One of the Iona Photos taken after the storm at first light
Here’s a preposterous-seeming exercise that has brought me a great and sustained joy. A sensei taught me this little known exercise. A Sensei is a wise person because of his or her years.
I wanted to share this exercise with you in the hope that its application might be as powerful in your life as it had been for mine.
I have experienced this first hand. It has created for me a new, wonderful experience for living.
- Take a single piece of paper
- Draw the 24 most powerful emotional moments in your life whatever they may be. Don’t worry if you are not an artist. Make little blocks in a grid, like child blocks.
- Once the 24 are drawn, take a scissors and cut them into 24 squares
- Put the 24 squares in your hands
- Sit before the 24 moments. Be in a quiet, safe place where you will not be interrupted.
- Sift through them and decide what are the top ten emotional moments
- Sift through them again and decide what are the top five
- Sift through them again and decide on the top three. Don’t use just your mind, but your heart, and your body.
- Concentrate on the three and decide on the top one
- Remove all sketches from your hands and focus on the one moment with every aspect of yourself. Really look at it. Feel it.
- Imagine the moment bigger than you, bigger than your room, bigger than your city, then your state, then the nation, then the world and the universe. It’s a very easy thing to do You are inside that moment. Collect the nuances, the feeling then and the feeling now
- Leave the sitting position. Stand and walk in place inside the feeling. Remember, it’s as big as the universe.
- Repeat tomorrow and the next day.
- And the next day.
- For me, it took about a month
- Now, I can capture that feeling again without thinking at any time. But it is not only memory. Your current life is now brimming with that feeling. That feeling is not an abstract. It happened in your life. Now it is happening all around you.
- You have found a new synch. You are clicking with your interior world and the exterior world. It is a happiness. As Joe Campbell said, “Follow your bliss.” This is one move further. Your life is your bliss.
For me, the exercise had produced an astonishing result.
My singular moment occurred three years ago. I was on the small isle of Iona in the Hebrides. I had just gotten to the St Columba Hotel. It overlooked the ocean. I awoke from a storm before first light. I put on my raincoat and went outside to take photos. As I walked, the sky was magic. It cast a glow over every tree and building. Every picture I took, I believed to be beautiful.
Please let me know if, after effecting the exercise for a while, what the results are.
