and my perception deepened.

I bought a kite. I haven’t successfully flown it (although I tried once), but the simple act of possessing it heightens my awareness of the wind. Every time I’m outside, I notice the strength and frequency of the breeze. Kinda crazy I never even noticed this before.

So idk, some thoughts on becoming more meditative. Lol it’s hard; I have so much more respect for deep meditators and even those Christian mystic guys like Francis Fenelon and Madame Guyon.

The Three Month Timer

I’m trying to stay grounded in Tuscaloosa right now, but it’s becoming harder as I swing into a fuller planning stage for my next few semesters. I’m trying to juggle coordination for a Europe trip in May, living in China in the fall, and moving to Israel in the spring. Israel and China require three different university applications in addition to visas, plane tickets, etc.

Honestly, it’s not too much time to do all these apps, but the list feels infinite, and working on all them draws me away from Tuscaloosa.

Something clicked the other day. For the next two years, I won’t be living anywhere for longer than three months (except maybe four in Israel…?). That timer starts now. I have 78 days left in Tuscaloosa.

If I’m going to bounce around so much, I sure as heck want to learn how to connect well where I’m at. Which means starting immediately.

I bought a kite the other day. I want to fly my kite on the Quad. I want to go to the Selma Jubilee, watch a race at Talladega, visit Moundville, climb a billboard, intertube Hurricane Creek. I want to have deep conversations in the BCM parking lot. I want to cry with my friends and sneak onto roofs and laugh as random adventures. I want to do photo shoots and pray in the prayer room. I want to meditate on my porch, watch that little chipmunk which likes the tree there. I want to dance in the streaks of light which filter through the tower windows in the ballet studio.

It’s easy for me to forget to dream in the short term. Grandiose adventures are lucrative, but I forget to be more focused on the immediate, the near.

My best adventurers live in Africa right now, but isn’t life learning to find joy in solitude and transfer that to everyone right around you?

Don’t quote me on that one, that was all just babble. Hope the point kinda vaguely comes across 🙂

Let us yield ourselves to the adventure of living, my friends.