So I took some time to pause and meditate this morning.  I sat down and listened to the cars on the road pass by.  At times I day dreamed about prior times in which I had lead some meditations and was maybe a bit annoyed with all the extraneous noise. And then as I continued to hear a car engine buzz off into the distance I started appreciated how these mechanized sounds intruded into an otherwise calm space of birds chirping in trees and quiet breezes, because their intrusion were like gentle wake-up calls bringing me back into reality of now.

I mean meditating in complete serenity could just help you escape the reality of “what’s here now”.   And you might want to escape “how ever things are now” as opposed to “how you wish things were”.  And if that’s what you want you might be irritated with how things actually are.  While serenity is wonderful and great, the reality is where I live I happen to live on a somewhat busy road and so this was a moment to embrace the gift I have been given to be here in this space and this time, being able to carve out an alcove of  a sensation of having “all the time in the world” for myself in the constraints of a 15 minute meditation.  And so I meditated with the intermittent drone of passing cars to “prick” me back into my physical body in the present, being rather ordinary, with no agenda in mind waiting for the 15 minute timer on the stove to beep, telling me my slowly simmering oatmeal was done.

And then my mind shifted to the now of “what is”.  I chose to meditate in awareness of now versus trying to drift out of my body.  And then I became aware of fear and terror.  I recall a time back in 2011 when I took a Core Energetics Personal Intensive and recall a moment when my defenses were dropped and I felt this cushion press against a vertebrae in the center of my upper back and I was both in agony and overwhelming terror.  I was gently asked to stay in that space longer, and I found myself begging and screaming to let me stop “please no more!”  Within minutes I was told I could stop and was helped off my back and the pain and terror vanished … and I was left with the thought of “what was that?!”

So in my meditation today I brought myself to explore that space of overwhelming terror.  Images of being stabbed without warning in my back arose.  Feelings of shocking betrayal from behind, with no advanced warning, with no idea of who or where the betrayal was coming from.  I’m a total sitting duck of vulnerability for anyone to “sack” me.  And then I upped the anti and thought about what would really scare me: … SPIDERS!!

Many large spiders crawling on the floor and all over me and then most terrifyingly entering inside of my body and just eating me apart … Then I’m back in the present, fully intact, no spiders.  … Then just one really huge monstrous spider larger than me approaching me from the front!

I focused on the sensations in my body.  There was some tension in my belly, the area of the third chakra.  But surprisingly the greatest tension was in my heart.  This surprised me.  I was most terrified that this monstrous spider would eat my tender heart … and I started to cry.  I was not so much afraid of losing my life and my body, but rather losing  my so precious heart.

The spider grabs my heart and takes it in and I cry.  And so I begged to that spider: “Please don’t eat my heart!  Go ahead and eat the rest of my body but please spare my heart!”  And then images of loved ones I care for arise and I hear myself say “Please take me instead … just spare them … please take me instead”  For they are my heart.  Spare my heart.

And then the spider pulls out my unharmed heart from his mouth and returns it back to me almost bowing before me.  Although I’m willing to let him kill me and eat the rest of my body  in exchange for the return of my heart  … the spider respectfully retreats from me.

And then I’m alone in my meditation.  I feel more here in my physical body.  I feel strangely more renewed and transformed from this short meditation. I am so greatful for the luxury of just being here now sitting on a floor, just being alive.  And then the 15 minute timer beeps. I get up. My oatmeal is ready.

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