I have tried yoga. I have tried prayer. I have tried hypnosis. I have sat quietly and sought a peaceful place in my mind. I have been told that this is how you hear your soul, by shutting out the outside. Yet, there's always a part of my mind that remains awake. An inner narrative that has to analyze it all and decide what the appropriate reaction should be. What does the hypnotist want to hear? How can people believe this religion? Am I doing this position right, or do I look stupid? Did I remember to turn the oven off?
The closest thing I'd ever found to inner peace or a spiritual experience was walking the labyrinth outside of a Catholic church. My mind let go and I simply was. No thoughts, no worries, no "me." Simply experience. Pure and quiet and right.
Of course, I'm not Catholic and Catholicism makes me feel none of those things. It was following that path around and around, not the church, that gave me that peace.
No matter how many times I tried meditation, I couldn't find that feeling again. I tried music and guided meditations. I tried reading books and listening to the descriptions of what others experienced. But, always, my mind was busy. Always, I was thinking about what I should be experiencing instead of what I was.
One trap I fell into was that in so many of these scenarios I was told to picture a place where I felt at peace. I always feel at peace when I'm out walking, so I tried picturing the places where I go for walks, yet the places held no meaning to me. Wyoming Street back in Boulder City or North Road in Earl are not, in and of themselves, peaceful places.
Today, as I was hiking through the woods, I finally realized what was missing. It isn't the place that brings me that feeling of purity, joy and serenity. It's no church, or deity, or screed. It's the journey. When I walk, I feel what others seek in prayer. When I climb the hills and sweat and breathe the cool air deep, I meditate.
My mind grows quiet, because it's occupied with my body. I'm not a brain sitting inside of my head, obsessing over pointless, transient thoughts. I am my feet, my legs, my arms, my hair in the breeze. I am a piece of the Earth, temporarily walking free but eventually returning to her.
There are no transient thoughts to obsess over, because when I walk everything is transient. The twig can only be broken under my foot once. That particular squirrel will only run across my path today. The undergrowth is different every year, every day, every moment. Today, the water is flowing as ice melts. Later, the ice will be gone entirely. This is what life ultimately is. The stresses of work, the worries about money, the wondering of what to do next, are all transient. They are all twigs in the forest, someday to be broken.
Last year's leaves rustle in a dry, papery way as I walk. Last spring, they were buds. Next spring, they will be soil. Someday, I will be the soil, too, and the roots I feed won't care what school I went to or how I styled my hair.
Heaven, to me, would be an eternal path to follow. I would get muddy and I would get wet. Sometimes, I would be hot and sometimes I would be cold. There would be hills to climb and plains to cross. I would walk through forests and I would walk through fields. I would observe the world around me and be a part of it as well, unquestioningly.
Going quiet and listening to my mind does me no good. My soul must be in my heart, and she must beat hard to whisper in my ear.