A Meditative Walk at the Franciscan Monastery in Kennebunkport

I stroll to an outdoor shrine

in honor of Our Lady’s visit to Lourdes.

Two elderly women occupy

space on the sun-bleached benches, lips

moving, eyes closed.

I ease down in the front row

and gaze upward at Mary’s white marbled

likeness. The serenity here penetrates

instantly. I begin

to relax as tears of release spring

from my eyes.

On a woodland path I pass

an Erma Bombeck look-alike in pink;

big sparkly cross dangles

below her breasts. She emits

a shy hello, her heady perfume

trails along like a bride’s train.

Mushrooms – honey and golden, sculpted

like stacks of pancakes — rest

atop nature’s platter, made punky

by last week’s rains.

To the coastal trail

I go where mosquitoes

cannot fly in the quickening salt breeze.

In the sun

now on a grassy point, absorbing

the heat from a green wooden Adirondack chair

I watch a blonde in her canary yellow kayak struggle

against these stiff winds. I am facing

west

my most auspicious direction says the ancient

Chinese Bagua. I conclude

a friar must come to this sacred

spot each evening, to watch

the sun slip below the trees

(at least that’s what I would do).

If I close my right eye

and squint my weak left, the inlet

looks like a razzle dazzle Christmas light show

that never

never

ends.

Kylie’s Chance motors by chock full of sightseers

listening to the helmsman’s steady cadence

of interesting tid bits about The Port.

Grebes paddle this way and that

sucking the grasses near the rocks. A pair

moves near me as if to visit; and then

away again.

Hinckley’s, Zodiacs, Boston Whalers and the double-masted schooner Eleanor,

cruise by with colorfully dressed

families, happy

against a deep blue sky. A waft

of fried clams drifts over from Arundel Wharf.

Ummm. My stomach responds.

But

I make no move

to leave. I feel

deliciously pinned to this spot,

to this

stillness.

My body and spirit have been

waiting for this

moment for an eternity.

On the way out I stop at the statue

of Kateri Tekakwitha, ‘Lily of the Mohawks’.

Beneath a granite rock on her alter

I place a note, a declaration

of my state

of mind: “I am drenched

in Your grace and it slows

my pace.

I know

I know

I know.”

Suggested Practice: Meditation Walk

Carve out some time to meander in a favorite place.

Have no destination in mind.

Simply allow whatever catches your attention to guide your pace.

Move when you become aware that it is time to move.

Pause when an inner *something* asks that you pause.

There is nothing that needs to be accomplished.

Notice what happens to your breath; your mind; your body; your spirit.

Inspiration for this walk: Sabbath ~ Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives, by Wayne Muller, ©1999, Bantam Books.

©2008, Jennifer Comeau. All rights reserved.

Last week I got 1,800,000 links when I googled “Chinese opening ceremony girl singer”.

It has been all over the news, with Chinese and international voices crying foul over the “lip syncing incident” at the beautiful opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in China.

Yes, it certainly seems “unfair” and “disingenuous” to show a “perfect” (the Chinese have used that word a lot) Lin Miaoke singing “Hymn to the Motherland”, rather than the real singer, Yang Peiyi.

The Chinese have a saying: ‘Gold and jade on the outside, but just cotton on the inside’. Hmmm. Is that applicable here? Perhaps. What strikes me is how quickly the world jumped to criticism and what appears to me to be hypocritical judgment about this incident. This happens everywhere. Obese people are continually discriminated against. A study published in the June 2004 Journal of Applied Psychology demonstrates that tall people make more money. (“The results suggest that tall individuals have advantages in several important aspects of their careers and organizational lives.”) The plain fact is that in spite of pithy sayings like, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts”, the world’s current definition of success seems to give merit to physical qualities more often than what lies beneath.

David Cooperider, founder of Appreciative Inquiry states: “We grow in the direction of the questions we ask”. With that in mind I ask the question: What is possible if each of us were only to see the beauty inside?

I look into his youthful 71 year old face as he says, “The hardest part is getting quiet, isn’t it?” This, in response to my informing him that I too am a creative type: A singer-songwriter with a debut CD, Feed the Tribe. A CD only weeks off the injection molding replication machines.

Oh yes, Martin. Over and over again it’s the hardest part. He reaches into his knapsack and carefully selects a poem: Blue Lesson.

An excerpt: “how to come home again and again with what look like empty hands, the gift – and there is one, even when I don’t see, don’t listen – how to hold this nothing, loving its flavor, the scent”.[1]

Thank you, Martin Steingesser for your gift of beauty and insight.

On the heels of completing the artistic accomplishment of a music CD (a huge undertaking), and what by many accounts would be considered a successful launch – sold out CD Release, songs played on four local radio stations, and press galore – I am asking, “Now What?” And experiencing unsettledness, a lack of certainty about the ways my music is manifesting for some greater good. In short: I have to get quiet and BE, letting go the drive to DO for just a little while.

One would think I’d be better at getting quiet after experiencing the richness and honesty that emerges as a result. Songs have poured out of me at times like these, where I am simply holding the pen and staying out of the way. Why is it always a struggle to get to that wellspring, I muse. Because your mind fears what your inner voice will say. It doesn’t have control over that source. Bingo!

Perhaps it is because I crave the wisdom that lies there – in spite of how difficult it is to receive at times – that I host a retreat workshop entitled, “An Exploration with Women at the Edge”. It is a time-out-of-time experience with women who are pushing their own comfort zones; women who are changing the world in the way they uniquely can.

During the workshop, we explore what it means to hold the nothing — the not yet manifested — with intent and allowing. With grace. Or at least we TRY! As a host, I am also a full participant. Like the lead climbers on Himalayan mountain expeditions, I still have to do the work myself, even though I’ve done it before and I have a map of the terrain. Sometimes I’m better at it than others. One thing is for certain: I’m still learning to get quiet, to love the flavor of nothing.