Meditation Tuesdays

Guided Meditation for children...Meditation is important for everyone but it is especially important for children. Some key factors are:

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• Young people are naturally able to meditate.
• They have a yearning to experience the spirit within.
• Build up their self-esteem by affirmation respecting them and their contributions.
• Listen carefully to them
• Be patient with their journey
• Meet the children where they are.
• Be aware of development stages, psychological, social and spiritual.
• Remember the learning is effortless: ‘caught not taught’
• I suggest creating the following for your children:

Environment:

• Importance of creating a ‘sacred space’ with icon, candle and nature treasures as focus and explain significance.
• If possible meet in a dedicated area, which will distinguish it from everything else.
• Sitting in a circle
• Quiet music playing upon entering.
• Importance of clear ways of starting and finishing the session.
• Singing Bowl as start and finish of silent period.

Preparation:

Use preparation as aid to becoming focussed:

There are various possibilities to be chosen according to age group and context:

• chanting (simple Taize chants) – explain difference from singing.
• awareness of breath: watching the breath, coming in cool at the nostrils and going out warm.
• relaxation exercises (See ‘The Centering Book’)
• walking meditation.
• Use stories with values, which relate to them and are appropriate to their age.
• Be aware of development age in selecting stories to meet them where they are.
• Stress that this is a slow process: regular practice is needed, as with sport and music.

Approach to the discipline:

Explain importance of paying attention.
Emphasize silence and stillness: ‘in the stillness we can just be’
Explain link of meditation with their usual way of prayer, talking and asking.
Stress meditation is ‘listening’ prayer.
Stress no thoughts, images or daydreams
. Start with 5 minutes only, then add over time one minute for each year of age.
Use ‘maranatha’ as mantra right from the beginning.
Explain the importance of being patient with themselves.
Be patient with them.

After meditation:

Short time for questions coming from children
No other follow-up

Simply and Fun Guided Meditation

Let's go on an adventure!

But, instead of rushing out the front door, let's go on an adventure within, to a beautiful place inside, in our thoughts ...
Lying on the bed, floor, carpet, or the lawn or beach in warm weather, stretch out on your back, arms and legs resting easily. Close your eyes, let your body go limp as a rag doll, while counting to 10 in your mind.
Lying so still and relaxed, keeping your eyes closed, walk through the inner doorway in your mind onto the beach, on a warm sunny day.
In your mind, just feel yourself standing still for a moment looking around, seeing the waves wash against the shoreline in their regular rhythms, over and over again.
While watching the regular pattern of the waves, just breathe in and out, evenly in and out, over and over again.
Watch the waves, while breathing evenly in and out.
Enjoy the relaxed feeling in your own body that is lying so limply on the bed or carpet. Feel whole and comfortable in your resting body and mind.
When enough time has passed, begin to come back to your everyday active self. Stretch out those limp arms and legs, take a deep breath, sit up.
Do you feel your new energy, all set and ready to go again!

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With Love

In honor of Khalil Gibran's birthday, a poem.... 

 “Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. 


 You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. 


You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.


 The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness. For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.” ― Khalil Gibran

Meditation Tuesdays

Most people do not think children are old enough for meditation but like yoga poses for kids, children’s meditation has a different approach than the adult practice. When disguised as a game, kids can easily learn to relax and become more aware of their bodies through meditation. Once you child is accustomed to meditation they will enjoy that time in there day and you can go further and deeper into meditating.


Noticing my Body: Begin lying down flat. Try not to move at all. It is hard to do isn't it? First off, try to  make your body really heavy and be very still. Now we will start by just wiggling our finger and toes. Then stop and be still again. Next wiggle your arms and legs. Be nice and still between wiggling each body part. Then move up your body starting with your toes,your legs,your hips,your belly, your arms and wiggle your entire body. Then stop and be still again. Notice how your body feels when it is still.

Removing All Negative Energy:

First have a nice basket of beautiful smooth stones. Start the meditation either lying down or sitting up. Give each child their own flat stone to hold in their hand. Think of something that makes you sad, angry or worried. Imagine that thought as a bright white light coming from your head. Now take that white light and imagine it traveling down your neck through your arm and into the rock. Imagine that the rock is like a sponge absorbing all that negative light deeper an deeper into the rock. Now if you any other worries do the same for each one letting the rock soak them all up. Once all your worries have been absorbed open your eyes and look at your rock. Now take a big deep breath and blow it onto your rock making all your worries float away. Notice how your body feels now that all of your worries are gone.

Children's Oppression!

Dancing between the tables: on the personhood of children

I recently ran across a piece of child-hate (no, I’m not telling you where) that said, in part, “Sure, I think children are people, but their parents need to make sure they act like it in public! People in restaurants don’t crawl on the floor or dance between the tables!” Really? Because I’m pretty sure what you were talking about just then was a person who was, in fact, dancing between the empty tables.
This is but one example of the widespread phenomenon of child-hate disguised as simply a “concerned citizen”: children are OK in public, as long as they don’t in any way attract an adult’s attention. It usually comes with a hefty dose of mother-blame (which is a type of misogyny, remember), in the form of “she should control her kids, or keep them at home!”
I don’t really want to get into a discussion of what level of behavior is appropriate to allow children in public, though: what I want to talk about is the message behind these kinds of statements (and the fact that the discussion is about allowing in the first place).


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