Contemplative Prompt: The Mind (What I think about myself/world around me)
What kind of thoughts now, do you carry
In your travels day by day
Are they bright and lofty visions,
Or neglected, gone astray?
Matters not how great in fancy,
Or what deeds of skill you’ve wrought;
Man, though high may be his station,
Is no better than his thoughts.
Catch your thoughts and hold them tightly,
Let each one an honor be;
Purge them, scourge them, burnish brightly,
Then in love set each one free.
Thank You, Antidepressants
Reader, let me tell you how I keep it together:
friendships & antidepressants.
Long walks on the beach with H
(he pretends these are workouts)
& Nutella in bed with R
(she sends boil the water you better have chocolate from her car)
& endless voice notes with L
(she calls them personal podcasts)
& WhatsApp stickers-on-demand from F
(it is time to MILF said her sticker with my face
& red lips on my 40th birthday)
& rants with H (another H)
about weight & the lands that spit us out
& talks under midnight bougainvillea with R
(same R) about our mothers’ & children’s rage
& daily morning phone calls with L
(another L) about nausea & skin & food allergies
she’s sure she’s got though no doctor can confirm
(& I say if you’re sure you got it
then you got it, you got it)
& jokes across continents with H
(another other H) about impossible geographies
& arguments with M about whether we got married
in 2005 or 2006 (I say our first married summer was a year before
the war, & he says no it was the summer of the war,
& we laugh at how we measure time with pain but not without tenderness)
& conversations with G (better name this one: God)
about my dislike for organized religion
& more long voice notes with H
(another other other H) about the opposite of grace.
This happens daily, so thank you, friends,
who are there when the sadness comes,
or when my teeth fall apart
(my teeth do that bi-yearly)
friends who un-scared me
of antidepressants, who reassured me
I won’t become another Z or my grandmother.
& yes, thank you, antidepressants,
& you, reader, who stayed with me,
& might be wondering why so many
of my friends’ names’ first letters are the same,
& the answer is when I said together
(in the first line of this poem)
I didn’t mean it against fragmentation.
Discussion questions in circle (15 min writing)
Where do most of your thoughts originate from? Externally or internally?
Whose voice do you hear your thoughts?
What thoughts are you preoccupied with these days? Why do you think they persist?
How do you wield the power of your mind in your daily life? To empower? To destroy?
Free Share
Concepts:
“Giving voice to vision” - Frances
Thoughts are like clay which are eventually molded into a vessel – embodiment! (Frances)
Making friends with pain - Mayra
Bringing it back to breath as an anchor for our thoughts in the body - Mayra
Vastness of thoughts and depth of beingness akin to the ocean’s depths - Hannah
Parting question for contemplation:
Observations: How are my thoughts influencing my external reality at present?
Closing meditation:
Spring Cleaning: A Guided Meditation for Decluttering Your Mind and Heart
Settling in now, begin by taking a few slower and deeper breaths than you would normally take, breathing in slowly through your nose, and blowing the air out slowly through your mouth. With every inhalation, imagine breathing in calm, relaxing energy, and with each out breath, imagine blowing out tension. Breathing in, calm relaxation... breathing out...letting go of stress...good.
Now, letting go of controlling your breath, just allow yourself to trust in the abundant wisdom of your body to breathe just right. Slowing down now and relaxing even more. Taking a moment to scan your body from the bottom of your feet all the way to the top of your head, noticing any areas of tension lingering. As you scan, breathe into any areas of tension, calm and relaxing energy and releasing the tension through each out breath. At the same time, allowing any tension that remains to be just as it is.
Breathing in...Breathing out...just as you are.
If at any time your mind starts to wander, refrain from judgment. Just gently bring your attention back to your breath, focusing on the areas in your body that you feel the breath the most. Perhaps tracking the breath as it enters and leaves the body during each breath cycle...breathing in breathing out...calm and relaxed.
Good...now with the power of your imagination, picture yourself standing in the middle of a large garden..filled with an assortment of trees, bushes, flowers of a variety of colors and sizes. Perhaps take a look around and notice any structures in the garden, such as an archway covered in jasmine or ivy, or perhaps a bench or hammock. Gazing up, you see a blue, clear expansive sky, feel the warmth of the sun on your face. There is a gentle Spring breeze, and it soothes your face as well... Looking around again, you notice that there is a gate at one side of the garden that leads into a clearing and then a path into a distant treeline.
Spending a few moments to take in all of the beautiful colors and breathe in the scents of the trees and flowers, you begin to realize that this garden symbolizes your life and all of your experiences up to this..present..moment.
As you look at the ground under your feet and all around you, you notice that along with many plants and budding flowers, there are a lot of dried, crumpled up leaves left behind from autumn and winter, scattered here and there. Looking more closely, you see there are even areas where the leaves are packed down, forming a damp carpet, blocking some of the plants from reaching the light of the sun.
These leaves represent negative experiences, feelings, or messages that you have received from others and internalized. They also represent negative beliefs about yourself or others as well as all of the negative energy that you have received through others. You know that the world is full of positive and negative energy. Leaves from other people’s gardens can be swept up in the wind and blown into our own.
Deciding it is time to clear your space of this negativity, you get the rake and begin raking all of the leaves through the gate, pulling them into a big pile in the clearing outside of the garden, a safe distance away from the beautiful trees, plants, and flowers you have planted throughout the years.
Once you have cleared out all of the dead leaves and the pile is ready, you decide to burn the pile and get rid of these leaves permanently. You know that other leaves will come, but you can clear them as well, Periodically as you maintain your garden, keeping it clutter free and allowing all of the plants to receive water and sunlight in order to bloom to their full potential.
Setting fire to the leaves, you watch as the smoke rises up higher and higher until it trails off into a thin tail, eventually dissipating into the sky. As the fire burns out, you feel lighter and free, unburdened. You are able to open your mind and heart to new experiences, positive energy, and good health. And you can feel this throughout every cell and fiber of your being.
Reaching in your pockets now, you find seeds you have been meaning to plant for quite a long time. It is time to replenish your garden with healing herbs and bright flowers. You know instinctively where to plant these special seeds because you have been tending your garden your entire life. Pushing them down into the earth and covering them lightly with the soil, you pat them gently and then give them just the right amount of water.
As time passes, they grow stronger and healthier, second by second. Even though you cannot see them at first, you know that they are under the surface, germinating and sprouting, pushing their way up through the earth and into the light. Trusting this process, you can leave nature to do its work. You are free now to relax on that hammock or garden bench and just enjoy the beauty that is a result of your hard work.
Resting now, you return to your breath and find that it is flowing smoothly and easily. Your heart and mind have so much room now for new things to grow and flourish. You decide that caring for yourself regularly is worth the effort because you feel so much freer and at peace, cleared of the negative energy that you had been absorbing. In fact, you decide to spend more time in awareness of your body, emotions, and thoughts so that you know when you need to tend to garden the most. Keeping it clear of negative clutter abundant with positive energy is your new goal...
And now feeling renewed and refreshed, wiggle your fingers and toes, breathe in deeply to move more energy throughout your body, stretch your arms and legs, and open your eyes, feeling wide awake and feeling great!