Pick up your pens. It is time to lay down the assignment for the week, for the blog.
I did not think about this much, it came to me in meditation Saturday and I thought I had another week to think, and besides we are not supposed to be thinking when we meditate, just watching the thoughts, so I put aside the pen and paper and now on this victorious Wednesday morning I have forgotten all the grandness, recall only the most basic.
What I want to propose is that this week we all hold something. Hold something for ten minutes, or it could be fifteen and you could get by on five or seven, but for the sake of uniformity, let’s say ten. I do not mean something like an idea, a belief. I do not mean holding someone in our thoughts. I mean literally taking the five fingers of your right or left hand, picking up an object and holding it.
Let your fingers clutch, let your palm get sweaty, caress the front and the back of the object. You can move the object up and down your arm, if you want, rub it along your chest, squeeze it in your armpit. Do not taste it, do not smell it, and if you put it near your ear, for our ears are very sensuous, try not to listen. Only feel what it has to say.
The object can be something ordinary, like a toothbrush, or exotic, like a tube of toothpaste. This morning it feels like everything is exotic, doesn’t it? Hold the piece. Then write about it.
As an exercise, I’d suggest that you put the piece behind you while you write, that you do not look at it. Write from the feeling, from the sensation that was picked up by your finger cells.
The object should not be living, breathing, but it can be of nature, does not have to be – pardon the expression – manmade. Your choosing is your own, you can pick up something off your desktop, or you take time to think about what you want to hold. It doesn’t matter.
If this seems lame and too lucy goosey it doesn’t matter. Just hold something, and hold on to it when you write. Ten minutes holding, then go.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
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