Recently I have not been thinking as much as I used to. Which is not a bad thing. Neither is it a good thing, it is just a thing. I enjoy it and it feels invigorating in an odd sort of way. I used to slow my body down and let my mind race along, now I am doing the opposite. A new and refreshing change.

I still find it a very rare occasion when my mind is completely empty. That isn't quite what I mean when I say `not thinking'. The concept is more along the lines of not taking time to think. I don't sit like a rock, watching, observing, contemplating. I used to do that as a form of meditation and relaxation. My meditation is becoming a bit more active now.

A side benefit to this is that I've stopped going to the destructive levels of thought. I used to think about situations I was in with people and what they did or said and what it might have meant. Sometimes this is a good thing; it is necessary for communication, after all. But it can become a bad thing as well, such as when I start to think that maybe they felt this way or that way, negative ways, often with no real causes for those possibilities.

I call that thinking too much, which can be very hazardous to all sorts of encounters. I have found myself doing it often in the past, and am trying to realize it as soon as it happens now. After all, the more you think about something, the more power you give to it. We have enough negative vibrations in the world without my adding more.

When I do think about this change, I relate it to the different Paths of Earth and Water. Earth being the patient, observant type, Water being the active, moving one. I think about the Water path in terms of an excellent quote from a sci-fi novel by Frank Herbert, one of his Dune books, exactly which book escapes me. The quote goes,

"Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your own life. The object can be stated this way; live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck."

"Life is a game....leap into it and play it to the hilt." I love that key phrase. It reminds me so much of when I used to role-play for fun. The key was to dive into the role that you were in and immerse yourself in the game. Even if that was just a game, the same rule can be applied to life. If you don't leap in, how will you ever come to enjoy it?

It makes me think of swimming and how people enter the water. Some people go in very slowly, trying to get accustomed to the temperature. Most of the time they will wince or stand on their tip-toes because of the chilly difference. They sometimes complain and always take a while getting used to the new surroundings. It never seems like fun when watching them.

Then there are those who just jump or dive into the water, bravely leaping before they look (sometimes foolishly). Those are the ones who seem to really enjoy the water. Most always they are full of grins and laughter. And sometimes a few screams from the sudden shocking change. But they do it, and they enjoy it. They live it.

That is my new meditation, not the ole `watch the world spin around you'. Sometime I shall go back and work with that one, matter of fact, I just did a little. But for now I shall practice the `jump into the world and spin' meditation. It's proving to be interesting.

These are some quotes that make for good meditations, and sometimes the mind needs refreshing...

"I may never get what I want, but I'm happy to just die trying..." - D. Pirner

"What is the proper goal of our art? To find Balance. Just as the proper goal of anything is to find balance and not always hug the shoreline" - Memories of a Sage

"Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists." - A Course in Miracles

"In every moment there is the possibility of reaching up and uniting with the ultimate truth." - Old Enduring Wisdom of Japan