Meditation

Now before thoughts of tree hugging, smelly dreads and any general hippie stereotype come to mind, I would like to assure you, I am not a hippie. Or may be I am. Like a modern day urban hippie who enjoys living in the chaos, the city rush, coffees and cocktails, fashion and good food.

I suppose the fact that I have to defend myself in my first sentence addresses the premise that meditating isn't seen as a mainstream past time or at least one spoken of (in Sydney at least). It brings about thoughts of Buddhism and well, the relinquishment of worldly pursuits for the sake of spiritual/psychological gain is alien to the prevailing values of capitalism today, I mean, you can't make money with your eyes closed and legs crossed all day!

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, on a wee whim, I escaped the city and spent the weekend at a meditation retreat in order to learn techniques and practice a touch of yoga.

Since my dabble in the "quieting of the mind" I have tried to keep up my practice by having some down time at the end of each day. Trust me, its a difficult thing to start. Be it intimidation, boredom, restlessness or just lack of time. For me the concept of staying still is incredibly alien to me. Hell I even fidget in my sleep. Still I have noticed quite a remarkable change and empowerment following these "sessions" each night.

I am a pretty chilled bean anyway but there is no denying, the noise, the chaotic rush of peoples, the relentless propagation and information that we absorb in to our everyday lives is arguably unnatural. For ants perhaps not but definitely for people. So I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that switching off for a while was like pouring water on to parched land, I felt refreshed. The things that annoyed me to a point where self expression had elevated to foot stomping and huffing became seemingly minor. I know I am a long way off from tapping in to the serious benefits of meditation, what I've managed to get from these few invested hours, Buddha gets in a sneeze. So I've only had a taster, but I'll still advocate that its very good exercise, even if you do run the risk of social ridicule amongst friends... (you'll be too chilled to care anyway)

So whether it be a little 'out there' to admit this, I am going to try to keep it up... or at least for those moments of foot stomping and recommend any curios to do the same.

Peace & ommmms
Jecta x