Flow.

This prose, or perhaps talk even, was written by myself to capture a ‘cold water swim’; a swim experience underwritten by mindfulness and meditation. My teaching of meditation and mindfulness, is imbued with themes of nature, metaphor, rhythm and flow. Along with secular meditation practice, I was a successful competitive open water swimmer for many years. However, more often, I would just love to swim alone in streams and lakes where I live, gliding through silky fresh water, simply surrendering and lost to ‘flowing’. As you listen, I hope I capture the mindful feel and sense of leaving your warm car on a cold autumnal day, entering the cold water, and finally, your body and mind, surrendering in to ‘flow’.

Transcript

Welcome. My name is David. I study and teach meditation, But I have also been a cold water swimmer for many years. After an autumnal swim down a stream near where I live, I felt I wanted to capture the mindful rhythms and meditative nature of that swim. Taking a moment to settle yourself now, To imagine even, Sat in your car, Breath, Falling away from you to cold air, Waiting for the swim to call to you. This is the mindful prose I wrote after that swim, Exploring the liminal space between meditation's encounter with life. It is simply titled, Flow. Blood and veins flow with anticipation. Cold water awaits your senses to wash them with a combative baptism. It has no emotion for you within its impersonal embrace. So detaching yourself from the warm womb of your car and life requires singular focus. You shed your armoured cloak, The civilised skin that you present to the world, And a common simple purity emerges. Immediately, The chilly air begins to communicate with pointed clarity. Shoes and socks slip away. Mud oozes between your toes, Unfriendly and searching. Each resistant step to the water is made with conviction. Each braced with the memory and premonition of suffering. Mind shifts, Knowing the currency of expectation we have of ourselves and others of us will soon have no value here. Mind becomes narrowed and reborn. Breath inhaled, Richly infused with nature's residues, Waterlogged leaves sit patiently by the stream, Waiting for their ancient cycle to begin again. Mind is the stream, Singing and moving with eternal mute indifference. Breath expired, Saturated with an instinctive anxiousness. Survival. In this abstract world, Little matters except what you do now. Your entirety is utterly anchored in the flow of only these moments. Mud between my toes is liberated to the stream. I don't feel a momentary numbness or suppression, I do not know, And cold water bites with an inevitable reckoning, Your nerve endings set alike like a myriad of stars, An applause of pulsing vibrancy. Triggered feelings are stealthily ushered into the foreground, Briefly yielding to their empty presence. I try to let them drift away to the call of the breeze and the trees, Or the chorus of birds chanting nature's mantra. Entering further, The familiar cold liquid embrace wraps around you and exposes weaknesses, Wherever you hide them from yourself. There is no escape from that, But to acknowledge and accept will freeze them solid within you. Such easy vulnerability signals our fragile humanity and our enduring connectedness. We are little more than a drop in the human ocean, Multiple uniqueness combined into one, An orchestra of muscular coordination that no longer needs a conductor begins. Rootless emotions and thoughts bubble to the surface but are washed away, Your mind no longer as turbulent as it becomes moored to the interplay of rhythmic breath and body. Streams are an old soul, Every proud mountain, Ever-vescent flower and smooth rock it has graced, Every swirling eddy and tranquil deep pool leaves its mark and signals a timeless wisdom that is seen reflected, To those that look, In the short passage of our own lives. Burnt autumn leaves calmly drift past. In harmony thoughts tumble to and fade, Veins sing and muscles hum. A symphony, Sombre and mind resonate like a serene metronome, Breath a counterweight, An expressive poise between power and grace, Effort and surrender, Fuse without dispute, Time and self, Body and mind dissolve into the flow.