Mindfulness
What does mindfulness mean to you? It's that thing I hear all the time but never understood until recently. After this pandemic and my dog then dying soon after everything opened back up I was forced to look for an answer.
The ideas that dripped into my mind were,
what now?
who cares?
where did I go wrong?
I see now as I gave myself a minute inside my head that I just need to stop and learn to be more present. I am one of those people who is always making art inside my head. I miss whole conversations as I plan 50 ft painting. Each day is easier and then harder as I grieve but I know I am getting there. I only wish I knew the end of the book first. But I think in pain that might be everyone. If you knew you only had a month to celebrate a person before they died beforehand how would you do it and would it be enough? I don't know, honestly. I like to think with all the time in the world I would still want five more minutes. I'm a mess like that. My canvases, if I listened to them would never stop being painted on. I might live on pause forever to make and remake the world. It is the silliest part of me.
What to do now?
Sit in a chair in the dark screaming in my brain until it's all white noise? No, maybe a little but still no. What would you do? How would you keep moving forward and celebrate everything? I keep thinking of a wake. A way to celebrate everyone we lost. To feel how much they meant to us. Maybe that is the best way to live? I knew a holy man once who said "life is a party". He was kind and had the deepest voice and the bluest eyes. He was from Congo and his name was Randolph. In my darkest moments, I try to focus on his joy.
That is how I got back into meditation over the last year. Have you been meditating? Do you meditate?
So, I had a lot of conversations with a few holistic people and they said I should "do a meditative part to my podcast". So I have been doing them for a few months. Maybe you have heard a few of them?
This is the last one I did today. I'm still working on it. Finding focus in all the pain of last week with my dog dying has taken me out of it. I'm mostly trying to refind my mindset again. Meditation has really helped a lot. I hope my sharing helps you too. I know I am not the only one. I am in search of my restless mind's guide.
To pursue ... more.
Maybe, I am the arrow and the bow? Maybe, in some way, the peace I am in search of are the stars above me? They are everything and nothing all at once?
I think I'm less alone in my search the more I look into it. We are all restless. The peace will come. I just have to sit still long enough to let it catch up to me.
Sometimes the answer is not born yet into existence. Maybe the Moon knows all the secrets and will make more sense in a few days?
Jaws