Occasionally, we get the chance to travel away from home, escaping the sometimes monotonous rhythms of everyday life. But how do you meditate when you are away from your sacred space? I suppose you could listen to Shia Lebeouf and just ” DOOOO IT!”. But I decided to explore this question deeper and discovered a few solutions which I’ve listed below.
1. Create a portable altar.
Like your home altar, you can create an altar that has items you find empowering during your practice. The only difference is that these items are smaller and portable. If your altar contains pieces to represent the elements, maybe you have a smaller shell than usual for representing water, a feather for air, a small container of salt to represent earth, and a tiny tea candle for fire. Wrap all of these things in a decorative handkerchief which will be your altar cloth and….LOOK YOU’RE AMAZING!!! You have yourself a small, portable altar ready to set up on the go!
2. Go outside
There is nothing more natural than the outdoors, so if the weather persists, try and find a nice spot underneath a tree, or in a park where it’s green, shaded, and slightly breezy! No altar needed, you are already surrounded by all the good vibes of nature. 🙂
3. Music
If you are unable to go outside, I recommend finding a nice quiet spot indoors. However this can be challenging while travelling. If you are in an airport*, for example, and are unable to find quiet, grab your best pair of headphones and put on some nice meditation music! Some of my favorites–“Zen Garden” by The Sound Healing Center, “Across the Universe” by Terry Oldfield, and “Music for Healing (Sound Meditation Series)” by Steven Halpern–are all available for free streaming on Amazon Prime. Usually searching “Zen Garden” generally will pop up some nice choices anywhere you search. You can also find multiple hour-long videos on YouTube of nature or meditation sounds which you can listen and avoid the annoying commercial breaks you might find in a YouTube playlist.
*The Huffington Post has an article that shares which 5 airports in the U.S. have designated Yoga/Meditation rooms. How neat!
If you don’t have the ability to block out noise with music don’t give up! Allow this moment full of sounds to test yourself. Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Unless you are driving, or walking, then definitely keep your eyes open. Allow yourself to listen to the sounds around you. Unavoidably, the sounds will invoke thoughts within you. For example, if you hear a phone go off in the distance you may think, “Is that my phone? Do I need to make any phone calls? How much battery life do I have left?”. Just allow yourself to let these thoughts go. Do not be upset that your mind wandered, just dismiss it and come back to focusing. Maybe you hear a sound and are anticipating that sound to happen again so you anticipate it coming. Perhaps certain sounds upset you, or even sooth you. Try to avoid thinking about how the sounds around you make you feel, and instead merely acknowledge that they exist. Do not let these sounds pull you out of center but if they do, simply dismiss that you were drawn away, and come back to your center.
So even when you are travelling, you can make meditation what you need it to be. If you can’t avoid something (like noise), instead of thinking it’s impossible to meditate, choose to integrate it into your meditation practice instead.
The Grounding Place 