Empty Space: A Meditation

When you read “empty space” what comes to the forefront of your mind? Is there a value set upon it? An emotional response? Disinterest? Curiosity?

I sit with “empty space” now and my experience is expansive. A deep inhale and a long, natural exhale brings me into my seat, the living room, at home. I begin to float and pour out of myself while simultaneously allowing the environment I’m in to fill me. Layers of buzzing in my ears from within and without. Light and shadows are more stark. Time expands and contracts. A dance of sensations and information about my current state and the space around. I feel tired. I feel calm. A scintilla of my responsibilities tug my chest downward. Another deep breath. Joy in my chest, and sorrow beneath my eyelids. Tears are just beneath the surface. My fingertips feel electric and my knuckles heavy. My sacrum glows yellow and my tummy aches. An interruption tangles up my chest with frustration. A momentary lament of the slow uncovering I had been in. I grasp at it. Anger rises. As a mother I get so little time alone; a choice I make consciously. Even still, it can be grating when you find yourself in a spare moment of solitude and are yanked from perceived peace. As the space settles again, another deep breath helps me return to this practice. I sit silently for a few minutes focused more on the space around me than the sensations of my body. Everything, while not “put away” seems to be in its right place. A plush mushroom in the walkway, house slippers astray, blocks scattered, an empty tea cup and a barely read book. An urge to get up and rearrange some plants in the window passes. I remain sitting here, computer in lap, leaned back on the couch, legs crossed and folded. I find myself at a pivot. I get up and go outside.

Like a blank canvas or page, an empty vase, or a task-free moment, space can open up to us with an invitation to fill it however we please. There’s a powerful moment of unknown–what will unfold? What will I do next? Rest? What do we want? What do we need? What does your body tell you to do right now? Maybe your body tells you to go outside or eat a snack or take a drink of water or lay on the floor and space out or to simply just be where you are. Oblige. Acknowledge and appreciate your inherent knowing. When we are able to connect to this, every place is right where we need to be.

Empty space is a contemplative practice, something that can be done at any juncture for any length of time. It’s basically meditation, it’s also not meditation if you need it not to be. It’s a somatic practice. It’s the practice of returning, letting the new moment take hold, and participating in that magnetism that draws us forward. It can be a single breath; the inhale rejuvenating and the bottom of the exhale spacious. Or the inhale a keying in to our physiological needs and the exhale an acceptance. I write this and my eyes glaze into peripheral seeing. I could take a nap. I’m also energized by just being. Thanking all grace given to this moment of “nothing” when it truly is something just to be, here, noticing what I notice; my needs met enough to pause for the unfolding. Does some part of your body call out to be acknowledged? Is there a color to it? Does it pulsate, flicker, glow? Does it change as you listen. Follow what grabs hold with a curiosity and sense of awe; there is an opportunity to witness without judgement.

Empty space and awe are partners. Awe is a key tool in participation. Does the spaciousness, the dancing sunlight, your heart pumping and lungs working not inspire you and bring you to your knees? Is it not painfully pleasurable? Every atom of ourselves mix with every other particle of the space around us. Allow space to fill you through your cells. Exhale yourself into the world with that unified awareness. All the hurt and joy in the world wrapped up in one mundane moment; empty space is never truly empty.

There’s going to be pain no matter what you do in life, whether through your own personal experience or from the experience of empathy and compassion as witness to the world. We must witness ourselves and each other. A dance of turning inward and outward again to cyclically anchor us to life, the realities whether harsh and unfair or privileged and soft. If not, we lose a very visceral and alive piece of our humanity. We are not as solid and separate as mainstream culture might suggest or train us to think. Do not go numb. Do not sever your heart so that it won’t hurt. Grief and sorrow are catalysts for change and beauty. Reach into the cavernous deep and discover how it can transport us to better beginnings.

Empty yourself into the ocean and let it fill you up again. Exhale yourself completely into the trees and let them fill you up again. Lean deeply into an embrace with someone and hold each other up. Be empty so that you may be full.

It’s March! Go outside and catch some sun before we get the last snows of the season.

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