Morning Manning Meditation...

We slept in this morning... ahhhh... and when Rob left for rehearsal I decided to postpone breakfast for a few more minutes and meditate.

Our pup, Lil, is outside and seemingly content lying on the deck. I set up my blanket and Zafu pillow... I like to set the alarm on my phone to time my meditation sessions, and when it goes off all I hear are delicate twinkly bells... a very soothing indication to open my eyes again. So, I go to set the alarm and it's flashing 11:05 as the "wake-up" time... I'm thinking, "that's 19 minutes- wow that would be great!" so I hit OK and I'm ready to go.

I sit comfortably- and in the spirit of Game Day- I'm donning my trusty #18 Peyton Manning jersey.

At first I'm thinking about the game... what's Peyton doing right now? I wonder if he slept well last night... I hope the team is feeling rested and energized... I wonder if Dallas will play? Jeff?- no probably not til next week... Who's the guy replacing Ed Johnson?... OK inhale exhale

The dog wants to come in. I hear this pathetic high-pitched whine and open one eye to see her staring intently at me through the glass, she sees me see her (the jig is up) and begins to wag her back end furiously as if she could shake that butt right off ... OK, I'll let her in and get back to it.

I'm sitting once more... Lil is resting comfortably on my blanket with me... inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale ...now I'm thinking about my nephews who just moved here from New York and are living in our old house... I hope they're getting settled in OK... actually I hope they're sleeping right now 'cause they had a long drive and unloaded the truck when they got in INHALE, EXHALE

Sit up tall, breathe deep, soft belly, Man my upper back is starting to hurt! relax, soften the shoulders, inhale, exhale So rehearsals start on Tuesday. I'm really excited... should I focus on going through my script and the complete text before Tuesday or try to finish one of the three books of literary criticism I checked out about the play? Probably it's best to stick with the text itself inhale rather than EXHALE, INHALE EXHALE Man, my back is tight!! And I think my sits bones are numb... yep totally numb inhale, exhale inhale, exhale...

So it pretty much stays like this the whole time, me circulating around the afore-mentioned topics, occasionally throwing in others such as: laundry, death, the wind, breakfast, and of course- the time. Fast Forward to the end of the session where I have now reached the limit of my physical ability to sit...

OK, I'm gonna stop now- I may not have been able to do 19 minutes (well 18 if you count letting the dog in) but I bet I did at least 14 or 15...

I open my eyes and stretch my arms up over my head. I grab my phone, turn it over and look at the time... HOLY CRAP IT'S 11:33!!! I had to do the classic I-can't believe-what-I'm-seeing-I'd-better-rub-my-eyes-and-look-again move, and it still said 11:33. Yeah, turns out the alarm was set for PM and not AM...that old chestnut...funny.

Who knew?

So, while I was by no means "in the zone" with much- or any- of my meditation, I managed to do it, to just sit for just over 45 minutes. I know it did me good to just be in experience of it. And the Colts did OK too...