Meditating While Recovering from COVID-19
Deep breathing is a challenge right now.
The virus has yet to seize me by the lungs,
but when I do breathe, the smooth swoop of air
scratches my throat, and the coughing
clutches me again. I do my best, though,
tilting my head back against the recliner,
letting fatigue flood my eyes shut
as the guided meditation begins.
Half of me wants to ask the narrator,
“Why me? And why now?
How long will I have to live with
the craving to sleep all day?
And could my boyfriend please be spared
so he never receives what I never wanted to give him?”
But the other half of me knows
these worries are futile.
So I listen as the narrator’s voice vibrates
through the soles of my feet,
as he reminds me to relax,
as he reminds me not to think,
as he asks me to do what is effortless (close your eyes)
and what is not (breathe deeply).
Then he asks me to imagine my root chakra
as a sphere of red light at the base of my spine—
and suddenly I see it,
a tiny planet like Mars,
spinning on its axis as it centers me,
and that’s when I find the solar system I hold inside—
all seven energy centers, tiny globes
rotating on fixed points along my back, neck, and head,
each one shimmering in a color from the rainbow—
and only then do I notice
how I breathe with a river’s ease,
how I remain in my recliner yet have floated into a galaxy
where illness, questions, and fear don’t exist,
where the expanse that grows within blurs with the boundaries of skin
until the space I contain is limitless,
until all traces of disease seem to fall away,
until this lying back and listening is all I do for hours
because it allows me to feel well again.
Amethyst Review 