Genisis of New Meditation Space

I don't meditate. I didn't meditate when I designed the original meditation space four years ago. I've never meditated (successfully). It's one of those things that I want to do. The idea and concept and everything about it seems wonderful/healthful/beneficial. But at this point, I've just sort of accepted that I'm not ready.

I'm too impatient; I can't clear my head of racing thoughts; I can't maintain good posture; I don't breath right either. When the impatience and anxiousness settles down, I suspect the other things will improve. All when the time is right. So with that said, my ideas are not coming from a meditative mind. They are coming from a meditative mind admirer.

First I had an idea about contrasting the idea of internal meditative states with surroundings. I wanted to do something with the spaces people actually meditate in versus the ideal spaces we talk about creating. How it is something more internal than external, the calm amongst the chaos.

Then I wanted to use boxes. Almost as if I just made the ascending pathway relief in the original project even more three dimensional--that each was a space. This series of boxes would go together (loosely) like those wooden Russian dolls. One in another in another and so on. Each box would have images or ideas on the outside and inside that related to different aspects of meditation: mind, silence, breathing, stillness, clarity, joy, love, etc.

I pitched this wondrous idea to my mom who meditates every morning for at least an hour in her room. She has a little screen with photos of healers and spiritual leaders; she seeks out workshops and has endless books on spirituality that keep arriving from amazon.com or Barnes & Noble across the street. Basically to me, my mom is an authority on this subject. A meditation space is more hers than mine and she nixed it so fast.

It went something like this:

"Sabrina, the idea of compartmentalizing meditation is inherently backwards. Meditation is about opening up and freeing yourself. [...] Your idea of breaking it down into boxes?...It's not good. It just doesn't make sense."

We chatted. She shared what she thought was fundamentally important and I listened and spilled out ideas and metaphors I thought fit. Thanks, Mom.