The Smell of a Summer Rose

Summertime and the roses are blooming.

Find some and take time to smell them.
Be fully present, smelling them.
Let their smell fill your awareness.
Not a sniff, or two.
Breath them in, over and over.
Stretch into the experience, reach for it from your heart.
Notice what comes forward and what fades away.
Let go of the thinking, focus on the feeling, the being of this.
Imagine this smell flowing through your whole body, how
does you experience roses as a state of being?
Breathing life through the rose.

Let memories of roses come and float away.
Stay with this rose for long enough to know this smell unfiltered,
right here and now.

When you have been present with this rose, allowed your being
to reflect and communicate with it, slowly come back into the world,
and notice where you have been.
Notice the “waking”, the mind coming back on line.
If you are fortunate it may take a while.
Notice the “dying”, which aspects are going off line.
Is this not like waking from a dream?

Over the minutes and hours return to your experience,
call up the smell of the rose.
How does your being react?
How much of the full experience returns?
Does the mind slow and stop?
What parts come alive?
Practice this.

When we have intense experiences, intimate experiences, meditations,
or dreams, are they not all alike?
We shift our awareness to other levels of being, we are “transported”.
Take this chance to notice where you go and how you “return”.
How much do you retain?
or is the mind in a hurry to “wake up”, to “get on”, to “be real”?

These transported states are quite real, just different.
Carry the smell of the rose with you, in your being.
Allow yourself that state, the awareness of smelling the rose,
filtering into the rest of your life.

Is it not wonderful to live your life through the smell of a rose?

(© 6/2008)