Balanced Mind with Julie Potiker

Shifting Awareness Guided Meditation
Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listento the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She tookquestions on how not to feel lost in the dark.After lunch she distributed worksheetsthat covered ways to remember your grandfather'svoice. Then the class discussed falling asleepwithout feeling you had forgotten to do something else -something important -and how to believethe house you wake in is your home. This promptedMrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailinghow to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughtsare all you hear; also, that you have enough.The English lesson was that I am is a complete sentence.And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equationlook easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,are feeling cold, and all those nights spent lookingfor whatever it was you lost, and one person.add up to something.
-What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade, by Brad Aaron Modlin, from "Poetry of Presence II; More Mindfulness Poems", edited by Phyllis Cole-Dai & Ruby R. Wilson.
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