PoM Office 18
Step 11
I had the most beautiful 11th step this morning.
I didn’t say or think words. I only heard melodies I was writing.
For most, these melodies would seem dissonant but, for me, they were delightful.
Thank you HP for expanding my definition of meditation.
PoM Office 19
HP,
I am so grateful to be consistently thin.
I just want to spend the whole day rejoicing.
PoM Office 20
The New Math…
If I carry one extra pound of fat on my body, at 2000 steps/mile, for a five mile run, I am leg-lifting an extra 10,000 pounds over the course of the run. And that’s how it currently feels when I run distance…like I am carrying 10,000 pounds.
PoM Office 21
Step 10:
As the COVID 19 pandemic slowly comes to a close I want to keep certain things we have learned from this experience these 17 months:
First, as always, that sobriety and abstinence come first regardless of what is happening in the world.
Secondly, that an emotionally honest community is strong enough to see me through anything.
Thirdly, that it is possible to heal from all addictions.
And, for me personally, I want to keep the precious hours that I spend daily, peacefully communing with my soul through music, as a practice of the 11th step for as long as I live… one day, three hours at a time.
PoM Office 22
“Meditation is something which can always be further developed. It has no boundaries.”
AA 12x12
Meditation started out, for me, sitting cross-legged, in a half lotus position in 1972 and just trying to not be distracted by my own thoughts.
Later that year I tried chanting “ Hare Krishna” after reading Gandhi’s favorite book the “Bhagavad Gita”…that repetitive centering prayer kinda pushed my thoughts out of the way.
After reading John Cage’s work I began to listen to my environment as an aural landscape…and that was surprisingly calming, though a little weird.
In 1980 I started going to AA, studying the literature carefully and meditating on the words, which is actually “the precise instructions” on how to meditate in the AA 12x12.
In 1990 my third AA sponsor had me read a book on meditation and was introduced to the Buddhist concept of breath prayer which at the time was of absolutely no interest to me.
But, by 33 years old I had become very interested in my body’s health and I remembered breath prayer and finally it dawned on me that this was a physical way to meditate…and I was in. It’s been my favorite way to meditate for decades now.
But most very recently, I have tried to replace the thoughts in my head…with musical tones that I create.
It has been delightful.
If it is true that “Meditation is something which can always be further developed. It has no boundaries”, then it doesn’t take a genius to figure out I could replace my thoughts with tones not made by me, but say Beethoven’s Symphonies, or even Picasso’s paintings, Chihuly’s glass, Dickens novels or Shakespeare’s plays.
“It has no boundaries”, and as an addict…that certainly does appeal to me.