Visualize yourself on a mountain, surrounded by nature and using your all of your senses to breathe in the experience all around you. Julie Potiker takes you on this grounding journey ending with the poem,"When I Could Do Nothing", by Jane Hirshfield. The poem comes at a time when many of us are attempting to navigate our lives during a pandemic.

This meditation was led virtually for the Balanced Mind Meditation Center.

Today, When I Could Do Nothing

Today, when I could do nothing,
I saved an ant.

It must have come in with the morning paper,
still being delivered
to those who shelter in place.

A morning paper is still an essential service.

I am not an essential service.

I have coffee and books,
time,
a garden,
silence enough to fill cisterns.

It must have first walked
the morning paper, as if loosened ink
taking the shape of an ant.

Then across the laptop computer — warm —
then onto the back of a cushion.

Small black ant, alone,
crossing a navy cushion,
moving steadily because that is what it could do.

Set outside in the sun,
it could not have found again its nest.
What then did I save?

It did not move as if it was frightened,
even while walking my hand,
which moved it through swiftness and air.

Ant, alone, without companions,
whose ant-heart I could not fathom —
how is your life, I wanted to ask.

I lifted it, took it outside.

This first day when I could do nothing,
contribute nothing
beyond staying distant from my own kind,
I did this.

You can learn about mindfulness at www.MindfulMethodsForLife.com and also in Julie's newly released book, "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't Have To: Mindful Methods For Staying Calm In The Midst Of Chaos", available on Amazon.com. Her podcast is "Balanced Mind with Julie Potiker", available on iTunes, iHeart and other podcast platforms.