Choosing a boulder that was squat and waist-high, somewhat like a large muffin, he slowly eased himself up until his feet no longer touched the dirt. He reached down and pulled his pant legs up, to let his hairy legs breath. He could feel the blades of the long grass that was growing around the boulders. The big riding mower that Tim probably used couldn't possibly get into these boulders. In fact, someone, maybe Tim, had built a low rock wall lining the whole of the property and the area around the barn.
With the beech trees overhead offering some shade from the sun, he looked out and decided to try a meditative technique that Sally's friend Craig had taught him. Well, not really taught him. Craig had just been trying to calm him down one night at a party, after he had had one of his rages at some dumb quirky thing another kid at the party had done.
"Bro, you've gotta calm down man..." Craig had pulled him outside to the screened in porch. "It's not that big a deal, definitely not worth fighting a kid over..."
"That's not it man. It's the principle of the thing. The kid didn't even ask who's drink it was, just took it and dumped it. Fuckin' selfish prick who doesn't think of anyone else. He's been doin' stuff like that all night."
"Dude, I know Kyle, he was just trying to help keep the place clean man. Was there a lot of beer left, or what? Look, it's not that important."
"Alright I know it's not. I get that it's stupid. I just can't help getting so pissed sometimes, and it's sometimes the smallest things that set me off. I just... I don't know."
"Have you tried some sort of anger management shit?"
"What like a psychologist? Man I'm not that messed up. I mean I've been to one once, back in Colorado, but that's not why."
"Well I'm just looking for things to help you. Ever done Yoga? Meditation?"
"Never thought about it. Seems like it'd be okay, I just never had the reason."
"Okay look, this is something they teach you early, I mean basics. Try focusing on your breathing, sitting straight. I'm gonna go back inside, but you sit out here doing that breathing thing for a while. It might help. Whenever you're straight, come on back in. There'll be a beer waiting for you."
He been surprised by the suggestion, and even more so at his own answer. All of that spiritual or religious stuff had seemed soft to him before, and in particular
meditation and "yoga" were mostly for women or monks. And he was neither.
But the breathing trick helped. He gathered himself up while sitting on the rock. He tried doing the legs folded thing but that was never easy, and if you did it wrong the circulation got cut off to your feet. Apparently the point was to have full upright posture with good blood flow so that the "energy" could go around you. He wasn't sure about the "energy" thing, but he definitely understood the blood flow.
Breathing deep, and slowly, and thru his nose, he started focusing on his muscle groups. First it was a relaxing of the muscles while maintaining erect posture. Then he took his hands and put them on his knees, turning them upwards as it felt more "open".
Start from the feet. The words from the teacher echoed in his head, from when he had let Craig take him to a lesson. So he clenched the muscles in his toes and feet.
Then move up the legs. Push your toes to the ground, then up towards the sky. Tighten your calves, then up to your knees, and then your quads, hamstrings, glutes. Now your core. Tighten and release. With each inhale, clench. With each exhale, release.
He continued with the focus and the internal instruction as he breathed. Once he reached the end, his face and fingers, he tensed all muscles as much as possible for three breathes, and then released it all at the same time.
The sense of peace he felt then was centering and calming. It was then that he could start to become aware of his thoughts and calmly pick them apart. What was it that was bothering him earlier? Why had he become angry?
The Bible. People having written down and figured out what to write down for centuries after the death of the supposed Christ figure. Why did that make him angry? Shouldn't he instead feel patience and sorrow for someone who had deluded themselves so strongly and for so long? Should he even dare?
Suddenly he grasped on to this idea. His thoughts had an intense power behind them. If he had the Truth of it, he had the power to shake people's faiths to their foundation, to the core of who they were. He just needed to be at peace and reflective.
Right. So that was it, he would listen to the arguments presented and show how they were inerrant thoughts based on a pseudo-reality. The beliefs and doctrines that people believed in were merely repressive and helpful notions for them to grasp so that they didn't have to take ultimate responsibility for their own lives.
But how could he be so sure?
He opened his eyes and breathed out again. The sun had continued on its path and was now behind the barn and the trees, filtering through. He sprung off the boulder using his hands to push and landed on the gravel, ready to continue his thinking as he worked with the wood.
He stopped to take one last look around him. He noticed a sparrow dart from the ground up to a tree on the left. It was too fast for him to look at its colors, but the flap of its wings was rhythmic and soothing. He went inside the open barn door, and his world became saw dust, living wood, and his thoughts.
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