Meditation to the Sound of My Own Voice!

I was finally able to get up from meditation. I say "finally" because it took me awhile. I had to wait for my legs to wake up!



I've been doing some meditations from a new book i just got, The Four Desires by Rod Stryker. It is a great book and extremely applicable to my climb up Dharma Peak! Rod guides up through finding our Dharma Code. "Dharma, the desire to become who you were meant to be.... Dharma is also the impulse toward altruism, the inner longing, known or unknown, of every individual to add his or her unique luster to the gem of creation... This larger sense of dharma is at the heart of the soul's inherent longing to fulfill its individual potential."

In his book, Rod has directions for specific meditations and he has a CD with the guided meditations, but I have been recording them and then listening to them. The first time was interesting because it reminded me of the first time I heard myself on the answering machine as a little girl... "who's that!" It's been fun to guide myself through meditation practice and I have been loving the effects of my own voice guiding me!

This most recent one was very powerful and I was able to relax completely, perhaps too much as my legs fell asleep more so than usual. I have grown to not notice when my legs are asleep... not until coming out of meditation when I try to extend my legs and then realize I have to sit for a moment while the prickling sensation does it's job to allow the nerves to communicate with my brain. Supposedly the whole leg falling asleep thing is a problem that goes away after awhile. What's "awhile?" Weeks of a meditation practice? Months? Years? Decades? It's probably different for everyone, and really it's not a problem as long as I schedule in an extra two minutes after my practice for "waking up!" Candle safety is a good plan too as I wouldn't be able to get up and run out of the room if anything caught on fire.


 "...dharma is at the heart of the soul's inherent longing to fulfill its individual potential."
Climb away! Meditation is one of those tools, pieces of gear, to help get us there!


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Joy and Laughter

One of my friends/teachers/yoga buddies said something in class the other day that has made a huge impact on me. Sometimes we have someone that tells us exactly what we need to hear. Pat told me that someone just reminded her to "pause" and it made a world of difference. Carol told me that will and dedication should go hand in hand with joy and laughter. She then proceeded to give me an emergency clown nose! As it says, no one should leave home without it. Many of us "hard workers" have a bad habit of taking ourselves too seriously...

so Brenda, lighten up... smiles, laughter, joy! (thank goodness for friends/teachers/yoga buddies)


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The Little Things

We went climbing in Darrington on Saturday. I am not going to lie, we were hiking up past the river and I really really wanted to just hang out by the river all day. It was warm and sunny and beautiful. I was tired and desired relaxation! Instead, we bushwhacked through a thorny tunnel up to the base of the Green Giant Buttress to climb Dreamer. Of course we approached incorrectly (as did the party in front of us) and had some fun traversing and attempting to find the belay.

What the climbing day consisted of is not what I wanted to talk about. Sometimes its the little things. On the approach, I was looking at Marcs pack when I saw this stick start to move. Unlike what you think of with a stick bug where it looks like a stick but has distinctive legs coming out... this guy was more like a worm that worked its way along. It had feet in front and in back and would bring his back end to the front and then send his front end forward like some sort of army crawl. Later I saw a really cool spider and then when cooking dinner I saw an awesome caterpillar chillin on the side of the picnic table. I'm not usually one that notices all the small bugs, other than the flies and mosquitoes that won't leave me along, but for some reason, I had an eye for the little things that day.

When we were hiking down back to the trail Marc was remarking about how far I've come with my climbing and how much I can do now that I didn't used to be able too. It seems like a huge improvement, like a big change, a big deal. Well, I notice the grandness of it too, but I also know all the little steps that I went through to get where I am. The little things that are often ignored like the bugs. The little things that seemed so big at the time. The little things that combine to make the bigger thing.

The same goes for yoga, at one point I couldn't spread my toes. It took me a long time and a lot of focus to learn how to spread my toes... and it seems like such a little thing...