Summer Solace
Summer approaches our doorstep and we yearn for the hot light to drench our bodies, activating motions of enduring, sunshiny summer days and nights. We can feel the swimming, surfing, camping, skating, hiking, traveling and sunbathing calling our names, serenading us outside, asking us to join the season’s celebration. While the sun may tempt us to push our activities to higher limits, I quietly ask you to relish the opposing polarity of silence and stillness. Take time to remember to balance all the doing with rich moments of not doing.
To cultivate non-action and quietude, I recommend choosing a spot in nature, without other people, cars, or artifice to distract your solitude and contemplation. Begin by taking a few moments to settle and observe your surroundings. Use the persistent assistance of gravity to root yourself to the ground. Know you are with your body always, it is here to serve you in this moment of work and awareness to gather all that you are. Become as still as you can, release and relax from every micro-movement and every muscle. Feel your body in the entirety of whatever posture you chose. Find your breath now, spending a few moments in gratitude for its simplicity and its necessity.
Now bring a consciousness to the sensory input signals that help to build your experience of the world. The touch of wind upon your skin, the taste of moisture on your tongue, the sight of the sun’s light, the smell of lush vegetation and earth, and finally, the rich orchestra of relentless sounds steeping from nature and the space around you. Perhaps you hear birds or waves, or maybe it’s quiet enough that you only hear your breath. Allow the passing of all sounds, whether they are internal thoughts or the external world, to simply be. Gather your mind and body to be comfortable exactly where they are in this place of active rest.
The balancing beauty we notice when sitting still within the silence of self is that we are actually never alone, never deprived of sound and sensation. Without having to move an inch or say a word, our world is always ripe with stimulation and activity for our bodies and mind to pick. Do yourself the favor of taking time to regularly incorporate doses of sweet, summer solace into your routine. Let the natural rhythms of energy balance one another, finding harmony and recalibration within you.
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Article originally published in Natural OC’s Summer 2014 issue under Analee S. P.’s column, “Meditation from the Wilderness”