When its spiritual growth that I’m after, a balance between consistency and flexibility serves best. If it’s too rigid, for instance, my morning routine breaks every few weeks. I need to keep it simple and supple and strong. Right now I have one commitment in the morning: That I engage in a morning practice. And I have a menu of morning practices that I pick from depending on what I feel that I need, and on the actual time at hand.
One of the things on my menu is a meditation in six movements. I made it up for when I need help at the threshold between days. It helps me move from the residue of what proceeded into the potential of what’s ahead.
My RTDB meditation goes like this:
Light a candle or put on some soft music, or don’t do either of those things. Close your eyes or stare at the corner or at your toes or at the branches of nearby trees. You can sit down, or lie down, or stand up, or stretch, or go for a walk. (If you go for a walk, make sure you’ve extinguished the candle.) Any of these postures, it doesn’t matter, just quiet yourself, and then, review the day before, by recalling these things…
Place notes
Make note in your mind of the places you occupied and moved through. Where were you throughout the day before? What were the place names? Were you in Massachusetts or Maine, or both? Were you near a mountain? Which mountain? Were you near a beach? Which ocean? Were you inside of the sanctuary of a big church in Cambridge? Were you, at some point during the day before, in a low-seated comfy chair in the living room of a house on Avon Hill? Was the weather in New England unseasonably warm? How did the light fall, just so, through the stained-glass windows? What did the room smell like?
Bass notes
Make note in your heart of the ways that the day and its happenings occupied and moved through you.
How did you feel throughout the day before? What were the undercurrents of your emotional experience? Did they shift after breakfast, or after that interaction with the barista, or after that phone call with your friend in Asheville? Or did they keep pretty steady through the day? Your feelings are a color. What colors colored your day? Your feelings are a genre. How did the day’s drama flow?
Moment of courage
When were you a hero? You did something brave yesterday, probably several somethings. I don’t have examples, because courage is incredibly personal. Be honest and generous. What was one brave thing? It’s not arrogant, it’s just you that’s cheering you on here. One simple brave thing. Hold it up like a trophy in your heart.
Moment of revision
Anne Lamott tells of three basic prayers: Help, thanks, and wow. Oops might be a fourth. When did you oops? Or get oops-ed upon? The idea here isn’t to wallow, or seethe. The idea is to notice that life is tinged with shadow and light; to notice that you can be brave (which you’ve just previously noticed) and imperfect; that life can be glorious and gnarly.
Recall something from the day before that you would change if you could. You can not, of course, return to the day before and actually edit what you did or what happened. You can, however, gather up, like water from the spigot of your own lived experience, the happenings of a day—no matter the extent to which they approached and approximated your idea of your best day or your best version of you—and pour that water into the potted plant that is today’s experiment at life. Recall one small moment of revision, and then, move on.
Moment of making
What did you make? Just one thing. Sure, no doubt, you made lots of things. But right now just punctuate your heart with pride over one of your day’s creations. Maybe you made a friend. Maybe you made a painting or an actual sculpture or a delicious sandwich. Maybe you made love. One moment of creative expression and collaboration with the spirit of genius. One moment of offering, of contribution to the world.
Moment of more
Which moment, among all the rest of the day’s moments, would you have loved to stretch out, to have paused time, to have lingered in?
All of that happened. Now, let the day suffice. Take six deep breaths, one for each of the movements in this meditation. And on the sixth exhale step—or leap or tiptoe or front flip or belly flop—into the day ahead.
