Day Two: Favorite Things-Meditation



My Sister's Buddha

 "Tranquility hides in small places ,and when found must  be treasured, because you know it's a phantom that will slip away again." Diane Ackerman

 

I practice meditation.  Not often enough to receive the full benefit I believe is possible but often enough to know it can have a profound and instant effect on my mood and overall physical well being.  I don't subscribe to a lot of rules about it either, believing that there are different ways to do it and right ways and wrong ways for the individual but no one set universal way.  But that is just my take on it.  I meditate to relax, to release, to reconnect, and to calm.  Meditation raises my energy level which may seem to contradict calmness, but it is more a release of energetic endorphins I suppose, a feeling of glowing. 

 

My first experience with meditation of any form came in college in a Human Behaviors course.  Our instructor talked about time management and about carving time out for ourselves.  In retrospect I see that I had a ton to learn here had I just paid more attention to the lesson instead of the grade.  Being hard headed means that I have come to some of life's gifts much later than others. He was trying to teach us to seek out quiet moments for ourselves, so we could reconnect with the core essence of who we are, so we could recalibrate and restore.  I remember laying on the carpeted floor in his class room, lights out & limbs sprawling, as he talked us through relaxing starting at our toes and wiggling up to our eye balls as we relaxed every fiber of our being. I fell asleep at some point, just briefly, and jarringly woke up from that falling feeling where you "catch yourself" that feels like jumping out of your skin. It was amazing!

 

When I first began taking yoga I lived for the very end of class when we would gather in a circle, each of us sitting cross legged on the edge of our cushions.  Slowly we would breath in and as we released the breath we would release the tension with it gentling rolling our neck from side to side and releasing our shoulders.  And then came the OM.  In unison we would begin to OM, our teachers voice deep and powerful, vibrating outward to our own little OM's rattling in our chests until eventually it was one golden OM, no one's voice recognizable from another.

 

Sometimes I use meditation like a prayer to send out positive energy to those on my mind, visualizing healing and lightness of being for them.  Sometimes I look up You-Tube meditations that are guided and follow along. 

 

Right now I am really enjoying Toning. Toning is the creation of extended vocal sounds on a single vowel in order to experience the sound and its effects in other parts of the body.  I consider it meditation because it creates for me a profound amount of peace and energy, and I do it intentionally as a recalibration and cleansing...it feels like the vibrations from the sounds create space within me and release negative energy and feelings.  

The first time I heard of toning was in Diane Ackerman's One Hundred Names for Love:  A Stroke, A Marriage, and the Language of Healing.  She described how she made these noises upon rising in the morning.  I was reading the book on a semi-deserted beach and decided to give it a try.  I immediately began smiling.  In part because I felt so silly, and also because I felt like a whale or dolphin calling out to her sisters in the sea.  It was the setting most likely.  I did some research on what I was doing after we returned from our trip and learned those sounds are called Toning.

 

Below are some tips on Specific Toning Exercises.  I typically just go through the vowels A-E-I-O-U as this is easy for me to remember without referring to any materials, but the intent behind the vowels is energy specific  and can help with specific needs. 

 

Vowels and Energy

There are many vowel sounds in the human language.

For toning we begin by focusing on several principal sounds. Remember, this is not a list of universal truths, just some traditional suggestions for you to begin with.

Vowel	Possible Attributes or Related Perceptions
UU ("who")	grounding, calming, relaxing, awareness of physicality, gives sensation of depth, base of spine
OH ("go")	conscious self-image, identity issues, solar plexus self-confidence, individuality
AH ("car")	centering, expanding, pleasant heartfelt emotions, gives sensation of breadth, heart area
EY ("pray")	self-expression, communication, listening throat and neck
EE ("knee")	energizing, awakening, mental and physical stamina, gives sensation of length, head
MM (humming, lips closed)	balancing, harmonizing and integrating, the subtlest and most powerful sound
Examples of vowel combinations for balancing and centering (to be vocalized as one continuous full-breath tone exhalation): "UU-AH-EE-MM" Balance and energize. Morning wakeup. "MM-EE-AH-UU" Balance and relax. Before bedtime.

Note: this is a list of just a few traditional suggestions to begin with. Your own awareness may be quite different; that's fine! These are just starting points. There is no "normal" toning experience, only "your" experience! With practice, your inner wisdom will guide you and tell you what vowels you need.

 

Do you practice any form of meditation?