Meditating

This is from the Art Marks Challenge, prompt #9: Chevron. I noticed something today when I sat down to do this. My thoughts flowed.

I've attempted various types of meditation, with mediocre success. I tend to obsess. So when I do guided meditations the first time is usually wonderful, the second time I am thinking about what is coming next and oh boy this is my favorite part or oh huh I don't remember that from last time is this really the same meditation and so on. I've tried seated silent meditations — I've been told that you are supposed to practice just letting your thoughts wash through your mind, and honestly that's what I feel like when I am over-caffeinated so I never truly understood how that would be grounding. I guess I've done walking meditation but I usually have too many "ooooOOoOOoo look at THAT!" moments to actually feel like I am calming myself.

But today I set the timer, pulled out my paints and started creating this pattern. And my thoughts just flowed. Earlier political online chats, wondering if I logged out of my database work, thinking about a troublesome book project that is in the works, the bald eagle I saw yesterday, grocery list... and at the same time making spontaneous decisions about color and pattern and proportions of water to paint... and suddenly I had a brief moment of Ahhhhhhhhh.

Or maybe it should be oooooooohmmmmmmm.

Whatever. It was a moment. When everything was like... well... like rain. Thoughts just kept falling and falling, and trickling off.

And yeah, then it was over and I started wondering why I couldn't mix purple very well, and did I need to throw another log on the fire, and was my timer actually working? But hey, it happened.

And I mentioned the bald eagle — here it is, across the road, down into the field, in my favorite tree by the river.