Lotus

Be Still

Sit with this picture for a while. When you’re tempted to squirm or quit, just press on for a few more minutes. That’s how we strengthen our ability to focus. It’s exercising for the brain and calming for the nerves. Notice all the parts of the flower, then move past to the other parts of the photo. Enjoy the stillness. Maybe turn the notifications off for a minute. It’s your time.

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This beautiful lotus flower first caught my attention from the window of my bedroom in Bali while I was sitting cross-legged on the bed with a how-to-meditate recording speaking from my phone.

Pick a point to focus on, he said. Stare at it and don’t look away. How could I not pick that beauty? She unassumingly demanded my attention, sitting there in the middle of the rice paddy, the sole drop of colour.

Wonderful things happen when you sit still and observe.

Surface thoughts and worries ebb away giving space to deeper concerns and with any luck, wisdom, and clarity. It doesn’t take very long before it’s not about the flower, or focal point but about the state of your heart and mind. 

My body was in a lot of trouble while we were in Bali and I was doing my best to heal.

We arrived there with a glorious four-week agenda; to sit still and collect our thoughts and plan for the coming year and of course to enjoy the beautiful country. 

My thoughts about the year to come were scattered and I was having trouble focusing in any meaningful way on where my attention and energy should go for the coming year. We had just been to the Philippines, living on the beach for three weeks, and I was covered in hundreds of sand flea bites. They were open and oozing and bleeding and I was on my second round of very strong antibiotics to try to bring some healing. All of the pressure on my body had caused my blood pressure to soar to dangerous levels and that was really frightening for me. The pictures of traveling do not always tell the reality. Of course, I feel really blessed to be able to travel and wouldn’t trade it, but while traveling, life still happens. Sometimes it’s real and raw and hard. 

On this morning of meditation, my thoughts were able to move quickly past the discomfort of my body but not easily past my scrambled thoughts about what to do with the next year. What should I be focusing on? What should I learn? How can I serve other people? 

These were harder to turn off and move past, to turn my full attention only to look at the lotus, and to my breath. 

With some persistence, I got there. Meditation is called a practice for a reason. You try and fail and try again. And you DO get better at it. 

The Lotus

Glorious colour, surrounded by luscious green and pools of water. Thoughts wander. Back to the flower. Deeper into the flower. The petals and stamens and pistils. Breathe. 

After a while, probably 15 minutes, maybe less because meditation slows time right down, (sometimes 5 minutes feels like 30)  I realize… 

…she just sits there. 

Minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day. In that one spot, in this one field in this one country. She’s there. 

Her place in this world is magnificent and glorious and serene. It doesn’t look like a lot of work, to just be herself. And yet, she’s a wonder. 

I remember this thought occurring to me at the time and I remember it streamlining my thoughts about what I should do with the year to come. Striving ceased. Simplicity washed over me. I remember feeling joyful and hopeful and peaceful. There was clarity. 

Now here I am several years later, sitting with this picture again for the sake of preparing it for you.

This time we’re in the middle of a pandemic and we have been quarantined in our house in Qatar, in the August heat of the desert life that we are usually able to escape and I have a completely different experience. 

This time I cannot look at the flower for long; I am completely mesmerized by the water. I try to take in the other parts of the scene but the water has me captivated. And so I go with it. I let it take me away.  

I am always enamoured with water.  I could say a lot about its soft, gentle, path of least resistance that moves around trees and land but is actually cutting a path through rocks and time. It’s a thirst-quenching, cleansing, cooling, and refreshing sustainer of life that can also be the taker of life. My favourite thing about water is that it holds space for a whole world of life to be able to exist. Just by being. 

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Now, I’ll let you submerge yourself in the qualities of water and decide what it means to you. 

Or maybe you can’t take your eyes off of the leaves?

You go do your thing. We all have a place and purpose just by being. 

What do you see and feel?