Monday Meditations - The Rock

Arrange your meditative space for your comfort. Focus on the photograph or pick up your favorite crystal or stone and hold it in your hand. Take a deep breath and begin relaxed belly breathing.

The day is mildly warm. You pause and listen to the birds warbling and chirping in the secluded branches of the pines and cedars. The sun warms your shoulders and back as you breathe in the fresh clean scent of sun soaked pine.

You raise your eyes to the puffs of white clouds that float silently in the summer blue sky. The water is calm and seems to go on forever meeting and blending with the gauzy clouds. Your gaze returns to the rocky shore. Scattered at your feet are rocks; all colors, all shapes, and all sizes that were dropped as gifts from the melting glaciers long, long ago.

You breathe in and out with every step, pausing, breathing, gazing at the variety of rocks around your feet. Flat stepping stones carry you across the reflective shallow pools that puddle around the bases of the huge sun baked boulders.

You find a rock that captures your interest and take a seat on a nearby boulder. It just fits in the palm of your hand. A map of continents takes shape on the flat bottomed side of the heavy rock. It is rough and flecked with gray, black, bluish green, and white. This rock intrigues you with its white patterns that run like rivers on its surface.

Slowly you rotate the rock in your hand. Each side tells you a different story; each side links you to another time of peace, calm, and contentment. Your finger traces the river which seems to open up into a lake scattered with islands. You look away at a dragonfly hovering close to the surface. It summons an old memory.

The paddle is in your hands as you sit in the bow of the canoe. Rhythmically you sweep the paddle through the water, raise it, and pull it forward through the air. You pause watching watery drops fall from the edge like glistening strings of diamonds. You dip it once again into the water. Each stroke releases scores of cascading diamonds that create rainbows in the air. You feel the breeze as each stroke pushes you forward.

A fish breaks the surface of the water and returns to it with a splash that offers up more glittering watery diamonds that pitter patter down creating ever expanding circles. You follow the fish to the old trees hugging the shore. Their dangling branches and leaves kiss the water and offer you their cooling shade. Tiny fish dart between their ancient roots as limbs creak with each light breeze. Your eyes shift their focus as the lake bottom becomes a mirror, reflecting the tree and the sun glittering through the leaves. Rested you paddle on following the shore knowing that there are endless areas to explore. You pause again dipping your hand into the cold spring fed lake. You take a sip, and then allow the water to fall through your fingers like a dripping string of diamonds back into the water.

Once again you sit rock in hand knowing you may save the memory of this place and that you may return. May you peacefully return to this place and time.