On The Floor

When I first learned how to meditate, I was told to do it with my eyes open. The danger of falling asleep or daydreaming was too great if you closed your eyes, they said.

And they were right. But an “eyes open” practice has its own pitfalls– namely, the stuff on the floor.

When you spend a week doing nothing but staring at the floor for 9 hours every day, the mind goes a teensy bit nutty. You start seeing things. In the wood, I mean. Real stuff. Drama. With people and animals. There were sharks, and witches with long noses, and a Schnauzer on the floor in front of my favorite cushion.

If that one was taken and I had to move to another one, there was one with an ocean liner with Captain Cook brandishing a sword. I spent days inventing lives and stories about the figures in the knots in the wood to just to keep myself from keeling over.

I even prayed for flies to land just to bring a little bit of real-life action into the scene in the maple floor. And holy shit, if an ant came? WIN!! But then I would feel totally abandoned if my ant moved to the meditator next to me. “Hey! Come back here you little sonofabitch!! You’re MY ant!”

Yeeeaaahhh… Retreats are soooo spiritual.

In my current situation as “yoga teacher” I never sit anywhere else in the room but in the front of the class. When my students are in savasana, I meditate, with my meditation otter.

Do you see him?