Tag: Mystical Connections

Walking Meditation

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

Last night, I tried to calm my restless body by changing my mental focus from doomscrolling to consciously observing each muscle involved in rolling over. Impossible. There are so many intricacies in even such mundane movements that my mind gave up and wandered back to the terrors facing humanity.

At a silent retreat decades ago, I learned about walking meditation. You progress at a snail’s pace, noticing each miniscule dimension of your body moving forward. As the foot comes up, are the calf and quad engaged? Does the foot adjust its angle, ready to be placed forward on the floor? Is the surface level? What are your eyes doing?

Gradually, the lifted foot glides down, settles, and the process shifts to the other side.

Such deliberate awareness requires concentration, patience, and time. And if a novice sees a daddy long-legs climbing up her jeans, her reflexes will override all that consciousness, and the sequence will be blown to smithereens. Trust me on this.

Humans are a bundle of electrical/chemical communication systems, most of which we neither notice nor understand. Our neurotransmitters interact with electrical impulses to give us motion, thoughts, and feelings, some of which are based in reality, some of which are not.

If you imagine a slice of lemon on your tongue, you’ll likely salivate. The salivation is real, but there’s no lemon there. It’s the power of mind over body. But our bodies can send signals that are open to interpretation. The power of body over mind. We’re a jungle of actions, reactions, reasons, biases, and instincts. Though we think we make conscious decisions, somewhere near 95% of the forces that influence what we do, think, and feel are outside our awareness (including the latest evolutionary mutation: algorithms).

“So, am I real?” the Intruder asks in a sly voice.

“You’re a figment. A fragment. An iron fist and a fuzzy notion. There’s definitely something real about you,” I answer, defenses at the ready.

“And do you love me?”

My teeth begin to grind. To love the Other Within runs against the grain of most conscious urges. We’re built to procreate, not sacrifice. We’re a me-first, guilt-ridden species.

“Is that a look of panic on your face?” my Coauthor asks with fake innocence.

I freeze.

“Relax,” She continues. “We’ve written a little Psalm that may help.”

 What you know may not be true.
You see mostly what you want to see.
Insisting that you’re right is wrong.
Choosing to be loving is like sucking lemons.
But the alternatives are worse.
Trust me on this.

God beams and slugs my shoulder. I flinch a little and slug back. We walk.

Give It Up

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments 

If you were the only Omnipotent Force in the universe, one would hope you’d have a certain sense of humor: the kind without any of the usual mean or sarcastic twists. A good laugh is one thing. Cruel guffaws, another.

If you’ve been born only once, one would hope you’d carve your coordinates into the bark of the nearest tree. Hurry. You will be exiled, left to find your own way home. If you calm yourself, you will realize that you already know.

If you were born accidentally, knowing more than you can handle, you might wish for an easy exit. Instead, you are destined to watch your mountains come down, one by one. There is no safe distance. Even the act of observing changes the outcome.

Those who were born amphibious reproduce in obscure complexities. The permeability of skin, the need to be near still waters; this is where shades of gray form a rainbow. If you are brave enough, you can touch your own inner longings.

Darkness is an absence of bioluminescent beings flitting from branch to branch, swimming from cave to cave. Of course, you once had gills. Your sorrow is justified and holy, but it will drag you down. Peer steadily through the cracks to find the light.

Heat-seeking missiles zero in on warm hearts, but you’ll only bruise yourself trying to escape. Soften your eyes. Clutch the amulet you were given in another life. Make the signs of various crosses and give it up for the godlike being playing the cello.

And give it up for the rising sun and low hanging fruit. And the shivering murmur of laughing hyenas hunting in the neighborhood. Give it up for molds, yeasts, fungi and friendship. Revel in the divine but fleeting salvations of any given day.

Posting Bail

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

Ignacio Manteca


Humans are being bought and sold this morning. I’ve placed a bid on one, but we’ll have to wait and see how it comes out. I’m having trouble with the messaging systems. 

A voicemail is heard in Ramah — lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted—for her children are gone. I suspect the children of Leah, (Rachel’s sister-wife), and Bilhah and Ziphah, (the handmaidens), are gone as well. 

So damn gone. Pushed down the slick, disgusting slope of vengeful, wrongful incarceration. Deportation. So much money to be made. Phone calls prepaid by the broken.

There are too few places to put my rage. In the back seat of the old, malfunctioning car? At the borders that define us? In the pocket of the officer who lied about the handcuffs? 

It’s easy to be indignant from a distance and then order dessert. Tempting to wash my hands of this murky, oily, filth and focus on harvesting carrots. This evening, we can yuck it up about, oh, I don’t know. Privilege? Wokeness?

And this God Thing. 

Maligned, manipulated, ridiculous. Should we wash our hands of it, too? Would we behave any better if we had no fall guy? No excuse?

“Thing,” I scream. “Are you paying attention?”
“Trying to,” Thing mumbles. “Got a black eye. Dislocated shoulder. Bleeding.”
“Stop bleeding! There’s a cleaning fee.”
“Got no money.”
“They’ll go after your spouse and children.”
“Got no spouse.”
“They’ll beat it out of you.”
“Got no body.”
“Just stop bleeding. The sight of your misery makes us sick.”

Thing raises its piercing eyes to mine. “Don’t stop looking. You’re meant to see.”
“Oh, I see, all right. I see the idolatry of young girls with golden hair.”

Thing sighs.
 I continue.

“Some fucked up stuff is being done in your various names.”
“I have no name.”
“Well, they’ve named you some horrific names.”
“I’m beyond your alphabets.”
“Doesn’t matter. They’re using you to justify war. Cruelty. Wealth.”
“So, I should just disappear? Wrap things up and move my concept along?”
“Yeah, I think so. It would be better.”

Thing shakes its head.

“Then who will suffer with you?”
“We can do that by ourselves.”
“Bad idea. And impossible.”

Thing puts its fractured arms around me.
Splinters slice my flesh.
Tears roll down our cheeks.

We mourn the hatred.
We mourn the debasement.
We mourn the children.

“We have to stop crying,” I say. 
“They’ll see that we’re weak. They’ll hurt us.”

“I know,” Thing says. “Cry anyway.”