Meditation is another one of those things that I never did, but I do now. It is important to me, perhaps the most significant of the healing tools I have encountered, and one of the most effective at quieting the mind and seeing past the fear. I meditate at least once a day and usually twice, and yesterday, I went on an extraordinary meditation that I wish to share with you. A remarkable trip for me.

I meditate in the same chair in the living room. I turn off any devices, light an orange meditation candle I bought for that purpose. I turn off the lights, draw the curtain. Usually there is a dog with me, Red most often, lying at my feet, sometimes Lenore joins him. Both dogs have completely grasped the meaning of the bells on my Ipad Meditator app. When the first bell rings, they curl up and sleep and do not move until they hear the three bells signalling the end of the meditation. I sit up straight, hold some meditation beads I ordered online, close my eyes. When I hear the bell I begin counting my breaths. I breath in four four counts, hold my breath for seven, breathe out for eight. I do this for four or five minutes, and yesterday I set the timer for 45 minutes. It was in the late afternoon, in the time when work ends for me and it is not time for dinner. The chores are done, the animals fed, the dogs walked. Maria is in her studio.

Yesterday I fashioned my meditation this way: I think of the clutter of satellites in space and I see myself as moving quietly through my own clutter – my distracted head, my fear, anger, judgement and regret – and I felt myself floating, down and down through all of the junk and dirt and chaos and pain that troubles my fevered brain, down past the endless clutter, into the quiet, the dark, sailing down and down. And there I found my strength, my goodness, my worthiness. My creativity, my love, all of the good things in every human heart and every human soul, all of the gifts we are given before they are soiled and twisted and battered by life in the world.

And I felt the most extraordinary calm and quiet, it felt as if I were standing in my bare feet in the shallows of a crystalline pond that was perfectly still, the surface broken by an occasional frog or fish taking a breath. And then I was swimming underneath the surface of this pond, looking up at the light and color. And I soaked up my strength, took deep breaths to draw it in and I saw the person I was born as, the person I was born to be, meant to be, capable of being.

And I felt that these good thoughts and feelings were freed, liberated, drifting into me, as if they were made of mist, and sweet-swelling meadow air. And there I dwelled in that state for the longest time, feeling strong and seeing that I had only tapped into a fraction of the strength in me, there was so much more down there waiting to be freed. And then the three bells sounded and I opened my eyes and I felt so good about my place in the world. And I felt so strong, that this was the true me, the authentic me, and the fear just seemed to burn off and melt away.

Every meditation is different, no two are alike, and I am not so foolish or greedy as to look for this same thing again. But I am eager to see what else might be down there for me, past the clutter, into the deepest parts of the soul. I could never fathom how to get there before, and I have come to see that meditation is a window into me, a portal, a ticket to this mystical place. This trip will stay with me for a long time.