Meditate to Rock It!

My husband led the meditations. His spirit embodies a peace grounded in the beauty of that which is bigger than what we can see and touch.

Before he began to lead them, the weekly staff meetings at our medium-size valley church were painful. Disorganized and meandering they would typically end up a bitch and complain session. I would walk away feeling mired in the negativity that fed my own anxiety and fear.

Once we began with the meditations, everything changed.

Poetry was a favorite for becoming grounded, and Mary Oliver was often the poet of choice. Her poems moved me to another reality that would both compel me further on and make me giddy with the beauty of her words and art.

One phrase from a poem she wrote I will never forget. It is the concluding stanza to her poem “The Summer Day” and it is this question. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Tears spring to the corner of my eyes whenever I hear it. It touches me deeply in that inner region of my desires and hopes and it nudges me like a gentle finger pressing just hard enough to remind me I need to get moving.

What is it you plan to do, AmyJo, with your one wild and precious life?

Meditation has not always been my friend. I struggle to be quiet and still. The state of my natural being is movement. My mind is always working, thinking, dreaming, telling stories and making up fantasies. As most who know me will quickly attest, my mouth is rarely closed and voice seldom not being used.

I talk a lot, laugh loud, run hard, hand-dance in the car and simply have an all around difficult time sitting still and being quiet.

So of course, meditation is especially important for me. I need it, and I have recently rediscovered this very important truth.

After leaving the organized church, I establishing an experimental community that eventually progressed to embrace new ideas and a system of belief that was no longer Christianity. During those incredible three plus years of teaching, studying and questioning we developed deeply meaningful meditations. I wrote ritual that spoke to our new way of seeing the world and poetry replaced memorized liturgy.

When that Community ended, and it did so in hurt, betrayal and much pain, I stopped meditating. I literally put everything from my office, on my shelves, in drawers and from my home that had to do with Way of Compassion Community in a box, closed it and shoved it in a dark corner of my garage.

I recently unpacked it. What a charge it was to walk my fingers through books, files, framed pictures and documents and reclaim them as me. My heart fluttered and spirit soared.

I am being born again, and this time, I am going to do some amazing shit with my one, wild and precious life! This time, I am not allowing anyone to nay-say, or nervously keep me down because they want me small. This time, I am going to say “shit” if I want to. This time, I am going to wear my red lipstick without apology, sing loud, laugh with abandon and be the big, great person I have always known is the true me.

I can claim this truth because I have rediscovered meditation. There is such a thing as “divine timing”, which I refer to as “universe time”, evident in my connection with Lissa Rankin and Amy Ahlers. They lead Vision Ignition Switch; a business that mentors visionaries in building their business so they can both change the world and their lives for the better.

Before each webinar or group call we are lead through a meditation. The first time it happened I was stunned. I wasn’t sure how I felt about doing something that felt like going backward. I had worked so hard to finally leave the old system of belief and the practices that came with it, I was not clear I wanted it again.

For some reason I trusted these women and myself enough that I decided to do it and fully participate.  Tears streamed hot and salty from my closed eyes, pooling in the corners of my mouth so that when we finished, I was wet.

Joining the boxed items I had chosen to return to me, I now added meditation. I reclaimed it in a new, meaningful and life giving way.

The next day my husband, the gentle giant who had led meditations so effectively for years, listened to a webinar with me. I suspected there would be a meditation, and wasn’t sure how he would receive it. When Lissa began, I closed my eyes and began to participate. A minute in I sneaked a peak at my husband. He sat stiff with mouth clenched. It was painful. Something he loved, let go of and never had been recognized for, was happening right in front of him in his own home.

I took a risk. Tapping him gently on his knee I said “participate!” He did. We both have a piece of us back.  We both are claiming our one, wild and precious life and the truth that we are going to rock it!

Stay tuned for meditations, poems and ritual for you to rock your life!