Meditation(s)

When I decided to get going with the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge this year, it was with a mind to making writing-going-somewhere a more regular practice. By that I mean publication, onward distribution in some form or other, as distinct from diary or draftery that’s emphatically writing-not-going-somewhere. Which seems to be working – hey, look! half way through! not effed it off! – and I’m even (sotto voce, again) enjoying it?

With writing more frequently and to a schedule the project itself, and this going alright, I have become mindful of a time-limit element, for this series at least, which has meant that the posts are all a little brief and, well, sketchy. Kind of, introducing basic ideas of where-it’s-at-ness? It was concerning me slightly that it was going to end up a compilation of ‘and here’s this other thing I’m doing’, a fairly tepid list of fairly standard (pre)occupations… until it occurred to me that that would be the entire point of a process blog and stopped giving myself a hard time about it.

After April, things will likely settle down into a rhythm of topics, and times for topics, but for now it’s abecedaria all month long.

The time-limit element stems from having a full-time job that over-extends itself, hyper-hyphenentilating as it goes, finding ways to fill up evenings as well as afternoons and occasional mornings. Teaching as a profession can be tremendously rewarding but it’s very demanding, like a Year 7 class about to start an assessment.

“Yes, it’s more of a spiritual reward, of course,” said the Dean, leaning back in his chair.

Still, that’s part of the line of work… and, gotta work. That’s how they get you. Utilities, rent, cost of living… everybody got bills, as LunchMoney Lewis observed. The Blackadder joke about feeling like a pelican continues to ring true.

Coping with that capitalist hamster wheeling alone is a major endeavour. In recent times, setting a routine to enable time to do anything remotely non-worky to keep oneself sane has been essential. I get up early like Mason Currey talks about here. Not as early as Petrarch, I hasten to add – though tune in tomorrow for a piece about Night Owling! – but 5.30 is early enough. In fact, it was only because I’d got into a habit of getting up earlier to do some creative stuff since the start of the year that I felt at all like restarting the blog was something I could or wanted to do when the end of March and spring showed up.

Maybe the most essential factor is that before I do any writing or whatever, I make use of the early start to move about and crank an increasingly creaky frame into daytime mode. Pretty basic, really – water… exercise, stretching… and – “Ah! our point!” – making time for meditation.

Although meditation is something I’ve been aware of for years, my attempts at it have usually petered out for some reason or another. But – whodathunk – the more I do it, the more it has noticeable effects on, well, general mood, emotional stability, resilience… positive, noticeable effects.

Kit-wise, I use Insight Timer. There’s some good stuff on it, guided meditations and various soundtracks for various scenarios and so on, but generally I only use the bells in the timer section to start and end quiet breathing sessions. I’d use proper bells, but, y’know, not everyone in the house gets up at 5.30. I can at least turn the phone down and put it across the room where I can still hear it. And as soon as it goes ping, it’s breath, inhale, exhale, oop, thinking, inhale… and repeat.

Just breathing and focusing one’s attention there. Feeling the sound of birds and kitchen clock and fridge and distant traffic and rain on windows and wind and all that just ebb and flow around, until eventually I’m listening without naming, while the yammering and wittering of my brain shushes and stills.

Then… ready to get going.

 

Digging it

Yesterday saw some headway made in the garden. In a mood shift, where a previous me has been keen to rush into stuff and then get frustrated when unrealistic plans come to nothing, this project is growing nicely into a combination of exterior improvement and meditative activity.

Gardening. We rent, but we’ve been lucky enough to get a big bit of outside space. However, the previous tenant (nine years, I understand) was not interested in the opportunities afforded. Mass take-over by brambles, overgrown hedges, and leaves, leaves, leaves everywhere.

That’s all from the back hedge and this one spot next to the eucalyptus. Quite a lot of work remaining…

While we’re probably not going to be installed as long as nine years, we’re planning on a good stint here, and I do dig a bit of gardening… which is a good job, as there is a shed load of diggery to do.

As well as the eucalyptus, there’s an apple tree, an elder and another fruit tree we haven’t managed to identify yet… and there’s this big patch of ground that used to be used to grow veg.

Oh yes, that’s a bay at the back left. Anyway, I know this was used for veg because before we moved in, I happened upon the parents of the owner doing some clearing of leaves (there is also a poplar that’s easily 80 feet… LEAVES! LEAVES! LEAVES!). They filled me in on a bit of the horticultural background of the house, and seemed pleased I was taking an interest. They had managed to stop the letting agent’s garden people from using weedkiller on this bit, in the hope it might get used again. They seemed quite pleased about that too.

As a result of the nonchemical nonintervention, and as you can see from that pic, the patch is currently a bit overgrown. The Giza pyramids arrangement of piles of muck are all soil and twigs cleared from the paving round and about the place. This took up most of yesterday’s short session at the spade.

The dark bits were all three-five inches submerged. It’s not quite the Lost Gardens of Heligan, but there’s been something highly exciting about discovering what lies beneath.

What lies beneath the veggie-patch-to-be-again is clusters and clusters of bramble roots like this, which took up the rest of yesterday’s efforts.

Felt like I’d Done My Bit by the time this was full, and I only managed one corner of the area as well!

Given the unseasonably diabolical weather since October, and the unlikelihood of getting much time in wellies before summer, at the moment I’m revising the schedule to target late planting produce.

No rush, like.