Walking Meditation Food for the Soul

I had the great honor of doing an Inner Constellation session outside the other day. Thank you to the angel who blessed me many times over during our time together--you know who you are. In gratitude....

                                                                Walking the Veranda 

©2014 Karla Johnston, InnerConstellation.com

What if the Ultimate speaks in metaphor,

in a language meant for me?

What if I walk,

nowhere to go, nowhere to be,

no destination—

the Unknown my teacher?

Slow down, 

coordinate steps to breath

and offer my attention.

Attention to what?

To Life: yellow breasted bird who sings pure sunshine,

tingling of my skin as I receive her warmth,

Juniper branches rising, falling 

in an intimate dance with the breeze,

chipmunk, dashing, jumping, 

projecting patterns of mind,

drone of traffic noise a steady backdrop,

returning me.

What if the Ultimate speaks in metaphor,

and I—
I  walk this Pureland, 
training my ear 
to hear
this love song
sung for me? 

Solid and Free--wait...what?

This week in our Mindfulness Group* one of the members mentioned the seeming juxtaposition between a saying of Thich Nhat Hanh's--"I am solid, I am free." What, now? I'm heavy and dense, yet light and airy? I've always pondered the opposition of these two words also, so I dropped the seed--"I am solid, I am free," into my morning practice and received a bit of insight.

Often I ask myself and my clients--"What keeps you from being 100% free right now?" Anything that stands in the way of freedom becomes our target for tapping (Meridian Tapping). I've discovered something when asking this question--to be 100% free, I must also be grounded--solid so to speak--in the here and the now, OK with whatever arises--this to me, is true freedom. Hmmm, I might be on to something. Then I got to thinking, what grounds me, what gives me solidity, another word I like to use is balance--what brings me back to balance, back to center when I've strayed?

• stillness/mindfulness practice
• breathing
• my cat who curls up in my lap when I practice
• my Mindfulness Community*
• bell practice - using sound as a reminder to come back to the body and breath
• candles, scents, a cup of tea, exercise....

My list goes on. But here's the thing, the outside things that bring me balance will change--my practice will have good days and bad days, community members will come and go, my cat will not always be on my lap. Can I recognize the ongoing changes of life--this is what makes it so precious and fleeting, yet remain solid and free, anchored in my breath, in the here and the now? I believe I've come around full circle--I'm solid and free, yes, indeed. 

*Lake Tahoe Mindfulness Community meets every Wednesday morning from 7:30-8:30a at The Studio Lake Tahoe to practice in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh

RIP Sweet Robin Williams

I was crushed yesterday, hearing the news, as I'm sure you guys were too. I thought of this month's Inner Constellation theme: Loving-kindness. Robin Williams is the poster child of loving-kindness. A man who brought so much joy and happiness to others, he was a light. I thought too of the loving-kindness practice and the first step which is loving-kindness or well-wishing toward oneself. Phrases I use are the following:

May I be happy, healthy and strong,
safe and protected, free from inner and outer harm,
may I live in my world with ease and grace.*

Robin William's death drove home the importance of nourishing others and nourishing oneself. Here was a man who brought happiness to millions of people but couldn't bring sustained happiness to himself--tragic. RIP sweet Robin and thank you for your pursuit of joy:

May you be happy, healthy and strong,
safe and protected, free from inner and outer harm,
may you live in your world with ease and grace.

Click to explore the life changing practice of loving-kindness.


*adapted from the Loving-kindness or Metta phrases

I'm a Sucker for Feathered Friends!

Look who came for a visit this morning!

I woke this morning with an idea to extend the InnerConstellation August loving-kindness theme* to loving-kindness towards others, then, literally, this opportunity happened....

Loving Kindness to Feathered Friends
©2014 Karla Johnston, InnerConstellation.com

Sickening crunch of bird hitting window, you know the sound.

I go outside to find

an olive colored bird,

belly up.

Extend a hand,

right the tiny body

and give her a soft place to land,

carry into rising sun and wait:

I take in each feather on her exquisite frame

while remembering safety, strength and warmth--

feel it in my whole being.

When eyes flutter and head droops,

I speak softly her perfection.

Twenty minutes go by like this until

well-wishing becomes reality

and in a perfect instant

she simply takes flight

onto a pine branch
waiting to receive her. 

Please consider doing an act of loving-kindness toward another today, I'd love to hear about it!

*If you'd like to receive the Inner Constellation Monday-Friday Blessing in your inbox, please contact me to receive this gift. 

"Well, I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more...."

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, California

Hiya! I just got home from doing walking meditation and benefiting from it for the first time EVVVVERRRRR!

Walking meditation, it sounds so easy: no place to go, no where you have to be, just walk slowly and pay attention to your breath. Um, not so easy for a person who grew up with a pair of runners on her feet, ready to hit the trails at the first signs of trouble. Sitting meditation nourishes me, but walking meditation has always been a challenge--until this morning! To what do I attribute my success?

• My Sangha (Practice Community) - for one month I've facilitated a Mindfulness Practice Group* and we gathered this morning as we do every Wednesday from 7:30-8:30a. Our focus for this coming week is walking meditation, so I arrived home aspiring to start walking meditation anew. I read the few brief pages in our Thich Nhat Hanh book, Happiness, and set out on the trails behind my house. The suggestions were simple: match my steps to my breath and if so inspired, put a few words to the steps. So for instance, my breath was about a 4 step inhalation and 4 step exhalation, I'm a poet, so I went to town:

"I am loved, adored."

"Clean trees, blue sky (we had just had rain so all was sparkly and clean)"

"Fresh pine, happy birds."

I went on like this, in and out, having a high time. By the time I finished, I was invigorated and didn't want to stop! I thought of my Mindfulness Community, all aspiring to practice walking meditation this week, and I felt carried along, bolstered and inspired. There is power in group intention, and I've entered the stream.

I thought to of this month's Inner Constellation theme: Loving-kindness, and how absolutely loving it is to take a walk for the sole purpose of enjoying the offerings of the natural world, so bountiful and always present. When I run or bike, I do it to be outside, but I also do it for the exercise, so there can be a lot of imposed struggle, whereas, my morning walk was for pure enjoyment. Big aha moment--how often am I mindfully present for the pure enjoyment of it! It's a great privilege to be able to live in a beautiful area, take 50 steps from my front door and walk in the pure land of the Sierras. The little ditty from the Proclaimers is running through my cleared head:

"Well, I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more,

just to be the one who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door...."

It's a sweet, quirky song about a guy who just enjoys being with his beloved, no matter what he's doing. It's my walking meditation theme song: be present, enjoy life's offerings for the sake of love, purely love. Ah, the walking muse has spoken....dah, dah, dat-da...un-diddle, un-diddle, un-diddle, un-da-da....

*Join us anytime: Lake Tahoe Mindfulness Community Practice at The Studio Lake Tahoe, Wednesdays from 7:30a-8:30a, by donation. We are committed to using the present moment to nourish ourselves, our families and our community in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hahn.