Canoeing (in my home) to calmer waters

Good morning, DMV! It’s Wednesday, April 8.

Yesterday, I joined by Zoom one of the National Museum of Asian Art’s twice-a-week meditation sessions. There were more than 60 others on the call, including a handful of Daily Dose readers!

I was unsure how I’d feel about an online meditation session … but I noted it in my calendar and logged onto the call just after getting home from yoga. I quickly scrolled through the list of participants and was happy to see familiar names. The meditation was led by Philip Bender. I was feeling pretty relaxed after yoga, so I sat cross-legged, closed my eyes and settled in for the ride.

Philip invited us to imagine we were in a canoe. We started rowing. The waters got choppy, then became still as we moved into a calmer spot. I was present in the visualization, happy to be in the outdoors.

Then he guided us to breathe in synch, together. I dropped into the zone. It felt like the perfect calming continuation of my morning yoga practice. And it was under an hour, so an ideal midday break.

As we prepared to sign out of the session, the reader who suggested I join the event dropped me a note in the Zoom chat. More readers emailed to tell me they were also there.

Afterward, I called Demi Mohamed, the public programs coordinator at the National Museum of Asian Art, to learn more about these sessions.

The museum’s meditation program used to be in person, on site, she said. It moved online during the pandemic, expanding its reach beyond the D.C. region. The program stayed online, and about 70 to 100 people join each session, including people from Mexico, rural Alaska and the West Coast, she said. “We see the same names every week.”

The Tuesday session each week is a guided meditation with breathwork. The Friday session, usually led by Aparna Sadananda, focuses on an artwork from the museum’s collection. (These sessions are uploaded to the museum’s YouTube channel.) The teachers and Demi choose artworks along a certain theme or holiday.

A recent Friday session, befitting the season, focused on a print of a crow perched on a cherry tree above a full moon.

Do you know anyone who would enjoy my Daily Dose? Please share this newsletter with them to help me grow. This newsletter would not be possible without your financial contributions — click below to support me. Thanks for reading me.

“These are Virginia Bluebells I grow in my garden,” said Mark Fagerburg, 71, of Richmond, Virginia. He snapped this pic on March 24.

Elizabeth Hearn took this photo on March 23 at her house in the Petworth neighborhood of D.C.

“This Magnolia is in our front lawn and far too big for the space, but we love her,” she wrote.

Jeff Ochs, 68, of Springfield, Virginia, took this photo on March 26.

“These Butterfly Magnolias are at peak normally at the same time as the cherry blossoms … Two nights later, the hard frost ended the beauty of these quite fragile blossoms. What beauty for a few days,” he wrote. “We appreciate the very short display!!!”

Dan Woolley, 71, snapped this pic at his home in Herndon, Virginia.

“I was doing some early morning yard work on Easter Sunday before heading to a sunrise service and noticed my Dogwood Tree was in full bloom. I've had this tree, next to the house, for 35 years. It has survived so many winters and hot dry summers that I often thought I wouldn't see it bloom again,” Dan wrote to me in an email.

“It is flourishing this year. I also planted tulips under its spreading limbs this past fall and they too were in bloom. So I grabbed the camera and was lucky enough to capture the color of the tulips beneath the white flowers, a fitting image for Easter Sunday.”

He said he planted more than 300 bulbs in the fall, but about half survived. He also shared pics of of some pink dogwoods he spotted in the rain on his way home after dyeing eggs with his granddaughters.

🪷