Wait, @riverflows ... thats so not a photo of a rose!!! Are you breaking rules again?

I am never going to stop and smell roses. That's a given. It seems like a really girly thing to do, and I've never been that. If I say ‘ooh, love your roses’, I’m probably just being polite. Give me a grevillea any day, that strangely alien Australian flower, as variable as a rose.

Yet, this English idiom means that we should stop and appreciate life, to slow down and observe the wonderful things we do have. It’s an idiom for the times we realise things have been going a little off track, too fast, chaotic. Mindfulness meditation can help us do just that – to bring us to a state of awareness of the roses, the sky, the changing of the seasons, the beauty of nature. Awareness of nature can allow us to understand the self a little better, as part of a greater field of existence rather than tiny lives wrapped up in dramas, anxieties and stresses. However, it’s a great idiom, because we know it doesn’t necessarily mean ‘stick your nose in a rose’ but to look around you and see what we have.

This meditation competition is my first entry in a competition on Steemit and it’s one close to my heart – I do flick through most contests and think ‘meh’, because I’m not a competitive person, but I had some things to say for this one so I thought: ‘why not?’. Maybe you’ll get something out of it too.

@ground2feet’s invitation is about ‘getting present to your life. Your surroundings, specifically’ because we’re often ‘working mostly on autopilot checking the price of steem, or just in our head about our problems. Meanwhile, nature is happening all around us and is often going unnoticed’. @ground2feet invited us to stop and smell the roses, thinking about Spring in the air in the Northern Hemisphere and it’s invitation to notice the beauty of the world. Of course, in the comments section some of us were quick to point out that we aren’t all experiencing Spring, but could we play anyway?

@angelacs suggested this:

Just take a walk as explained in rules and post, enjoy and allow Nature to call to you and reveal Herself to you. Experience the fullness of that intimate moment, take a picture afterwards of the beautiful aspect of Nature that triggered your experience and then share it all in your entry post.

I was really triggered by the line ‘experience the fullness of that intimate moment’, and was inspired to talk about the intimacy of an experience in nature I had this week. I guess I should say that I can’t take ‘smell the roses’ literally and took it to mean ‘experience Nature with awareness’ – not to say I haven’t LOVED the beautiful spring inspired photographs shared by fellow Steemians!

Although we’re experiencing Autumn (or Fall) in the southern hemisphere, it’s the parallel to Spring – a transition time where we notice the change in the air and greet it with both excitement and sadness as things change. It’s in that spirit – of things changing – that I’ve been struggling these past few weeks, and stopping to be aware of nature in meditative, conscious awareness is what’s brought me through in a really powerful way. In fact without this walking meditation of sorts, I would be in a big puddle of grief and thoughts of my own suffering.

Some of you may have already read about Dad's cancer. It has really rattled us all as he is a vibrant, healthy man and we arent ready to lose him yet. I mean, I am fairly equanomous about it in some ways as I know he cant live forever, but he is a super young 70 and I do yoga and surfing with him a lot and I am so close to him. So when I heard I was trying to be rational and calm and positive but on the inside I was howling. My chest felt gripped by grief, its talons tearing at me. I knew I had to FEEL this but it was so painful the temptation was to self medicate with wine and run from the beast, you know?

So hear is where the walking nature meditation comes in. I walked the whole length of Point Addis beach with the sun on my skin and the cool sea on my toes. I watched the waves and the clouds and the blue blue skies as I held Dad's love close and breathed and breathed nd focussed on the beauty of the world. And there it was, a revelatory moment where I entered this eternal field of awareness. No longer was I a single grieving entity, but a breathing alive part of the world that breathed with me. The plants on the cliff grew from tiny sunbaked seeds to wizened wind whipped trees. The waves grew out at sea and journeyed through the water to land on the shore and dissipate. The wind swept from north to south and left. The gulls burst from eggs and hunted fish and died, their skeletons fertilising the earth. My father once, as a young man, surfed on this beach and had a daughter who grew to love the sea as much as he did, and would one day grow old and die as her son walked on the beach and grieved her. For now, there was breath and the beauty of the world and the perfect awareness of that.

So there I was, smelling the roses. Smelling the salt air and seaweed and feeling the sensations of feeling pass through me in a beautiful lesson in impermanence. In that moment I felt so grateful for my meditative practice and nature itself for getting me through.

The talon that gripped my heart loosened, and let go.

Thanks so much @ground2feet for this opportunity to write about my experience. Its certainly a full and intimate moment, and even writing about it is a meditative catharsis. I know you said to stay fun and light hearted.. I really did feel 'light of heart' after this experience but I am not quite sure if it's fun! Maybe y'all were entertained by reading it...!

It is morning here in Australia, and I am going out walking. May you breath in the beauty of the world, wherever you are.