Sinking into Meditation

I was looking to write a short story, that was fun and light and revolved around a Caribbean upbringing, which is still to come at some point in the near future.

I am also in Yoga Teacher Training and part of the meditation syllabus is to have a daily meditation practice. To aid my story, I decided to meditate to recover memories from a day in my childhood. I sank into a seated posture, I prepped my physical space to begin meditating. I closed my eyes, deep breath in, deep long breath out. 

I am scanning my memory bank in a brand new experience, I haven’t tried this before. I am struggling. I am recalling repetitive activities, but a full day is not coming to mind. 

I see a few images of myself, as if I am the observer. I see the day some of my hair was burnt because I was sitting on the structure that my grandpa’s ashes were stored in. It was a concrete block with an urn in the center, it was tiled on the top and every afternoon at sunset or before, me or my grandma would light a diya on it. 

Picture of a Diya

I was sitting on the structure that contained my grandpa ashes (this was frowned upon) and I was looking into one of our neighbors yards where other kids were playing. I was feeling sad that I was not allowed to go play with them. 

I see myself opening and reading a letter from my first penpal Jason, who was an Amerindian boy my age who lived in one of the Amerindian regions of Guyana. We only wrote one letter to each other before I moved from the city and lost contact. He sent me a picture and I am seeing myself standing on my grandma’s verandah (balcony type structure) and I was standing next to my grandpa’s urn. 

The last and most impactful was seeing myself prepping to push a black and white cat off the balcony of our 7-8 feet front verandah. I don’t know why I did this. I did push the cat off, she landed on her feet, I think, I don’t recall there being any injuries to her. A neighbor saw me do this. 

Her name was aunty Lisa and she was a tenant of my grandmothers. She started to scream at me to discipline me for committing such an evil act. She asked me, “how would you like it if someone did this to you?” I don’t know why, but I felt like that was highly unlikely, so I never gave it much thought. 

I frequently envision this scene. I don’t remember what happened before, and only briefly what happened after but I certainly remembered being caught. 

Why did I do this and why does it haunt me? 

I vaguely recall that I learned from my older cousin and his friend that cats always land on their feet no matter how high they are dropped. I was curious and without thinking of the cats life, I pushed her. I remembered thinking no one would know I am doing this and I will know for sure if cats do land on their feet. I nudged her off the railing with my foot, making sure she was dropping feet first. 

I don’t know why I felt no empathy before the situation, after aunty  Lisa yelled at me and told me the cat had feelings just like me, it registered then, that, this cat has feelings just like me. I couldn’t look at this cat without feeling like shit for months after. 

I was overcompensating for my guilt, I would just give her food whenever I was eating. I felt like she avoided me, but I think she did that even before I pushed her. 

I would sometimes see her on the verandah, and I’d go and sit next to her to see if she was afraid of me, if she thought I would push her again. I wanted for her to trust me again. 

I have to sit with this to see what it is trying to say, why did this moment and scene come up, why does it always come up? 

Do you have times in your life where you have been the bad guy? How do you face it?