Letters show the addressing mind. The I’ve-got-something-I-believe-is-worth-expressing mind. Letters can be helpful to a reader, like you, even if they aren’t addressed to you. They have been very helpful to me, the writer, to see the pathways I’ve taken, to see how the same thoughts arise, again and again. To love myself, anyway.

I’ve been writing letters since I was young. I don’t send many of them. I repeatedly and strategically read others. Some, I tossed when I couldn’t face the shame of what I confessed or how I behaved or to whom I spoke. Some, I burn. This one, I make public because it shows a mind, my mind, after an intense week of meditation with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli in March 2012 at Mt. Madonna Retreat Center in California. I believe in the value of meditation. So…I’d like be transparent about my experience of it.

In 2012 I’d never been on a meditation retreat. I’d never meditated with another being other than my cat- Aurora. My therapist reassured me I could meditate on this guided retreat when I wondered if it would be a good idea for my future self. In fact, it was a good idea for my present self, though painful most times and joyous at times. One hundred and seventy people registered. I sat on the floor stage right, near windows looking out into the mountains. I watched the sun rise each morning. We meditated often and for varying lengths of time. We gathered for meals though I remember few conversations. I shared a room with a human from Florida but I don’t remember any details of her, other than she wanted to meditate to feel better.

I wanted my life to change. It was going to change anyway, I think now, but back then I wanted to find some gentle and kind way of approaching the tumult in my mind, my body.

Near the end of the retreat, we subjected ourselves to complete silence for 72 hours which included not making eye contact. I felt so depressed. I only wanted to sleep. On the cushion I fought to stay present. I experienced, though, a profound moment: one might say it was an imagination, a vision, a lucid dream, a revelation.

I saw a brick wall between my self and my younger self. The wall was beginning to crumble. I could look through a small hole. I saw my younger self on the other side. She was waiting for me. Had always been waiting for me. I understood all my life, she could hear me through the brick wall. Sometimes I could hear her. Her eyes looked up at me and I started chipping away at the bricks, scrambling at them with my fingernails. My body, finally, surrendered. If you’ve ever physically surrendered, perhaps you’ll recognize the feeling of crack, break, stretch, pull, push, open, open, open. So much movement, the exhaustion is immediate. As is the relief. Joy shows up.

Here is my letter, unsent, to Saki Santorelli, dated March 5, 2012

To Saki,

I worked for the first couple of days of the retreat to articulate what I felt, what came up for me but I stopped striving after awhile.

The request was to report on the direct experience of a particular meditation after all, not to distill my story into an inadequate expression in less than five minutes.

And when I stopped striving, not only could I turn my attention to what was present, reporting it seemed so unnecessary.

Many people reported insights I shared but it's been in my reflective time since then that I know what I would have said if I were in the group:

I realized that I am all here. I am not separate beings inside this brain.

I realized that I didn't need to look for reassurance from everyone else that I was okay because like a mother holding her daughter, I could hold myself.

I realized that my community feeling only related to a few people, not everyone in the room, because I didn't know them well enough. However, I was not scared of them, which is movement for me. : )

And I realized that the flashbacks and the fear and the sense of loneliness is better and the more I pay attention, the better it will get.

I know you are a very busy person and many people tell you often that your work, your passion, your being, inspires them and gives them hope. I know my voice is one among many.

And I have to admit then, that I am writing this mostly for myself. Here is something noble- I have said to my teacher- I learned, I have learned, I am learning. And by writing this down it becomes a promise to myself. To keep learning. To acknowledge the significance. And it is so sacred I could not adequately express it.

I'm still not sure that I have...

M