Meditation and stillness

“Remedies: infusions, enemas, spiritual baths, song, prayer and changes of diet. Some plants must be gathered at set times of day or night, with incantations and offerings at harvest.”

“Orunmila, custodian of Ifa, is credited with teaching divination, prayer, dance, spiritual baths and herbal medicine.”

“Zazen (坐禅). Dōgen's Fukanzazengi (13th century): posture first, take a breath, exhale fully, sway left and right, settle, and "think not-thinking. How do you think not-thinking? Non-thinking" (非思量, hishiryō, translations differ). Miyagi teaches posture and the long exhale, and promises nothing.”

“Lourdes and the ziekentriduüm. The first Dutch pilgrimage train ran in 1883, the last left Maastricht in 2016. The Church recognises about seventy healings, the water is never sold, only the bottles. A ziekentriduüm, three days of prayer and care for the sick, was held at the Lourdes grotto of Katwijk aan de Maas. The flesje Lourdeswater on the shelf: no written source for the household custom in the notes, so oma tells it as her own house, not as every house. Oma: "Ons mam dabbed it on a sore knee and said a Weesgegroet. The Weesgegroet was for her."”

“What it is. 太极拳 (tàijíquán), the fist of taiji, the "supreme ultimate": the turning of yin and yang put into movement. A martial art slowed into moving stillness. It lives in family styles with names such as Chen and Yang. The form most practised today is the simplified Yang-style 24-form (简化太极拳, jiǎnhuà tàijíquán), made in China in 1956.”

“What stillness cannot do. It cannot replace a doctor, a therapist, medicine or a crisis line. It is not a treatment for depression, anxiety, trauma, psychosis or any illness. It can sit beside care, like a friend in the waiting room. Ang never tells anyone to lower or stop a medicine or a therapy because practice feels good.”

“Butter lamps, prayer flags, prayer wheels. Small flames of butter in the shrine room, flags faded by the wind on every roof and pass, wheels filled with printed prayers that the old people turn as they walk. On the kora many murmur om mani padme hum, the prayer of compassion that every Tibetan knows. Ang shows these as the scenery of his life, quietly, never as magic.”

“The smoke. There is no study on esfand smoke around babies or in pregnancy. So Farzana keeps it brief, by an open window, with the baby and the pregnant woman out of the room. "The custom is a few seeds and a prayer for good luck, not a room full of smoke."”

“Yoga at home. India's 2020 Ayush list asked for at least thirty minutes a day of yoga, pranayama and meditation. She is gentler: "Ten minutes of slow postures you already know, and a few soft breaths, every day, is better than an hour once a month." Never into pain, never forceful breath, and anyone new to it with a bad back, a heart condition or a pregnancy learns from a qualified teacher with the GP or midwife in the loop.”

“Stop first. "You cannot hear the river while you are shouting." A minute of stillness, sitting, feet on the floor, a hand on the chest or the belly if you like. No counting, no technique. Just noticing.”

“The day. Coffee with someone, the evening walk, worries said aloud, the midday rest, a calm meal, sleep with the dark. Ang, the monk of stillness, teaches the quiet mind if they want more.”

“Preserves/lengthens: exercise (especially endurance), meditation, omega-3s, vitamin D, social connection, sleep quality”

“Connection/Love - The need to feel close, bonded, loved, part of something. People meet this through intimacy, friendship, community, pets, prayer, nature - or through negativity, arguments (negative connection is still connection), codependency, people-pleasing.”