Old Man Seaweed

Meditate:  A word that suggests quiet, deep meditation.


Sometimes I get up and the river is just flowing on by.  It hasn't vanished, leaving a rocky arroyo in its place, and me all dusty and wild-eyed, sitting on a stone; and it's not a rushing torrent sweeping my birch wood canoe over the rocks.  I heard a woman share about going to a favorite spot in the mountains from time to time and sitting by a stream.  She notes which way the stream is flowing.  Up until now it has been flowing from left to right, heading downhill.  If it's still flowing from left to right, heading downhill, the next time she visits, she's comforted.  When the stream begins to go the other way then she'll know that something's up.  Until then, she assumes that the world's still operating normally.  Normal can be reassuring.


I believe that my meditation helps me out here.  Sometimes my mind is moving at the same speed as the river.  Usually, however,  I'm either exposed to the blasting sunshine in my beached canoe, stranded high and dry, or hanging onto the gunwales as the thing rockets downstream, out of control.  


I don't find that I'm often caught up in the tragedies and mistakes of the past anymore; I'm not afraid to look at who I was and what happened.  I've worked through that stuff; I'm done with it.  I'm not as good at staying out of the future but I'm a good sight better than I used to be.  I'm not often quaking with terror, imagining all of the bad stuff that could happen, having learned by experience that what I think is bad often leads to something good, but I confess to worrying over much that I'm not going to get what I want.  And I find that my connections to the physical stuff of the world: people, things, stuff, is on a constant ebb.  I like it but I'm not owned by it.  


This is why I meditate.  Not because I have a natural aptitude for it, I'll tell you that much.


Seaweed in the river.