Dynamic Meditation

 Wednesday November 24th

I arose at 5:00am and dressed for the first meditation of the day.  Dynamic meditation commences sharply at 6:00am and the doors are locked to all late comers.  I exit the apartment under in the weak strains of light that usher in daybreak.  At the main junction I see the scattered remains of last night.  A confetti of red and white casings;evidence of the nights revelry.  I walk down the quiet street, my only companions are the street sweepers. It is blissfully quiet, and I slow down my pace, so as to savor the

I am dressed in my red gown, and so I head straight for the main auditorium to join about forty other people.  The dynamic meditation is a synthesis of five distinct elements that allow for tremendous discharge of held energy.  And thought I am somewhat skeptical as to its merits, I enter whole hartedly into the process. At first breathing out forcefully and erratically, then screaming and shouting as If I had gone mad, followed by jumping with my arms held above my head to the sound of a mantra, to standing motionless and finally dancing.  The whole sequence takes an hour.   At the end of it I felt as if some restraining chord had snapped and I was aware of energy pouring into the left side of my body. I felt a sewing together of the two sides of me, as though I had been off balance and had not known it.

The following meditation is Vipassana, in which the meditator is required to sit motionless for 45 minutes focused upon the breath, followed by a walking meditation in which the attention is solely placed upon the feet.  during the period of silence a facilitator walks around with a cane and may tap a meditator on the head to bring them back to alertness. It begins and my mind is restless and I spend much of the time listening for when the stick might fall upon my head. When it occurs, it is so imperceptible, as to exist in the realm of the imagined. Yet is is enough to bring me back to the breath.
We begin the walking meditation and I examine how my feet fall onto the floor.  I notice that I have a propensity for walking on the outer edges of my feet.  It is another revelation.

Later still I enter the talking to the body mind meditation. Here I am required to talk to my body and ask of it what it needs. I receive a clear message to relax and stop gripping onto life.  I am gripping onto my body, as if it were a tightly clenched fist; this pattern of holding is preventing energy from flowing freely.  I am suddenly back in the store where I spent time one afternoon watching a Saleem Khan film with two young shop assistants. The first question I am asked is am I married and do I have children. 

The shock registered on the young man's face when I answered no children, brought me abruptly to the memory of having had two miscarriages.  Again, I enter into that eternal well of sadness.  Unable to reconcile with not being a mother, I had carried the grief for many years. Pent up emotions that had all but overwhelmed me, were dumped into the purse of my womb. This, so that I could survive.   It is the tight pair of shoes that you wear to a party, and when you get home you throw them off and experience immediate relief. Years later, when diagnosed with fibroid tumors, it was not surprising that there were two tumors the size of a four month pregnancy each.  My grief had taken on physical expression.  I do not know why I have brought you into this "The Temple of My Familiar" to steal the title of Alice Walker's book;except that in the speaking of it, I let go of this clenched fist.