Coffee, Crisps & Meditation
Dear friend,
My alarm woke me this morning and for a moment I had no idea where I was, until the room swam into view. It felt different—cooler, darker. The weather had closed in overnight and brought us some much-needed rain. I could hear it fizzing onto the parched street through the open window.
“Oh good, rain.” That was the thought that began the day.
For reasons unknown, it now takes me longer to get out of the house than it used to—when I was less well equipped. Time was, I’d be caught out by rainfall and spend the day with soaking feet. But now there are weather apps, and I’ve got a poncho to keep dry on the bike, waterproof overshoes, and a bright red umbrella that seems to cheer people up when they see it—with its wooden duck’s head for a handle.
I go around closing windows, picking up things and putting them down again until there’s a build-up of urgency, apologising to the intrepid bees still working the lavender flowers as I plough past them, grabbing my bike from the back of the garden and heading for the front door.
Most of this looks fairly serene from the outside, I imagine.
Things are moving a lot more quickly inside than on the outside.
This morning’s trip was to play hand bells for a meditation at the temple in Baker Street. The heavens opened on the way to the station. I remember the great (in my opinion) Scottish comedian Billy Connolly saying, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes”—and I think he’s right, within reason. I rode past plenty of people in summer shorts or light suits and trainers, grimacing as the sudden change in weather rained on their expectations.
The meditation was sparsely attended—twelve of us—including Ben and his mum, who were running the service. It was tough going for me, as I’ve been burning the candle at both ends a little lately, staying up in the hot summer nights, pottering around, reading, playing guitar. You learn how to sit so you can stay awake—by raising your gaze as if you’re looking out through a point midway between the eyebrows. Lifting the eyes helps you avoid slipping into sleepy subconscious reverie, but all the same I dozed off a few times, only to snap back awake.
We meditated for thirty minutes with the rain drumming on the roof, then chanted for a while, and then another thirty or forty minutes. It felt like, as the time passed, an energy was building inside my body—something more vital and clearer than the slightly foggy energy I’d brought with me.
The third meditation was an hour, interspersed with chanting to clear up the seven main chakras of the spine.
By the end of the third wave, as I opened my eyes, I could see blue sparks of light dancing around the hall. It felt like I’d had an energy transfusion.
We took our time leaving, and then I went for food with Ben, his mum, and Christian—who’d driven up for the service from Bristol.
We talked about the times we’re in, and all agreed we’re passing through a transition globally—that it’s overwhelming to see so much pain, confusion, suffering. The key word being: passing.
Into something better.
It changes you when you start to have questions about life for which there are no easy answers. Why is there so much conflict between people? What happens when we die? What meaning does my life have?
Questions like those change you. They catalyse changes as your heart begins to open, and you start awakening—from being in your mind all the time to spending more time in your heart.
If one thing is certain, it’s that the times we’re living through are causing more and more people to ask deeper, more searching questions about life, love, and the universe. That’s why I’m so optimistic about humanity.
For me, I can’t recall a time when those questions weren’t present—at least running quietly in the background. Same for all of us at the table.
On the way home, I stopped to buy presents for a friend’s daughter’s birthday, spoke to Chiara in Athens, and fortified myself with coffee and crisps. I’d made a pot this morning, but in the manufactured urgency of getting out the house I’d forgotten about it.
I probably eat too many crisps and drink too much coffee, but I find both of them ground me. So—coffee, crisps, and meditation. Not necessarily in that order.
There’s so much more to tell. Like the family on the Tube travelling from the airport with their little daughter—the carriage crammed, the girl overwhelmed and trying not to cry, and people offering up their seats. A great press of humanity, steaming up the windows. And someone had managed to smash halfway through a pane of Tube glass—which I’ve never seen before. The window still intact but fractured into hundreds and hundreds of smaller pieces. The way the fissures captured the light made it luminous, each time we pulled into a station.
There’s so much life we’re always editing and selecting.
Till tomorrow.
Love,
Mikey