Mediations on an Iron Workhorse

On the treadmill this morning, my mp3 player shuffled through the usual exercise tunes to a Jon Kabat-Zinn Lovingkindness meditation download. Not exactly the Shirelles.  But I've been so angsty about and resistant to sitting thoughtlessly in a quiet room since I decided that I must or else, that I've been working on the idea of forging a workout-meditation combo.  Swimming really fits that bill for me perfectly, as womblike and elemental as it is.  I count the laps as I go, a mantra of sorts, and have, from this state of mindful mindlessness, found myself sobbing cathartically, or just simply heartfully, from time to time.

Might this be translated into the more punishing struggle of a treadmill regimen?  I doubted it, but decided to see where Kabat-Zinn's coo on forgiveness and kind acceptance might lead me.  I was reminded of my friend Sue's decision recently to start a gratitude journal.  A list of five things nightly, just to keep her more present in her life, in the abundance of the moment.  Maybe I should postscript that to the end of each blog entry?  Gratitude is a no-brainer when you're on vacation and about to start a sabbatical, so I'll probably be able to knock off ten a day for now. No repeats, that's a good policy, though, so the number may be winnowed down more quickly than I think.  But I am unsure about the wisdom of public consumption for all my reflections:  how honest and soul-searching will I be when this venue is the very definition of crafty?  Perhaps better to get a separate, old-fashioned bound journal when I go to get a haircut later.  And my bras are getting rather decrepit, I need new bras.

I was summoned back to my electronic conscience by a lengthy silence.  Had I missed the whole tape?  Needless to say, I had not been the slightest bit present for Kabat-Zinn's lullaby to presentness.  Didn't even watch the thought bubbles affectionately as they evaporated -- just indulged the monkey mind wholesale.  As I tuned back in, he was wrapping up the silent d.i.y. part of the session by creating a vision of cradling oneself in one's arms maternally.  I stretched my achy calves behind me on the iron workhorse and tried to summon a cradly spirit. I wonder if Victoria's Secret is having a sale?

Zinn ended by reading an excerpt from Yeats' Dialogue to Self and Soul:

I am content to follow to its source

Every event in action or in thought;

Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!

When such as I cast out remorse

So great a sweetness flows into the breast

We must laugh and we must sing,

We are blest by everything,

Everything we look upon is blest.

At Yeats' invitation, I followed my earlier, distracted thoughts to their source:  I do believe I am (we are) blessed, with consciousness alone but with so much more.  But I am on a lifelong frantic treadmill to keep that going, keep those pretty plates in the air.  As the baby of a troubled, chaotic household, I adopted the role of the desperate Little Joany Sunshine.  I must cheer everyone out of misery -- let me dance!  

But Yeats is also inviting me to cast out that old remorse, forgive them and myself, and just let sweetness flow.  We must laugh and we must sing, but it doesn't have to take so much work.  Get off the treadmill, let it flow.


When I was a teenager I invented a game I called "Television Oracle." My friends and I would ask the tv a question of either actual or teeny-giddy importance (is there a difference when you're 14?), and the first utterance we heard when we turned the tube on was our answer, I-ching style.  I decided to let the first song the Ipod shuffled to after Zinn be the punctuation on this interesting session.  It was (I swear, no artistic license here) an Indigo Girl Song called Land of Canaan.  I had never heard it before --  my daughters sometimes borrow the device and load little surprises on for me.  It began:


You can go to the East
To find your, inner hemisphere.
You say we're under the same sky babe,
You're bound to realize, Honey, it's not that clear.
I'm not your promised land
I'm not your promised one
I'm not your Land of Canaan, sweetheart,
Waiting for you under the sun.

I'm lonely tonight, I'm missing you now.
I'm wanting your love and you're giving it out.
I'm lonely tonight, I'm lonely tonight, I'm lonely tonight.


What to make of this punctuation?  It seemed eerily relevant without any stretch, and I am a believer in the perceiver-imbued significance of everything we decide to attend to in that way, every horoscope, tossed tome, dream (all right, there are occasional cigars).  It is not mystical, there is just eternity in every grain of sand if we choose to see it.  Or, more mundanely, we find our reflection in every pond we peer into. So what did I see in this?  


A bottom-line call to presentness, I think.  Don't get too caught up in the quest for Enlightenment, in the external trappings of the search for the Promised Land.  Don't look for or "give your love out," find it in and give it to yourself, to the ones you love who are also, please god, the ones you're with.  Can't wait to make a delightful summer pizza and open a bottle of red wine with Julie tonight.


The iron workhorse came through.  Do I still have to sit in a quiet room?