Meditative Gathering...

I have been meditating since I was 13.  Not always regularly, I have been absolutely irregular with my regular practice.  There have been years where I was on it and committed, daily, to practice.  Then there have been months where it has languished into a year of not being able to do much of anything at all.

Recently, I have been returned to my daily practice and it has been life affirming.  I say I have been returned because that is what it feels like.  This was not so much a decision I made as a decision was made for me...and, of course, it couldn’t have come at a better time.

I have noticed, lately, that living of life requires me to fracture myself, giving out tiny and sometimes, not so tiny bits of myself to others, to tasks, to things in my life.  And the result has always been this splintering of me.  It was happening on such a micro level that I didn’t even know it for a very long time.

But now that I have returned, in earnest, to the daily meditation practice, it feels like the place I gather all those bits I spend and give and lose and promise back to my soul.  Sitting on the cushion I can feel, on a cellular level, all the bits coming back to me, gently reassimilating themselves into my being.  I didn’t lose anything at all, all the pieces of me I gave away, come back, but I must sit still and be present for it all.  If I am a being in constant motion, the bits fail to make their way back.  They get lost, dropped, or lose their steam to hit me, the intended target.  And I can feel myself wasting, each time a part of me I gave away is not able to find its way back to me.

And so I began this newest iteration of meditation practice broken, so much less than I was before I took so much time away from the practice.  So it has been interesting and a bit overwhelming to sit everyday and feel the pieces of me I have laid waste over the past two years coming back to me, like I am an ardent tide that is pulling back all the parts of me left stranded on the beach. It has been overwhelming and there have been quite a few tears.  What I realized is that when I do not make space in my life to gather myself back from all the places I have spent myself, the process of reintegration that inevitably follows is painful and hard and takes a bit of time.

But I can feel it now, all the fractured bits of me, all the pieces of me I have spent, given, lost and misplaced coming back to me.  Meditation has become this place of gathering myself back to myself, and in so doing, being able to move forward in my life as a more cohesive and whole version of myself from which everyone benefits...but no one more so than myself.

As I shed those things that no longer are suited for me, I find myself gathering myself back to me only to have more of me to give to you.  I find that I require far less attention and want as I call back to myself every morning all the parts of me I have given away all day long.  And as I begin each new day, I sit still and allow all the pieces of me to find their way back to create a whole version of me to take into the dawning new day.

I didn’t know this before.  I have never felt this before.  And now all my time away from the cushion and practice makes so much sense!  I had to go out there and spend myself destitute in order to see that which I needed to see. And now, I get to sit, and allow all those shards of me to return and find their way back into my essence, my being and my soul...

Again, still...