Inchtime

...You might like letter boxing! It is a low-tech way to get outside, often in the woods, and search for “treasure.”

Unlike geocaching, you use only verbal clues, which you can find on the letterboxing homepage at letterboxing.org. You can easily find a letterbox treasure in your state and county by going to that website.

A letterbox is a well-hidden box that contains a rubber stamp (usually handmade) and a small notebook. You will also need a rubber stamp and notebook (and probably your own ink pad) so that you can collect images from the rubber stamps you find, and add your image (and the date, plus comments if you like) in the notebooks inside those letterboxes. You MUST return the box to exactly the spot you found it.

Letterboxes are in all kinds of interesting places, and people have very creative rubber stamps. Sometimes the clues are cryptic, sometimes clear. You can choose, if you’re willing to travel around a bit.

This is an activity that is great for children and adults, and combines getting out in nature, getting exercise, solving a puzzle and seeing artistic images you won’t see elsewhere.

I have been practicing mindfulness for many years, spurred on first by the book “Full-Catastrophe Living” by Jon Kabat-Zinn and later by studying Buddhist practice, as described by the zen monk Thich Nhat Hahn.

And, sometimes I meditate. I used to do some walking and some sitting meditation, but recently, I find I only manage to meditate with the support of tapes or CDs, and I often fall asleep. I have developed an aversion to meditation, even with my supports, even if I tell myself it’s OK to fall asleep.

I’ve come to accept that I have this aversion to the formal practice of meditation (and many other things as well!). My recent inspiration for skillful mindfullness has been the book “Radical Acceptance” by Tara Brach. In the spirit of acceptance, I hope to accept my aversion, and meditate anyway, ideally everyday.

I don’t fully understand my aversion, but I trust that if I loosen it’s grasp on me just enough to actually meditate despite it, I will understand it better, and hopefully release it over time. My hope is that this experience will serve as a good model for releasing other aversions (to things I fear, to people I dislike, to situations that frustrate me).