May. 12th, 2020

edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
Things done today:

1. Laundry, ugh.

2. Board of Trustees meeting 6-8pm, via Zoom.

3. Read some stuff.

4. Listened to some stuff.

5. Baked banana bread.

6. Remembered hearing a weird noise a couple nights ago that I thought at the time might have been a mousetrap going off, and finally got around to checking. The noise was indeed a mousetrap going off. There is a dead mouse in the cupboard under my kitchen sink.

...

I will deal with that tomorrow when it's light out.
edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
Apropos of nothing in particular!

Audible is running a bunch of random promotions at the moment (because life in the time of coronavirus is weird for everyone, including corporations), one of which is free downloads of some meditation samplers. It is hard to argue with free, so I flicked through and downloaded the three that looked like they might not be completely teeth-grating. (Note: I find a lot of guided meditation impossible to listen to because of unspoken assumptions on the part of the person doing the speaking/guiding. There's a certain... smugness, maybe? that seeps through around the edges. I don't want someone to sell me on a lifestyle. I just want a technician to help me turn my brain off.)

So I tried them. And. Well. Um.

I mean, the Cape Cod beach soundscape wasn't horrible or anything! It was just incredibly distracting, which is not helpful for calming me down or helping me go to sleep. I think that's because it's so obviously not what my local environment is doing. About the only time it might be useful is while I'm writing, and if I'm writing I can just find a long Youtube nature video or something.

The second was a crystal bowl breathing meditation which literally set my teeth on edge. The closest I can come to "why" is that the bowl the speaker identified as the lower note had such an intense high overtone that it practically drowned out the low note, and the low and high pitches rubbing against each other was distressing for some reason.

The third was a "sound bath" that, I swear by all the gods that anyone ever held holy, activated my fight or flight response. I had to go breathe heavily in the bathroom and it took me over an hour of comfort reading before I was able to even contemplate trying to fall asleep again.

In conclusion, I am staying FAR away from any meditation involving crystal bowls or sustained non-melodic tones. Whatever nice things they may do to other people's nervous systems, they play merry hell with mine.

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edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
Elizabeth Culmer

June 2025

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