Meditation. It’s not just your grandmother’s thing anymore. It’s not hippies surrounded in the smoke of inhaled and exhaled weed crosslegged on a peace blanket a few feet from a broken down psychedelic bus parked in a field owned by some rich guy with a soft heart and being used for a hide-and-seek game by a cluster of dirt caked naked children.
Now it’s “The Thing.” It’s still a hippie thing, sure, but it is also a rich guy thing, and a working woman’s thing, and a family thing. It’s a middle class thing. It’s a corporate thing. A sports thing. Even a school children thing. It’s a Black thing, a White thing, a Hispanic thing, an Asian thing, a Persian, Slavic, Jewish, Nordic thing... Stressed out executives use it, as do stressed out prisoners. Hey, everyone gets stressed. And some get depressed. It works for that, too.
The psychedelic busses have since been painted white or brown and are rotting in a junkyard, the peace blankets are housing moths in a corner thrift market somewhere, the weed is smoked in brick walled woodsy cafe’s, and the dirty little naked kids grew up to be Lawyers, Politicians, CEO’s, Judges, Cops, Business Owners, Engineers, Programers, Architects, and School Teachers.
But meditation is the same. It clears the mind. It did for the Hippies, as it does for the Hipsters, and as it likely did for the Preppies and the Yuppies. And even farther back, for the Bohemians, The Nature Boys, and the Beat Generation. And farther back, still. It works for the I.T. guy across the hall, for the barista at the coffee shop… you get it.
So I spent some time doing it tonight. I found a quiet place, this time a still jacuzzi. The water and air temperature was nearly equal, so I felt as though I was no where at all. It was very comfortable. I did my breathing exercises and eventually put myself into the “Now,” a place that is really nice to be as there is no past or future to weigh thoughts down. I then opened my eyes and took in the “Now” of it all. The water was clear and motionless. But I did not see “water,” I saw, instead, “time.” I saw levels of it, starting of course with the surface, then transitioning down to the plaster floor, and then past that to the earth beneath, and deep below that to what once was. A few dead bugs floated by on the surface. Once living creatures, they had met their demise most likely earlier that day. They had buzzed and then they died. In the distance I could hear the buzzing of what I determined to be motorcycles. They buzzed at a rate that sounded like they were traveling way too fast, and someone will probably die. Just like the bugs floating by me did. The earth will cover them up, just like the bugs that floated by will eventually be covered up by earth, after the pool guy scoops them out and puts them in a trash bag and the trash guy takes the dumpster out to his truck and hauls its contents to the dump.
But then, what was a mile below me, or two or three or ten? More life that was, things that buzzed, but not just bugs, there were things that gurgled or roared, and thought. The earth is constantly moving, shaking, and covering things up. A thousand years from now I’ll be way under, as will you, dear reader, and someone then will be sitting in a still jacuzzi meditating and see, in their “Now,” the levels of life and wonder what buzzed and gurgled and roared and thought miles below them.
Chris Plante
July 21, 2017