Mixed Media Meditation

I love how our phones and social media accounts remind us of memories by showing us photos from years gone by. This rose popped up on my feed the other day, and I was reminded of a very grey, very rainy, early July morning four years ago when my sister and I attended a church service in downtown Greensboro. 

I wanted to capture how everything was still dripping with recent rain as well as the stormy mood of the morning. We ducked into the church's gift shop and my sister secretly purchased a journal I admired and gave it to me for my birthday; I would later take the journal abroad to England and Iceland and take notes during my trip.

I purchased a pewter shell that can be used for meditation. You can either use a finger or a stylus to trace the lines, similar to what you would do with a labyrinth. 

I'd kind of forgotten about my shell until I saw the photos on my phone, and so I pulled it out of the drawer in which it had been tucked away, and then it reminded me of another, similar meditation medium I had on hand. One of my friends came to visit me a couple years ago, and her little girl drew me some activity sheets with colorful markers. She explained I was to trace the path with my finger and I had to complete little obstacles based on what she had drawn. I can't tell you how relaxing it is! I called them my "finger meditations."

I think meditation can be so much more than sitting cross-legged with your eyes closed in a quiet space. Maybe it's watching rain drip off a leaf or down the side of the window in the backseat of the car. 

Maybe it's tracing the petals of a flower, or watching a bee or butterfly weave among blossoms, or watching a spider make her web.

Maybe it's listening to the melody of wind chimes, or the deep bass of thunder, or the chorus of birds and insects on a summertime walk. 

Maybe it's looking at a work of art, or creating your own. Maybe it's singing, writing, dancing, or hiking. 

Wherever, whenever, and however you choose to tap into mindfulness and meditation, I wish you joy, peace, and wonder. 

Why I started this blog