Monday Meditation
On Restoring the Sacred Alignment: Meditation, Contemplation, and the Repatterning of Our Lives
Monday Meditation
On Restoring the Sacred Alignment: Meditation, Contemplation, and the Repatterning of Our Lives
“Attention is the beginning of devotion.” — Mary Oliver
Beloved ones,
We are living in a world where speed has become a theology. Hurry as liturgy. Overwhelm as identity. Many of us are moving faster than our spirits can metabolize, faster than our bodies can trust. But there is another way to be alive — a slower way, a spacious way, a way that remembers that the sacred is already here.
Meditation and contemplation are not escape. They are return.
Return to breath.
Return to body.
Return to the ground that holds us.
Return to the God who whispers beneath our noise.
Neuroscience tells us that meditation softens the parts of the brain that panic and defend, while strengthening the parts capable of compassion, steadiness, and clarity. It reorganizes us. It allows us to become people who respond instead of react.
And the researchers at UC Berkeley studying awe and wonder tell us that when we pause long enough to be astonished — by winter light on a snowbank, by the cat stretching in a sunbeam, by a song that opens the ribs from the inside — we become more generous, more connected, more human. Awe is not just poetic. It is biological. It is medicine.
When we meditate, when we practice wonder, the ego loosens its grip. The tight self opens. We remember we are not separate. We are part of everything.
This is the work of alignment.
To let our values become our nervous system.
To let our words become our breath.
To let our actions become our prayer.
A Framework of Practice
Simple. Repeatable. Real.
1. Posture:
Sit or lie down comfortably. No performance. Just presence.
2. Breath:
Inhale for 4 counts.
Hold for 2.
Exhale for 6.
Repeat for 3–5 minutes.
(This activates the vagus nerve and calms the amygdala.)
3. Attention:
Place your awareness on the sensation of breath or sound of your environment.
When your mind wanders, say gently:
“Come back.”
4. Awe Cue (Optional, as curiosity arises):
Before you rise, name one small thing that astonishes you.
A color. A memory. A curl of steam. A leaf.
You are training the nervous system to notice the sacred.
Reflection Questions (I ask myself these questions daily)
Where does my attention go when I am overwhelmed?
What helps me return to myself?
How does awe show up in my daily life?
What value do I want to embody more fully this week?
Benediction
May you move slowly enough to hear your own breath.
May your breath remind you that you are already held.
May awe find you.
May you belong to yourself.
And may your life be aligned with the truth of who you are becoming.
Paz y ternura,
R.+