The Yogabliss on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We create our circle in a “virtual” space. In physics the term “virtual” refers to particles or interactions with extremely short lifetimes and indefinitely great energies. This makes me think of our own short lifetimes and interactions and the energy that we bring to creating the reality we all share. This “virtuality” is both a metaphor and one of the many paradoxes that we are living today. We are at once separate and together. We spend much of our time in digital territories and yet we are physical beings. We are body-heart-minds. We are animals. We are elemental beings. Our survival depends on nature – and nature’s survival depends on us.
Today we practiced a body centered mediation around the classical elements of earth, fire, water and air. It is an ancient meditation that has been found in traditions across cultures around the world. It is a way of affirming and realizing ourselves as nature. You can find more about this meditation by going to Tricycle Magazine’s four part series, Mindfulness of the Four Elements: Reconnecting with the World, with meditation instructor and author Sebene Selassie.
Our reflection was inspired by Michael McCarthy’s interview, Nature, Joy, and Human Becoming, and his book, The The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy. Michael is a naturalist and writer whose work calls us to bring our love and joy to the defense of nature. He and poet Denise Levertov remind us that we are, ourselves, nature.
In exploring the depth of our caring for ourselves, each other and the natural world we drew on the teachings of Roshi Joan Halifax. Her article, Discovery at the Edge of Empathy, and her book, Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet, explore how we can work skillfully with deep empathy by tempering our emotions with mindfulness and compassion.