Healing for the Earth Day 28: More About Meditation by Guest Blogger Scott Walsh

Dear Earthlings,

 Day 28! Another fabulous post by guest blogger Scott Walsh. Enjoy!

Ah the coronavirus, the CORONAVIRUS!!  Have you heard the latest pronouncement from Gov. Inslee?  It’s now illegal to post something on Facebook that ISN’T about the coronavirus.  Ha ha, small joke there.  

I came across a quote from the 17th c. mathematician Blaise Pascal that is very appropriate for these times: “All (people’s) miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone”.  Way to anticipate social distancing 400 years ago, Blaise.  For myself, being told I should stay in my house IS in my comfort zone.  This morning before I arose I thought of the deliciousness of the morning routine to come: raising the blinds, pouring coffee out of that steaming, burbling little device I use, sitting down at my kitchen table to write as I watch streaked sunlight make its way across the backyard.  

Of course, full disclosure, it hasn’t ALL been domestic bliss.  In light of all that’s happening, insecurity about my economic prospects had me FREAKING OUT a few days ago.  I imagine this must be a widespread phenomenon.  Normal life as we know it has ground to a halt.  Suddenly, stopping to smell the roses has become one of the few remaining items on our rapidly shrinking daily to-do lists.  

As for freaking out, it helps that I have been a meditator for a few decades now.  What this means is, when I sat down and closed my eyes, I was able to put some borders around that little freaking out voice, which was yapping away like a small dog woken up by the mail carrier.  Here’s the thing about meditation: it’s a practice built around the fact that one thing we humans will always have, is the freedom to CHOOSE where we focus our attention.  

Some times it might seem that it’s not us, but what’s happening to us, that determines where our attention goes.  For instance, when it suddenly looks like my carpentry clients might have to withdraw their financial support because THEY’RE worrying how THEY’RE going to get paid, then you could say: but of course a little worrying on my part is natural. Unavoidable even.  

OK, I COULD say that, but it’s actually more than a little worrying.  Remember the solar eclipse?  What was that three years, though it seems like a lifetime, ago?  Remember how our fair friendly sun was COMPLETELY BLOCKED OUT for about an hour?  Well that’s worry for you.  All semblance of a pleasant, joyful, manageable existence is GONE.  It’s just OUT THE WINDOW.  

And not only does that SUCK, but as a believer in the Law of Attraction, because I’ve seen it play out so many times in my own life, I now hold as a TRUE FACT that worrying is a sure fire way to manifest SUCK-INESS IN THE FUTURE.    

For these two reasons then, when I sat down to meditate I wasn’t in the mood for half-measures.  The careening craziness of my mind, batting like a pin ball from one subject to another - from what my clients had said, to wondering about the future, to working out the probabilities of things - all of it had to STOP.  

There was all that mental screaming.  Yes, all that.  And then there was something else to focus on, the fact I was ALIVE, as evidenced by my breath: IN and OUT.  In and out.  In and out.  

But WHAT ABOUT THIS!!!!?????!!!!!!, went my mind.  And for a few seconds more I was carried away on a sleigh ride to the land of TUMULT.  Fear.  FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR !!!!!!!!!!  And Worry.  FEAR AND WORRY, FEAR AND WORRY!!!

It wanted to overwhelm me.  It wanted to carry me away, like water sucked down a drain.  

And for a while it seemed like it would.  For a few seconds.  The noise and the worry and the fear seemed like all there was.  But like I said, I’ve been doing this for a while, and I’ve learned to count on the fact that in the middle of whatever I might be feeling or thinking, there’s always life; there’s always the passage of time.  There’s always the ability to FOCUS on that unwinding journey from the present of now to the present that comes later.  

This, strange to say, helps.  It gives the lie first of all to the idea that circumstances determine what I give my attention to.  Actually no, I get to choose.  

Secondly, it quiets me down.  That yapping voice I spoke of is put inside a cotton-lined box, then it goes away entirely, as long as I keep putting my focus on the now.  My heart rate and breathing slow down.  

Thirdly, after doing this for awhile, the moment seems to EXPAND. 

If we are used to moving through time the way a person walks down a trail - then let’s be honest, as we go down that road, mostly we’re thinking about where we’re going and where we’ve been.  So, just by making the intention to stop and notice the scenery along the way, we get to the point where that scenery looms larger.

There’s the clock ticking that suddenly seems really loud, and the whoosh whoosh of cars going by.  The breath going in and out of my nose; now my nose itches.  Scratching nose.  This reminds me of a friend.  That was a weird conversation we had a week ago.  Then another thought piggy backs on that one, and another and another.  That’s thinking for you.  At some point I realize I’ve gone off track, and try to bring my mind BACK to the moment.  I notice in the interim my heart rate has gotten faster.  I notice the air entering and exiting my nose.  I notice that the time interval between all these things starts taking on a depth.  Rather than being a point, a milestone unceremoniously crossed along the ruler of time, the intervals in between start taking on a “thingness” all by themselves.  This doesn’t happen every time I meditate, but sometimes it feels as if I could take a right angle from where I’m going and delve into the minuscule micro-seconds of time like a skier cutting down a slope of untouched powder.  It’s a little hard to explain, a little freaky even, but it sometimes feels that everything there is is right there - a whole universe encapsulated in a single moment you could say.

The fourth and final thing I’ve noticed about meditation also doesn’t happen every time I do it.  The times it has happened however have profoundly affected the way I think about myself in the world.  

First of all, I want to say that I was attracted to meditation because there wasn’t too much in the way of doctrine or dogma or any sets of beliefs I needed to adhere to.  There was no need for a leap of faith.  There was only the intention toward staying aware about what was going on with me when I sat down to meditate, and a good word for that is MINDFULNESS.  The breath goes in and the breath goes out - the idea was to practice putting my focus there, and one word you didn’t hear very often in this tradition was “heretic”.  

But in the middle of all that a funny thing happened.  I would say that for me this was a significant thing; and saying that I understand that its significance would not necessarily be the same for everybody.  

Simply put, in the middle of some of my deeper meditations, I began to have the profound, and therefore very real sense that I was not alone.  I came away from these peak experiences with the impression that instead of being the singular glob of matter in a universe filled with similar objects the way my teachers in school had explained,  I was somehow part of a fabric that included everything, and like everything, my existence was somehow important, even necessary.  

It may sound crazy, because there certainly was no logic involved, but the deeply-felt perceptions I was having didn’t need a logical framework in order to satisfy me about their authenticity.  There was something about them that the innermost regions of my mind, what I would now call my “soul” responded to.  I believed in them without the need to second guess myself, and as I said, my whole world view changed.

Anyway, that’s what I have to say about this subject.  Good luck, and by way of a farewell, I’d like to repeat what I just said - and what I now whole-heartedly believe: that ALL of us are NECESSARY.  All of us are VITAL.

All the Best!

Scott Walsh is a teacher of meditation and and psychic techniques and is the co-founder of The Seattle Psychic Institute.  He has been practicing meditation most of his life, has been a psychic for 18 years and a teacher for 7 years.  The sense of connection, purpose and joy that practicing these techniques have brought him can’t be over emphasized.