Everybody's Meditating, why aren't you?

Catchy, no?

The truth is, I am meditating. Meditation is my closest friend, my dearly beloved. I was just wondering, if you haven't been meditating, lately, or maybe never, why not?

Here is what I know about meditation -
It has saved me, countless times.
When I have forgotten, resisted, or just failed to make time for it, unlike other relationships, meditation has never felt hurt, forsaken, or been resentful. Just the opposite.

I have been actively following a path of meditation, through all kinds of weather, for twenty-seven years now. We just had our anniversary in September.

Just this summer, meditation yielded up to me a whole new level of experience that has brought even greater peace, expansion and wonder than in all the previous years. I am more in love with meditation now than ever.

Sitting outside, early in the morning, listening to my breath moving quietly in and out, in and out, for some time, and then - two new things --

Breathing in my own discomfort, anger, loneliness, distraction, resentments, obsessions -
Breathing out  - ease, compassion.
Again.
And again.

Soon, my circle expands.
Breathing in pain, fear, cynicism, of people I know, and people I don't.
Far away, people tramping through dangerous, unfamiliar land, escaping war torn homes,
carrying only their children and the clothes on their backs. People who have lost faith, for generations.
Breathing in their fear, despair, rage, breathing out - ease, compassion.
Again. And again.

Then, the smooth bark of the trees beside me, their leaves, the growing, the dying, the young, the broken, and the breeze, carrying the scents of everything, the ocean at the end of my street, the cows in the field in between. The breath of it all, comes in, and goes out.

Thin, translucent skin. I am permeable tissue, wondering if the waves are speaking to us in a language we have not yet translated, if the pattern of reflected light on them is morse code for truths we have yet to understand about the places that the water has traveled and all that it knows. I am breathing out ease and compassion for the earth and the wounds we have created there.

Now, each day I cannot wait to meditate. And I think, everything, everywhere, is meditating, even if you think you aren't, look again. You are. Look, breathe, observe.
There you are, already, meditating.
Hello, welcome.