Maybe ten thousand, maybe more.

Every morning I meditate in some way, most mornings it is a private event that would go unnoticed by other people.  But Dory and Jon, and Mo and Alle and the others when they are around and our space is shared--I dont mind being my whole, true self in front of all of them.

I keep a little travelling alter, again most wouldn't recognize the trinkets and baubles as holy to me.  But anywhere I have a space that is mine for more than overnight, I pull it out so my little corner can be alive, and "anywhere" becomes home.  Because home to me means silent and sacred, and is really about what lives inside. 

Some days it is discipline to approach and refind me, but others I can feel the deep inside place stirring with my own instructive wisdom and magic.  Today was one of those days.  The sun was shining hot on my legs on Jon's floor in Oakland, and outside the blue sky was so clear it was hard to tell there was a window-sill.  I was sleepy and smiley and had a deep sighing stretch when the quiet place put forth a little vision to my consciousness.  I was in the ocean, and a great monster wave, so mighty and long and also round, was preparing to crash down.  It was slow coming but the kind that could panic me if I didn't react smoothly and all at once.  I wasn't surfing, this wasn't about the endurance-teaching lesson of consistency you learn paddling out.  This was just me, ocean-me of 30 plus years, and so in this flash of vision my body long and lean dove way, way down, and caught the under-rushing water and let it pull me completely under the wave.  I didn't see myself when I came out, just the finesse of moving deeply at the bottom and all the way through. And more important I felt the natural assurance and calming feeling that comes with knowing how to move.  How the force of going under pulls then surfaces you out beyond where the waves crest and crash, how then you can relax into the gentle updown rocking of the forming motion.  Which is what I love the most in the ocean--way out there just floating on top.

I've done that a thousand times, maybe ten thousand, maybe more.  In real life, in Ocean City, Maryland, in the Atlantic my teacher-sea.  I love it, I miss it, I crave it like food.  But most of all, I am honored that my deep wisdom used the mama ocean today for me to hear its call.  Because this time in my life will pass me easily in to floating happily along if right now I just dive deep, deep down.  Which is what mediation does, in fact it's exactly what I use it for: quiet time and space to celebrate my wiser self, by just meeting me where I am at every day.  The sacred ordinariness, the consistency and instruction that comes as result from letting that daily meeting lead me deep inside.  The happiness that is always present when I surface back out again.