What is meditation?  It sounds complicated or mysterious but it is very simple.  Sit quietly and think about nothing.  Much like when our mouths stop moving, the mind starts working, and when the mind is silenced, we can connect with source energy.

This holiday season, give yourself the gift of a few minutes of downtime every day.

I close my eyes
And I see darkness
At first.
But within that void
There’s an onslaught
Of shapes, images, lights,
And other worlds.
A dark shape
Wearing a fedora
Approaches on the lower left.
A black shape surrounded in blackness
But highlighted by a golden shimmer.
He stays there for several moments
And I wonder if he has a message for me
But he just stands there, faceless.
Words appear on a page
That I cannot read.
They taunt me
Seeming almost readable
But slipping from my grasp.
An infinitely small point
A small speck of nothing
Hurtles toward me
Until I recognize it as a number
Whose meaning I cannot guess.
It grows in size until
It’s as large as my head
Then passes through me.
Glowing lights roll past
Yet they pause to look
Back at me
As they wonder what I am.
Perhaps in their reality
I am just a random image, thought, or sound.
Maybe I’m as incomprehensible to them
As they are to me
But they are real
And I know I’ll see them again.
When I close my eyes
We’ll stop to gaze at each other
And wonder.

When you are awake, do you ever quiet your mind?  Start by taking one minute to stop, relax, close your eyes, and think about nothing.  There, you just meditated.  Now do that for a few minutes every day.

Take a moment to appreciate the colors of fall.  Find a colorful group of trees then stop, quiet your mind, take a deep breath, and just enjoy the beauty.