I turned off all notifications on my iPhone from news sources yesterday. I remind myself that by turning off the news does not preclude political grassroots action. Getting a solar roof is my environmental statement. I also plan to get involved with House Bill #1 and Senate Bill #1, the For The People Act, to insure every vote is counted as Republicans plan to suppress the vote of black and brown people going into the future.

So I am left to explore the meditation practices Will Johnson teaches in our year long meditation retreat together. It all starts with the way we sit and breathe, and then how we take this posture and conscious breathing into the world where we hope to experience equanimity in the face of the ever-changing nature of our lives.

The challenges involved with maintaining peace of mind are well known to anyone reading this. Yet key to being the peace you already are can be found in the posture of meditation itself. The vertical horizontal axis holds the framework for alignment, relaxation, resilience and integration. The intellect does not need to understand this because as the body experiences this flow, we feel at one with the fluidity of the body and the results of our elevated vibration in the outer world.

The body is key to either withholding or releasing the feeling presence most practices neither mention or encourage. Many meditation practices encourage a stiff sitting posture that lays the groundwork for bodily pain and stiffness.

As pain and stiffness dissolve, the body gradually awakens. We may notice that the constant revolving and repeating thoughts that circulate like mindless robots all day, do not serve to liberate us but in reality, cause a high level of tension in the psyche not to mention the body.

At the heart of the practice Will Johnson teaches is first the liberation of the body. All else follows. Om