It Snowed Last Night

We have just had another snowfall last night. Today the sun is shining and the snow is sparkling. Now, some of You may not be able to relate to this, but really what I am writing about today is the art of meditation while living and breathing – day to day.

Today, as I stand outside and lean on my shovel, I am immersed in a silence that, for me, comes only with the snow.  Always, after a snowfall and often in the middle of it, I go out to listen to the snow.  The silence for me is all encompassing. It surrounds me with a cushion of silence
that is comforting. The air is crisp, clean and somehow “new”. And in that moment, I am in a living, breathing meditation! I take in the spectacle of the snowstorm and the sparkle of its result. I notice the birds, all fluffed up into little balls of feathers, sitting patiently in the warm sun and gently on the new, sparkling snow and I am awed by the power of nature. 

Is this not what we are all trying to achieve in our “art of meditation”; the art of appreciation?  Well, my friends, if you do not take that appreciation out of your meditation room and into the world, what are you really appreciating?

I have been meditating for many years now. I have been teaching meditation for many years now.  But still, I have not found any meditation – silent or otherwise – that feels the way our world feels when it has done its work.  This, for me, is about letting the outside world, IN.  Letting the world, the earth if you will, come inside of you. Not into your heart as if you are trying to “learn” something or “process” something. But letting it come to touch you, just touch you, on the inside. Not threatened by the blizzarding snow, but standing in it and letting it reach you in ways you had not thought possible. This, for me, is beyond being “green” minded. It is about a communion with the world, the earth and all of the nature that surrounds.

I experience emotions and I allow them. I am awed, and then I laugh at all the snow and wonder about it. I let myself be the little girl who always, always got excited when it snow. And even now, the woman I have become has to smile when it snows, I just have to!

My reason for writing today – find something out in our natural world to help You see the world as You have not seen it before; to help You focus that wondrous appreciation that You have on something that is beautiful, seemingly with no reason, except to be beautiful. The snow does not sparkle so someone will notice. It sparkles because it can. What can you do, just because you can; with no one to impress and no one to help?

I urge you to stand in the snow in the next snowstorm and watch it dance with wind. I urge to stand in the silence afterwards, to allow a new kind of silence into your life. And if you have no snow, I send my images to contemplate and ask you to find something natural in your weather or world around, to stand quietly in and observe and see what you find.  Allow Your Self to see the world in a way You have not seen it before.  Look for it, be in it and then, be joyful that it is possible to do so.  Let what You see everyday, offer itself to You in a surprising different way, just ‘cause it can.

My view from here.