Talking Alarm Clock Meditation

When I sit for meditation, if I’m timing it, I set my alarm clock to the setting where it plays back a recording. I can record whatever I want, 8 seconds long.

I bought this little clock before I set off to teach English in South Korea in 2004, and had my mom record herself telling me to wake up, so that I could hear her voice on the opposite side of the earth.

At some point the recording got recorded over, I accidentally pushed the recording button, and it got erased, so I’ve gotten the chance to have it say whatever I want it to.

For the past few years, I’ve recorded and rerecorded myself saying “Thank you,” so at the end of my meditation time, instead of an alarming beeping as it’s set to wake me up, I hear a soft voice repeat that phrase till I hit the stop button.

Today, I accidentally erased that recording, and went to say “Thank you” again into the little microphone in the back, but instead, I recorded myself giggling. ;) And I played it back, and it giggled, and I giggled back at it, cuz it’s so silly but infectious, and at the end of my meditation time this morning, it giggled at me. And as I reached to shut it off, I giggled too. It’s very silly.

And yet, I’ve been hearing and reading more about the power of laughter and smiling. A friend of mine’s been participating in a heart-smile meditation with a friend at school. She said basically, they just sit around for an hour … smiling. She said it feels weird, but sort of funny and cool, and that the facilitator/friend of ours said that you have to actually smile with your face, you can’t just smile inside.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of this. In fact, I think I probably read it first in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love during her sojourn to Indonesia and to the Balinese medicine man, who told her to smile “even in her liver.”

And in another book I’m reading, they talk about the healing power of laughter. About the frequency that gets emitted when we laugh, about how it can heal us, about how we can change our current thoughts, simply by laughing.

I haven’t done the meditation, although I’m curious, and probably will sit in with those girls sometime soon. But, something this morning – well, I just didn’t want to record the staid “Thank you” again. I wanted something lighter. Laughier.

I think this whole “power of positive thinking” thing has its merit. And I’m also getting to notice the needed balance between magical thinking or “visioning” or collaging with the very earth-oriented action steps that I’m having to take. I believe there’s a dovetailing of these two actions. Visioning and taking action.

If I don’t use my imagination to concretize or even vague-itize what it is I want in this life, I will be a 50 year old secretary. If I only spend my time “manifesting,” creating collages, or being in my magical accidental thinking, then nothing will actually change.

However, I need the basis of those visions, those dreams, desires, callings, whatever people are talking about when they say “follow your bliss,” in order to figure out what the hell my bliss is.

Of course, the second part is the action. And luckily, I’m at a moment in my life when I’m becoming more open to the baby steps that it takes. These look small this week. But, they’re not.

I called my credit card companies to close my current accounts. I called those store credit cards still listed on my credit report which I haven’t used, or seen, in years (Mandees anyone?). I have one more “hard” call to make. I have a collection agency on my report, with initials below it that are the same as one of the hospitals I was in when I was 21. I don’t know if that's what it's referring to, or if I still owe money to them or not. But, clarity is better than fear or vagueness.

Other action items of this week are to let you, and my other communities, know that I’ll be participating in a reading at school at the end of this month as a part of an open mic/party night. I told this to someone on Sunday, and she insisted that an action I take this week is to LET PEOPLE KNOW. To continue out of my hiding and isolation, and to let people know.

In that vein, I’m to work on a chapbook for the reading. Basically, a small collection of my poems, so that I might be able to sell them there. It’ll be about the same time my thesis final draft is due, and I should have a good portion of work at that point.

Putting my work out there; putting myself out there; closing up these holes of old accounts and fears. These are what enable me to move a mountain one spoonful at a time. And if a giggling alarm clock helps me get there, so be it.