I have heard the moment that someone gains Enlightenment sometimes referred to as "waking up."
I've been thinking about that a lot this week as I went through my daily routines, or at least tried to remember to do all the things I _wanted_ to be on my daily routines.
And somehow I got to thinking about the opposite of waking-up... I began thinking about falling-asleep.
I don't know about you, but I can't seem to remember ever actually falling asleep.
I don't mean the getting into bed and curling all comfy under the covers and waiting. I mean the actual moment of falling asleep; I just can't seem to recall a single time where I was aware that I was falling asleep.
I can remember laying in bed, my mind a-rush with all the things that had to be done the next day... colliding with evaluations of all the things that had been done today and wondering how they could be done better in the future... gaining closure on some things... planning modes-of-action for others...
...And then the very next moment I remember waking-up from a dream late at night to let my fifteen year old puppy outside for her nightly potty-ing.
The similarities struck me: between falling asleep... and forgetting that I had planned on doing "exercise Y" "X-times a day" this week... or that I wasn't going to allow myself to get so sucked-into the rather invigorating challenges of my day-job that I worked extra hours off-the-clock at the cost of meditating or vocal or instrument practice.
And the similarities between never realizing that one was falling asleep and one had forgotten a life-altering "truth" one had found during a meditation, a vision, a seminar, a spiritual journey of any kind... well those similarities really hit home.
It made me wonder: Is a lot of my own life spent in that twilight where it's almost like I'm "nodding-off" again and again... and again? Do I have these flashes of understanding and these commitments to bettering myself, to healing my wounds, to fixing my flaws... only to not even notice that I've fallen asleep until I get jolted awake again?
And with life so full of distractions: responsibilities, commitments, obligations, work, church, friends, pack, choir, play, work again, cleaning, cooking, more work, family, my own work for myself... not to mention Netflix Streaming, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, iPhones and all the um-teen (or "um-hundred?") different little things saying "Lookit Me!" at the tops of their little electronic voices... it's no wonder so many of us feel so "zombified" and end-up too tired to meditate, or exercise, or just generally take care of ourselves where it truly matters.
It made me wonder: Is "waking up" a little like "no longer nodding-off" and retaining those moments of clarity and lucidity? Seeing... understanding... and _remaining_ within that space?
- Amadhia
P.S. As a side-note, this is one of the reasons I got so interested in guided meditations: for those times I _needed_ the benefits of meditation, but felt so exhausted or fatigued that I didn't feel I had the strength to keep my focus where I needed it to be, (and knowing that "Practice makes _permanent _.)
This was especially so when I was going through the darkest parts of my recovery after the dis-illusion of my marriage and I was suffering deeply from PTSD. I needed the mental-emotional strength-building that meditation brings, but I had a hard time keeping my mind on any one track for long.
A _good_ guided meditation (for _you_ as an individual) is one that connects with your own personal ethics, energies, and direction. A _good_ guided meditation does the focusing for you, and so long as you keep at it regularly, eventually your mind will take on the same strength and focus of the things you are using to nourish it.
28 August, 2011
14 August, 2011
What good is meditation?
"I have a busy life, I don't have time to just sit and do nothing." "How is sitting on my bum going to help me get the report done on time?" "I can't think of 'nothing,' there's always something that pops into my head!"
These are questions I still deal with frequently, and I have been actively practicing meditation for over twenty years. (And yes, I still have a "day job" as a programmer in a high-pressure research-and-development firm with some even higher-pressure clients.)
Whatever I do, I tend to pour my whole heart into doing it. When I am composing and performing music, I become the music. When I am with close friends or my sled dogs, I am fully present with them. And when I am programming, I focus so much of myself into the problem-solving that I feel a lot like I become more like a program than a human being.
If I am going to be able to do any of the things I do, well, I am going to need to be able to recharge my batteries after giving my all to a particular part of my life.
Taking just 10 minutes to "cleanse my pallette," re-center myself, allows me to come back to "being human" again. 10 minutes of even the simplest of meditation helps me to shed the thought, feeling, and energy patterns that come into being whenever I do one thing for an extended period of time. It helps me to think and respond more flexibly and appropriately, (for example, to speak more from the mind when talking with others, rather than from the wordless heart-centers from which my music flows).
On a more serious note, meditation saved my life when I was struggling through the worst periods in the years after my divorce.
I had PTSD from the events surrounding the divorce and lived in terror. My instincts had been singed so badly that I felt I had to always be tensed for the next horrible thing to happen.
After the initial shock, I would meditate when I felt at my worst... and I would begin to feel better, so I would stop. And strangely enough, I began to feel worse again within a few days.
The cycle worried me -- had I become bipolar?
I tried an experiment; I meditated every day whether I felt like I needed it or not.
I began to feel better... and I remained feeling better.
It was then that the saying that, "Meditation is exercise for your mind," finally made sense to me.
The traumas I had suffered had left my mind/heart weakened, just as a physical trauma can leave a body weakened. Physical therapy helps a person build strength in their weakened body until they can once again do all that they had been able to do before.
Meditation seems to have this same kind of healing effect on a mind/heart that is recovering from traumas that leave no clear mark on the body.
"...Traumas that leave no clear mark upon the body."
Did a parent or a teacher ever say to you when you were growing up, "If you keep making that face, it might stay like that"?
It has been well known for a very long time that our subconscious will make what we are thinking and feeling read clear-as-day on our faces, unless we work hard to stop that from happening.
But from what I've seen, and from what I've experienced personally, I wonder if the effect may be a lot more profound than just a "nonverbal give-away."
Pretty much every thing that goes on within our bodies is regulated to some extent by our brains. Cells devide, our bodies grow in one direction or another, the way we carry ourselves over the years settles our bodies into physical alterations. Work and other burdens can show so clearly upon another's face and figure that we can often guess that a person may be a laborer, a scientist, an artist, or etc.
If guided meditations and medical hypnosis can cause spontaneous regressions of inoperable diseases, or allow surgeries to be performed without chemical anesthetics, the influence of the mind within the body seems to be far-reaching.
What might be the long-term effects of holding chosen, targeted, specific Thought-Feelings within the mind and heart?
The effects would probably not be "instant." Since our bodies take time to change over time, (weights are shifted, muscles are conditioned, etc.) the thoughts and feelings would likely need to be held for brief periods throught a day for many months, perhaps years before our bodies were able to shift enough cells around at our "executive request" to measure a marked change.
At the very least, our subconscious would have gotten the message to affect our cravings, desires, and even our values, to enact changes to posture, preference, diet and lifestyle.
But in the same way that identical twins often after life-experience and personal choices are no longer visually identical... I wonder about the extent of the direction our minds give to the construction of our bodies. And I really wonder about the effect a continual, cohesive stream of mental/emotional "managerial-level" requests on a daily basis, sustained over years, can produce.
I am healing. And part of that healing has found me to discover joy of being within this body of mine. With my consciousness as the manager that guides this pretty miraculous system, I've begun to take a more active, more nurturing role in being a part of this body/mind/spirit union.
I have found it easier over the months and year(s) to project love to this body, and to voice requests in the form of feelings and images, that I would like the cellular workers to focus their own precious work towards.
Constancy... consistency... patience.
(If you continue to "move confidently in the direction of one's dreams..." eventually you shall see progress.)
These experiences, thoughts and questions on medtiation are the core reasons for the private and semi-public Guided Meditations I've created over the years. I am currently working with a speech pathologist in Colorado to help a significant subset of her clientele with Guided Meditations that help to focus direction and go beyond where practice alone can reach.
It is my intent to produce more than just music albums; we shall see what the Universe brings.
Namasté!
Amadhia
These are questions I still deal with frequently, and I have been actively practicing meditation for over twenty years. (And yes, I still have a "day job" as a programmer in a high-pressure research-and-development firm with some even higher-pressure clients.)
Whatever I do, I tend to pour my whole heart into doing it. When I am composing and performing music, I become the music. When I am with close friends or my sled dogs, I am fully present with them. And when I am programming, I focus so much of myself into the problem-solving that I feel a lot like I become more like a program than a human being.
If I am going to be able to do any of the things I do, well, I am going to need to be able to recharge my batteries after giving my all to a particular part of my life.
Taking just 10 minutes to "cleanse my pallette," re-center myself, allows me to come back to "being human" again. 10 minutes of even the simplest of meditation helps me to shed the thought, feeling, and energy patterns that come into being whenever I do one thing for an extended period of time. It helps me to think and respond more flexibly and appropriately, (for example, to speak more from the mind when talking with others, rather than from the wordless heart-centers from which my music flows).
On a more serious note, meditation saved my life when I was struggling through the worst periods in the years after my divorce.
I had PTSD from the events surrounding the divorce and lived in terror. My instincts had been singed so badly that I felt I had to always be tensed for the next horrible thing to happen.
After the initial shock, I would meditate when I felt at my worst... and I would begin to feel better, so I would stop. And strangely enough, I began to feel worse again within a few days.
The cycle worried me -- had I become bipolar?
I tried an experiment; I meditated every day whether I felt like I needed it or not.
I began to feel better... and I remained feeling better.
It was then that the saying that, "Meditation is exercise for your mind," finally made sense to me.
The traumas I had suffered had left my mind/heart weakened, just as a physical trauma can leave a body weakened. Physical therapy helps a person build strength in their weakened body until they can once again do all that they had been able to do before.
Meditation seems to have this same kind of healing effect on a mind/heart that is recovering from traumas that leave no clear mark on the body.
"...Traumas that leave no clear mark upon the body."
Did a parent or a teacher ever say to you when you were growing up, "If you keep making that face, it might stay like that"?
It has been well known for a very long time that our subconscious will make what we are thinking and feeling read clear-as-day on our faces, unless we work hard to stop that from happening.
But from what I've seen, and from what I've experienced personally, I wonder if the effect may be a lot more profound than just a "nonverbal give-away."
Pretty much every thing that goes on within our bodies is regulated to some extent by our brains. Cells devide, our bodies grow in one direction or another, the way we carry ourselves over the years settles our bodies into physical alterations. Work and other burdens can show so clearly upon another's face and figure that we can often guess that a person may be a laborer, a scientist, an artist, or etc.
If guided meditations and medical hypnosis can cause spontaneous regressions of inoperable diseases, or allow surgeries to be performed without chemical anesthetics, the influence of the mind within the body seems to be far-reaching.
What might be the long-term effects of holding chosen, targeted, specific Thought-Feelings within the mind and heart?
The effects would probably not be "instant." Since our bodies take time to change over time, (weights are shifted, muscles are conditioned, etc.) the thoughts and feelings would likely need to be held for brief periods throught a day for many months, perhaps years before our bodies were able to shift enough cells around at our "executive request" to measure a marked change.
At the very least, our subconscious would have gotten the message to affect our cravings, desires, and even our values, to enact changes to posture, preference, diet and lifestyle.
But in the same way that identical twins often after life-experience and personal choices are no longer visually identical... I wonder about the extent of the direction our minds give to the construction of our bodies. And I really wonder about the effect a continual, cohesive stream of mental/emotional "managerial-level" requests on a daily basis, sustained over years, can produce.
I am healing. And part of that healing has found me to discover joy of being within this body of mine. With my consciousness as the manager that guides this pretty miraculous system, I've begun to take a more active, more nurturing role in being a part of this body/mind/spirit union.
I have found it easier over the months and year(s) to project love to this body, and to voice requests in the form of feelings and images, that I would like the cellular workers to focus their own precious work towards.
Constancy... consistency... patience.
(If you continue to "move confidently in the direction of one's dreams..." eventually you shall see progress.)
These experiences, thoughts and questions on medtiation are the core reasons for the private and semi-public Guided Meditations I've created over the years. I am currently working with a speech pathologist in Colorado to help a significant subset of her clientele with Guided Meditations that help to focus direction and go beyond where practice alone can reach.
It is my intent to produce more than just music albums; we shall see what the Universe brings.
Namasté!
Amadhia
09 August, 2011
Sweet Camomile
I have no idea why I never tried this before....
The other night, I was unwinding after an intense, productive day at my day-job, and on a whim added a few drops of stevia extract (an all-natural, herbal sweetener) to my steaming cup of camomile tea.
The result was amazing! The tea that had always been "pleasant," became smooth, and floral, and had depth and richness that was like the taste of seeing hillsides covered in the simple, sweet camomile flowers.
*laughs* I know it sounds crazy... but that's the best way to describe it... (except perhaps in song. ;)
If you are a fan of herbal teas, and if you've not yet tried just a touch of your favorite sweetener in your camomile tea... I would encourage you to try it. I found it simply wonderful. :)
The other night, I was unwinding after an intense, productive day at my day-job, and on a whim added a few drops of stevia extract (an all-natural, herbal sweetener) to my steaming cup of camomile tea.
The result was amazing! The tea that had always been "pleasant," became smooth, and floral, and had depth and richness that was like the taste of seeing hillsides covered in the simple, sweet camomile flowers.
*laughs* I know it sounds crazy... but that's the best way to describe it... (except perhaps in song. ;)
If you are a fan of herbal teas, and if you've not yet tried just a touch of your favorite sweetener in your camomile tea... I would encourage you to try it. I found it simply wonderful. :)
06 August, 2011
I've been in love with music all my life.
I've been in love with music all my life. I don't just "love music," it really feels like being in love with an ever-evolving, strong, caring, supportive, nurturing ... "someone."
As a matter of fact, I stopped performing publicly in about 1993 because it was so close to my heart, and I felt like I just wasn't "a whole-enough person" to be laying bare all the deep parts of myself that I had previously tried to keep hidden.
Almost twenty years later, I'm somewhere over thirty, and I finally feel like I'm starting to know myself. And I finally feel that if someone were to look into the "deeper parts of me" through my music, that they'd feel a person I can believe in.
Making A Journey of Spirit was something that "had to be done." I have felt it within me, growing, and it finally just simply had to be born.
I am learning to trust my Higher Power more, and it feels like heaven when I do. And the music that comes from this connection feels so much better to me than when I try to do it alone.
*laughs* It's almost like "my job" is to study as much as I can so that when my HIgher Power moves me, I can "get out of the way" do what it asks.
As a matter of fact, I stopped performing publicly in about 1993 because it was so close to my heart, and I felt like I just wasn't "a whole-enough person" to be laying bare all the deep parts of myself that I had previously tried to keep hidden.
Almost twenty years later, I'm somewhere over thirty, and I finally feel like I'm starting to know myself. And I finally feel that if someone were to look into the "deeper parts of me" through my music, that they'd feel a person I can believe in.
Making A Journey of Spirit was something that "had to be done." I have felt it within me, growing, and it finally just simply had to be born.
I am learning to trust my Higher Power more, and it feels like heaven when I do. And the music that comes from this connection feels so much better to me than when I try to do it alone.
*laughs* It's almost like "my job" is to study as much as I can so that when my HIgher Power moves me, I can "get out of the way" do what it asks.
The hardest part of making an album
I've always preferred doing to talking, (thought those who know me, know I love talking too). And I am finding the most daunting part of this debut album, writing the "copy" for the blurb, notes, and press release.
I've always wanted my art to speak for itself, and how could I possibly condense all of my feelings about the music into "liner notes"? No one would believe it!
So, as some people I trust suggested, I've started this blog as a way to have a "conversation" about the music and the creative process, rather than a "monolog."
I've always wanted my art to speak for itself, and how could I possibly condense all of my feelings about the music into "liner notes"? No one would believe it!
So, as some people I trust suggested, I've started this blog as a way to have a "conversation" about the music and the creative process, rather than a "monolog."
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