Friends, this episode is a departure from my usual offerings. I will return to meditations and occasional interviews after my mini book tour, but today I'm talking about my novel DAWNLAND, and what IT has to do with meditation, particularly the question: Do we sometimes meditate by accident? And if so, what’s happening there? Inadvertent meditation might seem like an oxymoron. We usually associate meditation with intention and focus. Even devotion. But I think there are moments when life meditates us. And the more we practice, the more we open ourselves for this to happen spontaneously. The characters in DAWNLAND don’t meditate in a traditional sense, but they each have their own way of connecting inwardly. I describe examples in case they resonate with you. This talk invites you to relax your grip on "solving" and "fixing," to be radically open to the silences that emerge in your day, to notice when life meditates you. Savoring those moments, even for a breath, allows a sense of spaciousness to seep into your mind and your body, a spaciousness that allows the responses you need in any given moment to arise on its own. Thanks for listening!

You can find DAWNLAND at Bookshop.org, Amazon or Audible.

Audio by the magnificent Eric Fisher of audio-refined.com.

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DISCLAIMER: Meditation is not a substitute for professional psychological or medical healthcare or therapy. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred by you acting or not acting as a result of listening to this recording. Use the material provided at your own risk. Do not drive or operate dangerous equipment while listening.

Creativity flows when our hearts and minds are open, and tightens when we grasp onto particular ideas of outcome. It tends to hide from us when we take ourselves too seriously. Lightness of spirit is key. "Lila" is a Hindu term that has many layers. It describes the effortless play between the relative world and the absolute. Lila manifests when when fullness, unable to contain itself, spills over into creation. This episode includes a 7-minute talk about creativity that alludes to Carl Jung's method of Active Imagination and the benefits of paying attention to our dreams. If you wish to skip over the talk, the meditation begins at about 7:40. Relax, enjoy, and have fun!

Music & audio engineering by the fabulous Eric Fischer: audio-refined.com

Support the Show.

Tess on Insight Timer
Tess on YouTube
Tess's novels: https://tesscallahan.com/

Thank you for listening !

DISCLAIMER: Meditation is not a substitute for professional psychological or medical healthcare or therapy. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred by you acting or not acting as a result of listening to this recording. Use the material provided at your own risk. Do not drive or operate dangerous equipment while listening.

Open awareness is a non-referential meditation, meaning you don’t use any reference point such as the breath or the body to keep your mind focused. Those focal points are useful as first, but as you progress, they can hold you back. In open awareness, your attention rests with everything that’s happening. To this end, you meditate with your eyes gently open. Normally our eyes are trained to focus on a single object. Here, you softly take in everything in your field of vision simultaneously, particularly the periphery, the way you might gaze at a wide expanse of ocean.

In this way, you go beyond sitting in mindfulness to expand your meditation to embrace your daily life. The practice of openness can feel challenging at first because our minds are so habituated to contracting—around our problems, our storylines, our ideas—but the more you practice, the more you realize that openness is actually your natural state, and contraction is the source of suffering. Openness is the key to your freedom.

This meditation is partly inspired by one offered in the book REVERSE MEDITATIONS by Andrew Holecek. Relax and enjoy!

Music & audio engineering by the fabulous Eric Fischer: audio-refined.com

Support the Show.

Tess on Insight Timer
Tess on YouTube
Tess's novels: https://tesscallahan.com/

Thank you for listening !

DISCLAIMER: Meditation is not a substitute for professional psychological or medical healthcare or therapy. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred by you acting or not acting as a result of listening to this recording. Use the material provided at your own risk. Do not drive or operate dangerous equipment while listening.