Reverb13 Day Eighteen: Finding Peace

tyunglebower ♦ December 18, 2013 ♦ 2 Comments

In the midst of living, did you find moments to breathe? Were there moments that held you in the embrace of peace and quiet and pure contentment? Did these moments catch you by surprise or did you create the space for peace to find you?

I have been trying to meditate this year on a more regular basis. I have done so periodically throughout the years, and earlier this year I made an attempt to do so each day. Thus far I have not succeeded in making it a part of my daily routine. Hopefully I will find both the discipline and the right method by which to make meditation a daily part of my quest for peace.

It’s especially important, given my tendency towards anxiety that I find space and time and events that harness peace within me. Formal meditation does sometimes achieve this purpose, but not always.

Also, each night there is a bit of informal, unstructured meditation for me. I try to make the final half hour to an hour of my waking time as relaxed as possible. Computer off, a little reading, a little uncomplicated television. Relaxation and peace are not the same thing, but the former often leads the way to the latter, as it has for me much of the time this year. (It’s the first year I’ve tried to do only specific, relaxing things in the hour or two before bed.) It doesn’t always happen at the same time each night, but the nature of my final few activities remains fairly consistent most nights.

As for the less planned, less frequent places to find peace in my life, I’ll mention the empty stage. I am one of the managers of a small arts center, and as such I sometimes am the only one in the building. It is probably an actor thing for the most part, but there is something moving, something profound, something at times quite peaceful about standing on an empty stage, when there is nobody else around. Performing can be anything but peaceful per se, but being a performer on the stage when not performing in the conventional manner is a bit like standing before an alter for some people, I would guess. The peace of infinite possibility.

So I don’t have a regular “peace routine”, to coin a phrase. But I remain aware of how significant the concept of peace is to one’s health in all areas.