Thursday, March 5, 2020

a small moment of tranquillity


I think we all need such moments at present, so I offer you our kitchen windowsill this morning.  Yes, indeed, that pretty bee-cork is from a gin bottle ...

I was doing a teaching observation today for a colleague in English, who had the class - and by extension, me - do a guided meditation for 5 minutes before turning to five minutes' free writing on that day's reading (with a prompt).  It proved to be a terrific exercise for centering oneself and calming down one's attention - and indeed, loosened one up to write, if my own experience was anything to go by.  But if my own experience is anything to go by in other respects ... I'm usually very calm when it comes to meditative breathing: count five in, hold for four, let out for seven, repeat.  But today ... my breathing was decidedly ragged, and I took that as a potent sign of (a) the need to do more such exercises on my own [I recommend an app called Headspace, which will guide one through all sorts of things], and (b) a sign that no, we are not living in normal times, and we're stressed.  Of course, the effects were entirely obliterated by going to a ninety-minute chairs' meeting all about covid-19. 

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