Drifting

This morning I decided to try a variation on my usual sitting meditation. I just decided to hold an important word in my mind. This is a variation on a technique called "centering prayer". (See more about that by clicking HERE). You find an important word in a text -- or in this case the image just "came" to me. As I held onto the word and the image of driftwood, of course, my mind wandered. I brought it back to my word -- "driftwood". This process continued for a while when it suddenly occurred to me to notice WHERE my mind drifted instead of the simple fact THAT it drifted. My mind drifted to an art experience I had had over the week-end, then it drifted to drawing, then it drifted to cooking -- all things I love to do! I took it as a sign that I should let myself "drift" more often!

In that frame of mind I went to my sketch book and just decided to let my pencil "drift" over a page that had some colored squares painted on it. I thoroughly enjoyed just experimenting with what kind of marks I could make with a pencil -- without having anything in mind. It was just an experiment. I looked back in my sketchbook and found a couple of other times I had just played around with some art tool and made "marks". There is something satisfying in doing this for me. I put on some music and called it a new form of morning meditation.

And then I remembered a time this summer when I encountered a huge cache of driftwood on a beach and I wrote a poem;

DRIFTING

I walk along the beach

and discover a collection

of driftwood. Grayed,

cracked, broken...

beautiful.

Beautiful in a way

that its original form

would never have understood.

Separated from its original purpose,

no longer a part of a tree --

transported by the sea

to a far distant shore,

bleached by time and sun.

Oh friends, we could embrace

such transformation,

be prized for our cracks

and crags. Allow

ourselves to drift

into a new sort of beauty

as the years roll by.