"Thousands were watching and no one saw a thing..." - Bob Dylan

At the tail end of my morning meditation today a good friend sent me the link to a new Dylan song, "Murder So Foul", This 17-minute meditation on the Kennedy assassination lands like so many other points of Dylan's career: like a mid-wife or a signifier to a narrative that history has always leaned on madmen and geniuses to regale.

Truth be told, we all have the same design on our ears that Dylan has, he's just spent more time using those little drums to his brain. Imagine a world where you saw with Dylan's eyes and heard with his ears. Imagine a world where you really saw with eyes and ears all your own.

In my limited experience, meditation helps with tuning in to that percussion section in your brain. Many of us have a little more time right now, why not use some of that time to explore the benefits of meditation?

There's a lot of confusion about what meditation is and isn't. Let's be clear, I'm notgoing to clear that up entirely right now, but I will say, if you've ever played music, or even listened music, or laid on the floor to pet your dog for a while, you've meditated. It's easy and we're all hard-wired with that feature endogenous. You might even say it's something that humans need to function properly, like digestion and dreaming.

Two easy meditations - both to explain and to do - are the corner stone to my daily work. Find a comfortable and quiet place to sit. Put on some appealing music (I'll use everything from Stars of the Lid to OM to Alice Coltrane depending on my mood) and sit or lay comfortably. For these two practices, I'd recommend sitting, cross legged or in a comfortable chair with your back straight.

Meditation 1: Close your eyes and breathe in through your nose, count to 4 (1, 2, 3, 4) slowly. Hold your breath and count to 4. Breathe out through your nose while counting to 4. Hold your breath out while counting to 4. Rinse and repeat.

Start by doing this for 5 minutes. Something achievable that doesn't burn you out. And try to do it almost every day. If 5 minutes is easy, try 8. If 8 minutes is easy, try 10. Then 15, 20 and 30 minutes. If you can use longer time intervals for each step, try that, too.

That's it, you don't have to do anything but enjoy the quiet time and get a kick out of all the goofy things your brain will do when deprived of distraction. Enjoy your freaking breath, it won't last forever.

Meditation 2: The other meditation I like to do I learned from a friend who was part of Yogi Bhajan's 3HO. It's called Breath of Fire. For this, you just breathe in and out of your nose in fast succession. Try doing it to the beat of an upbeat song, something like Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" (if that's too fast to start, try something slower and work up to it). This one is going to cause a brain change, so take it easy and start short. Begin doing it for 1 minute, then extend to 3 minutes, 5 minutes and, if you're a real weirdo, go for 10 minutes at some point and ride the wohl whip!

I like to start with the Breath of Fire to get my mind right and then, once I've switched the gears with that, I recline into the breath meditation. If you need more guidance on meditation, check out Erik Davis' episode of his great "Expanding Mind" podcast on meditation.

Do it! All you have to do is Do. It. Change your life.

Imagine if even 10% of non-meditators started meditating during this COVID lockdown and maintained that habit as we move forward into the future. The world would change for the better for sure.

Good luck! And, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to mind-control@ibw-chicago.com

Ok! Hang in there! Enjoy the meditating!