The Space In-Between

Finding Space at Sand Bluffs in El Malpais Monument

     You might think that finding space in my heart and in my mind would be easy now that I have moved to New Mexico, am communing with nature, and have more quiet time.  I will say that it is easier to find the time and place to make way for space, but is it really ever easy?  I don't think so, actually.  I believe it gets easier to know how to get there, but it is a full time job, and it is truly hard work. I can tell you, however, it is worth every minute of that work.  I do this work best when I am gazing out at something beautiful, or hiking, or meditating. I even took a vacation to El Malpais Monument last week with my friend.  I could then, again, still my mind  in that setting.  This is terribly ironic since I already live in a camper in the woods.  It doesn't matter where one lives, the mind goes with us...EVERYWHERE!

     The minute I get into an open, present, and loving mind, the wind will blow another direction, and my heart and mind are in fear, confusion, in a state of laziness or resignation, or back in control again.  I think we are built this way, actually.  We are either thinking about point A or point B, and we loose track of what is in-between.  We think about the past or the future, and we forget about the present.  Now, most of us have spent our whole adult lives being this way, so it doesn't necessarily feel bad...it just is the way it is.  But, once I got a whiff of that space in-between these two points, the universe opened up.  Everything became real.  You see, I know who I am in this space which is why it is imperative that I get there as much as I can.  

     I was teaching a piano lesson to one of my final four high school students in Texas yesterday.  She is a lovely and very talented student and was more than prepared for her lesson.  Something, however, was missing in her playing.  Her music wasn't communicating any message.  I asked her to stand up and play it on her clarinet.  You see, the clarinet uses breath to produce its tone, so we worked very hard on using her whole body and her breath to get from point A to point B, or in this case, from note A to note B.  I talked to her about feeling the direction and the emotion as she connected the two notes, not only in her breath, but also in her body and her inner ear.  I told her that this is where the magic happens.  When she went back to the piano, the music literally spoke to me and filled me with emotions! It then dawned on me that this is what my mistake is all the time in my mind that gets me thrown off balance so easily.  I'm not always working to stay in that beautiful space in-between, but instead, I want to hurry up and get to point B.  

     Driving home today from Texas, I saw the most exquisite sunset.  The sky was filled with oranges and rose colors.  Instead of pulling over and simply meditating and feeling gratitude for this experience, I kept snapping photos on my phone from the window in hopes to capture the colors and the beauty and the feeling I was having.  But you see, my feeling was "less-than" because my mind was only half engaged with what I was seeing.  I ended up with about twelve bad to mediocre photos and a mediocre experience.  We can never really capture the incredible beauty that we see in nature, and we can't even begin to capture the emotions we feel when we see it, but we keep trying.  In fact, we try to capture these things more than any time in history since we have all become professional  smart phone shutterbugs.  I'm talking about me here, people!  I'm at the top of the list.  

     I know what I need to do to get back more in tune with that "space in-between".  Why do I choose not to always use the tools that I know work?   Laziness, I think.  But, when I choose this more traveled path of laziness, I am always disappointed in the outcome.  I feel that right now, in fact, and as I write, I am feeling a strong pull to get up tomorrow and pull all the tools out of the proverbial tool kit to find that breath between the notes and that magic in the breath.  

     Another student asked me this week, "What do you do in meditation?"  I told her, "You find those brief moments of stillness between thoughts, and you try to sit in those moments as long as you can.  And in those tiny moments, you find the real You. Only then can you have a relationship with something truly meaningful." 

     Well, I have been lying on my hotel bed, eating junk food, watching television, and browsing the internet...all at the same time, no less. I've decided to go hiking in  Palo Duro Canyon for a couple of hours in the morning before I head to New Mexico.  I am going to try an experiment.  I am not going to take one photograph of the hike, nor am I going to post anything on Facebook about it.  I am not going to text anyone to tell them how it is unless I have troubles.  I am just going to breath, walk, see, and enjoy the space in-between.  Then, I will think long and hard about putting that practice into my normal daily life.  I know that it will be worth the work because it is magic.  

Photos of El Malpais National Monument