It is early. You've just spent several hours asleep. The time has come to begin your next day.
Is this sacred time? Should it be? Could it be?
In the past year, I have started my days in one of three ways:
1) Waking at 5:45am, dressing for a run, running several miles with my dog, pausing for an hour to throw the ball for him, doing push-ups and sit-ups when he rests, return home, shower, begin work by 8am.
2) 5-minute snooze button, as many as 10 times. Montage of mild depression. Finally settling on feeding the dog, or smoking a cigarette, as the motivating factor to get upright.
3) Mad scramble to get dressed and get to the airport/appt/etc., compressing what takes 45 minutes on a relaxed day into 20, leaving home without key items such as phone, breakfast, belt.
Which brings us to Korea.
The majority of the South Korean adult population participate in a ritual known as Morning Calm. They rise with the sun, venture outside or to a sheltered indoor location in inclement weather, and commune with nature and each other. Martial arts practice, stretching, squatting and chatting quietly, yoga, fishing. Then they go to work and create products that are squeezing ours off the shelves. Kia, Hyundai, LG.
I'm not saying SK has it figured out--far from it. But their morning ritual beats the typical American version of shower/breakfast/coffee/traffic, or kids/maybe-shower/pack lunches/maybe-coffee/feel unwhole, or any combination thereof.
One objection that's sure to surface: "BUT MY KIDS. YOU DON'T GET IT."
Ah, so.
To which I will respond with questions. Can you not conceive of any way to find any time for yourself on any mornings, ever? Has life, or your perception of its boundaries, become so utterly compressed that you cannot find a shred of good time for yourself, or negotiate some trade-off with your spouse (presuming that either of you see how fucking awesome it would be to gather yourself out in the dawn light)?
(Keep in mind that I am trying to get back in the mode of Morning Calm myself--I am miles away from it now. But I am looking out for us, and sick of our excuses.)
Begin again,
Jumpy
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Every morning, like clockwork - unless I'm sick - 25 minutes of counting meditation, followed by 10 minutes of lying down quietly. This happens as soon as possible after rising. Talking is kept to a minimum beforehand. Thinking, too.
ReplyDeleteWe're lucky - we have a meditation room. Faces east to the Cascade mountains.
Finn is delivered to his dad and brother.
Attire is tended to. Silk pajamas are a no go - don't want to be sliding off the meditation cushion. What temperature is it? Layer correctly. You don't want to be interrupted by chilly shoulders, etc. Teeth are brushed, cold water is splashed on face. Can't do too much here or the mind gets going.
To the room. Doors are locked. To the rug. Hello, Buddha on the little chest of drawers. Hello, mountains. To the cushion. Set timer. Forcefully inform self that for the next 25 minutes, self will focus only on numbers. Adjust posture. Find sweet spot. Ruin it starting timer. Approximate sweet spot. Inhale: "One". Exhale: "Two". Et cetera, to ten. And back to one.
First few sets generally perfect. And then thoughts drift in. Few at first, mundane. Easily ignored. Time and numbers pass and then they come on strong like an opium dream. Comfortable, insidious drowning. I don't know I'm drowning until I become vaguely aware of something. What is that overhead, a seven? Did someone say seven? Oh, no! The surface! That's the surface! I was having a conversation with a smiling phantom, and didn't feel myself sink.
Effort is applied. Self is projected safely out of water onto rock, possibly. Firm. Numbers. Quiet. Peace. Vague, uninvited triumphant feeling. Or there's a struggle. Thoughts swarm: sexy, upsetting, inviting, technicolor. They wrap around my legs like seaweed.
At 24 minutes and change, my body anticipates the timer and tenses up, reacts to a loud noise it hasn't heard yet. My eardrums recoil. Within a few seconds, there's a shrill barrage of beeps.
Cushions readjusted, timer reset for 10 minutes, I lie down on my side. The directive is to bring attention to the breath if thoughts begin to swarm, but no more counting is necessary. 8 times out of 10 it's a goddamn Thinking Festival. This part of my meditation could use some work.
I will be doing this until I'm dead.
Thank you, Jumpy. Like my ears, you anticipated the timer of my next post (first one here), which was going to be on this very topic.
I might be some kind of fucking woodland fairy but I do love the practical above all, so I'm delighted this came up. Because while the rockers are rocking their cocks and the Koreans are out making the most of the dawn, actual life is happening. Not the test run, but the test itself. I would like us all to ace it. And I think we should cheat. Lemme see your paper.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure how this blog transformed itself into a self-help circle jerk but my sad little life follows a typical morning ritual:
ReplyDelete- acknowledge/deny the hangover
- try to remember to say the Lord's prayer
- get up and do all the shit that I have to do
(The alcoholism is getting better.)
Well at least it's a circle jerk. I only bristle because I've never been a good enough person to publicly participate in the help yourself moments.
ReplyDeleteWell.
Fuck that.
To me the point is constancy. Over time, we get the warm, strange comfort of our quiet selves.
Things happen, the kinds of things that make patterns and ritual shrink and run for their lives. It's the getting back. Getting back with a version our yourself that is not the same as it was before and is perhaps far less pleasant company.
The Chinese do a Morning Calm. They call it morning exercises. Same thing. At dawn the streets fill with people. Being quiet. Not silent but turned down. No traffic. No business. They do whatever comes to mind. Some of them ballroom dance. Tai Chi. Meditate. One man got down on all fours and crawled backward while he quietly barked. Starting every day as dog.
Ah. But the proof is in the pudding. My morning ritual:
If I have slept at all, a gift I am granted at whim by the powers that be, I am up at 6:30. I immediately make the bed. I turn on the shower and think about how cold the tile floor is while the water warms. And then in my most indulgent, wasteful, ugly American way I stand in the shower for at least twenty minutes. I do all the usual things, plus brush my teeth, but most of the time I close my eyes and feel the water. Once I get out I am within 10 minutes of having to leave the house so all the calm and quiet is immediately fucked by mad rushing, swearing and, usually, some minor injury.
I gather this could be improved.
Good of you not to mind Livingstone overmuch. He's a cranky old black man some days, like Sanford. Other days he's a cranky old white man, like Don Knotts. Once a month he's a nice beige man, full of manic energy and worldshaking ideas. Like Obama.
ReplyDeleteThis post is a little self-helpy, sure--many humans other than Tina need some help with calm in the dawn hours. Waking is our small reenactment of birth, our chance to make ourselves new and better. Or continue to drag knuckles.
Oh, and I think it's a little early to say what this blog "is."
Dick.
I also stand in the shower when I have a nice shower. Many days, like today, it flits across my mind to shower, and I don't get around to it. Why? No, why?
Tuna, bravo to you for giving it some thought, creating some boundaries for yourself and winning the personal morning war.
Sara summed up my thoughts with "I gather...". Anyone else on morning ritual? What's important is that we're thinking of how to make it better.
So now let's talk about racism! Who wants to start the post?