For a month I am living in Hawaii, here studying complementary and alternative medicine. As part of my study I have been asked to keep a journal of sorts - a combination of my thoughts and feelings about my experiences and my progression through a month of meditative practice. I started this almost a week ago and then decided to move it here so I can include music and images. This first entry will be sort of an amalgamation of the previous offline entries so as not to lose any thoughts in the transition. These are my feelings and opinions and the interpretations of my reality as I experience it. According to The Aloha Spirit Law:
"Living Aloha is the coordination of mind and heart within each person. It brings each person to the self. Each person must think and express good feelings to others.
Akahai, kindness to be expressed with tenderness;
Lokahi, unity, to be expressed with harmony;
Oluolu, agreeable, to be expressed with pleasantness;
Haahaa, humility, to be expressed with modesty;
Ahonui, patience, to be expressed with perseverance"
This will be the goal of this month - to live with Aloha, to connect with myself, with nature, and each of the molecules and organisms within my universe.
Before arriving here my meditation practice consisted largely of mantras or physical meditation, typically either concurrent with yoga or swimming. I have always felt a strong connection to water and find being immersed in it or listening to it move to instill a great sense of peace. My mind wanders less here. Music is much the same for me - waves of sound and waves of water. My sister and I went snorkeling at Hanauma bay very early in the morning. With snorkel in mouth I float face down and watch the sunlight dance along the ocean floor. I listen to the sound of the waves washing over my head and the sound of my breath through the snorkel, relaxing each muscle in my body.
Photo Credit: Jamie Cohen Breneman, Hanauma Bay
It is moments like these - moments when I look up from the patio on the mountain late at night and can see the dust of the Milky Way, Mars, Scorpio and more stars than I have ever seen in a city - where I think it can be possible to be truly connected to the Earth. This feeling gets so very lost in the day-to-day rigor of medical education, of life - of school plays and deadlines and washing dishes. How do we let ourselves become so disconnected? We put up walls, isolate with our computers or televisions and then complain that we are sad and lonely. The company is here - it's in the fish, the wind, the earth beneath our feet. Perhaps it is this connection I have been most missing in my life. This is the relationship I have been neglecting in spite of the deep and ever-present awareness that it was the one to be fostered.
I've long known music to be powerful. I have played piano since I was 6 and fell in love with it - the sound, yes, but mostly with the way it made me feel. The way it began to flow through me when I played or the amazing power it seemed to have over my emotions. From a young age I learned that music could change my state though I didn't really understand it at the time and certainly didn't understand the physics behind it. Is it any wonder that music and sound can be used therapeutically? Sound can be used to break kidney stones, bring the catatonic back to life or sterilize surgical equipment - it can literally vibrate microorganism membranes and lyse them. So why do we not think that the same effects may be had on our bodies, that differing frequencies can penetrate our physical, mental, and emotional selves altering them in ways both good and bad. Sometimes I think we get so wrapped up in the pace and the race that we forget about the parts of life that are so simply beautiful and the amazing power that they have.
Why are we surprised that what we put into our bodies matters? If we are, in fact, what we eat most of us would be disgusted at "what we are". Why then do we eat it? For me, I won't pretend I'm perfect -I don't eat as well as I should and I am very aware of it. I have periods of healthfulness and then I get "too busy" to pay close attention to it. I eat what is convenient and available which at the hospital generally consists of the same salad bar with the same 12 ingredients and that gets boring rather quickly. How, then, can I be mindful of my eating? Where is the time I need to sit and relax and enjoy each bite when there are stokes being had and "every moment counts"? Why is the environment of stress created so much in the hospital? In the hospital, as in life, there are things that must be done rapidly - but I feel these are far fewer than the long list we currently follow. Could we all relax a bit? Be equally mindful and cognizant of the truly important things and let some of the excess worry go? Perhaps we could take better care of our patients this way.
With light,
M
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