hellison | Serendipity? Synchronisity? Coincidence? One of them words

An interesting afternoon, go live journal - in particular

tyrell and

thesme_01!
So what am I rambling about now?

Yesterday I spent a good bit of time with a friend who's gone thro a hellish stressful time lately, talking about how meditating, getting back to taoism and using the IChing have really helped her find calm and a more objective perspective on things. It was all very intriguing and left me v. curious, because I could actually see a difference in her just in the past 2 weeks.

Today, a totally unrelated post on elsewhere on lj about dieting turned into a discussion on meditation and taoism, with added helpful links.
Part of it was on how difficult meditating can be. For some it's a fear of what you might find (which I can understand), but for me its mostly been the fact that my brain NEVER STOPS. Seriously, you think I talk a lot? That's only a fraction of whats going on up there. There's even now a special new section of it that constantly makes up lj posts that I never actually get round to posting, of which this was very nearly one.

Anyway, I've generally found meditating/praying/relaxing (as in at the end of yoga/pilates) v. difficult as there are no blanks. Just endless tangents. I was thinking about this on the way to the train, when another tangent went off along the lines of 'what to do with the horse tonight'.

At which point it struck me that, for me, riding Ziggy IS a form of meditation.
I have to clear my mind to some extent of the day's worries before I start - if I go up all stressed and distracted she picks up on it and is, frankly, a bitch to handle.
There are the rituals leading up to riding - mucking out (and if getting rid of horse shit isn't a decent allegory for not bothering about the petty crap in life, I don't know what is), grooming, which relaxes us both and tacking up.
Once on, I have to concentrate entirely on her and focus on what I'm doing - there's little time for niggling work woes when you're manoevering almost a ton of horse in a fairly small arena. Or even in a big open field.
There are associated mantras "Legs back, look up, heels down, hands up", some of which are now so automatic I don't have to actively *think* them anymore, they just go on in the background.
Gradually it all comes together and we can relax and go WHEEEE. And all the petty crap slips into a bit more perspective.

Of course this doesn't entirely stop it coming back to haunt me at 2am, but it certainly helps. I definitely think it keeps me saner and fitter - in body and mind - than I could hope to be without it.

Hmm. Like I said, an interesting afternoon ;)