Drifting Attention
How do we return?
I recently began taking watercolor classes again. So far, it's been a once a month-ish class with a watercolor painter in Kittery, ME. I have been trying to find ways back to the medium that I love; a medium I hold such a history with. There were a variety of catalysts that shifted my connection with watercolor over the last two or so years: exhaustion and fatigue, the death of my longtime teacher, the lack of time throughout graduate school, more loss, grief, fear, frustration.
In hindsight, it all compounded together into a confusing bundle. I found that there was a great amount of distance between myself and the paint and paper. It felt like I had drifted from a friend, someone who I once felt a comfort with.
It would have been easy for me to convince myself that I didn't miss it so much. It would have also been relatively easy for me to go-on believing that I would never paint in the same way again. I also tried to believe that it would be an effortless comeback (which it most definitely has not been). These were stories I was telling myself and stories I couldn't rest on so I had a choice. At my first lesson, tears landed in my eyes - it was the feeling of returning, clunky as it was.
If you see a boat in the channel of a river, it might be tied to a mooring or a buoy. In the tides, the boat drifts and shifts. It is in constant slow movement: towards the bouy, away, slipping to the other side. The buoy is the marker that keeps the boat's place. Without its weightiness, the boat would float off. The buoy is what holds the boat to its place, while the water flows around it.
Our attention in meditation works in a similar way.
We shift to thinking about our grocery list, the work we didn't get to.
We can create a story about the drift - "I'm not doing it right", "This isn't working".
But it's almost a matter of physics, there is only return to something if there is drift in the first place.
And the meditation practice is the process of return.
It's not always easeful and it is a fickle thing.
But it is a moment of pure awareness, of seeing.
Where have I gone?
Where can I return to?
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I am now offering a virtual monthly meditation group. This Sunday, April 7th, 2024, I will be offering ideas on drifting and attention within meditation:
Why does our attention drift during meditation?
What does it look or sound like?
What opportunity does the drift hold?
What is the difference between a helpful drift and an unnecessary drift?
For practice, I recommend a small cushion or something that offers a comfortable seat. Dress so that the body is warm. A blanket can be nice settling.
If you have interest in joining, please be in touch.
Thank you,
Kayla
