Our latest podcast, Let it Be Guided Meditation, is a variation on a theme. It's the same theme that gave birth to the Simply Being, Effortless, and Letting Go meditations. It's a theme that can be approached from many angles and given many names, but all of the names can be misleading. All these meditations point you to experience the essence of meditation. The words -- effortless, letting go, simply being -- are all meant to invoke a state of being that can't be put into words. I also use the phrase "let yourself be" in the meditation. That's pretty easy to relate to. Being someone who tends to be hard on myself, I need to remind myself to let myself be quite a lot! But what is letting IT be?

What does it mean to "let it be"? Are there any words that can really capture what the meditative experience is like? What did those words mean to Paul Mc Cartney when he wrote Let it Be? What does it mean to you?

**** NEW -- look for Meditation Oasis on Facebook and Twitter!

We named our podcast Meditation Oasis. The name came to Richard early on. Then we spent a lot of time brainstorming to find the "best" name, but Meditation Oasis stuck. We didn't realized that the name would have a life of its own. I recently did a search on iLike.com in order to "claim" our artist pages. Not only were we listed as Mary and Richard Maddux and Mary Maddux, but Meditation Oasis was there as well. When we started a page on MySpace a couple weeks ago, the only kind of page we could fit into was a "band" page and now we're a band called Meditation Oasis on MySpace! Instead of just "going with the flow", I found myself saying hey, whoa, is this really the name we want? Let's sit back and think this thing over. Maybe there's a better name. It's something about how I was raised. It's always been a challenge for me to buy the first thing I see. I can find the perfect pair of jeans right off, but end up having to try on all the rest "just in case". I measure my progress sometimes by my ability to go with the first thing that comes along when it feels just right. But this one really challenged me -- the name our work is coming to be known by. Life once again is challenging me to walk my talk (or I should say follow my own meditations!)

"Meditation Oasis" has a life of its own. Life itself is a life of its own. It's not mine to direct in what I may think is the "best" way. It happens. And once more, I'm learning to go with the flow.

As Lennon and McCartney once sang it, "Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream...".

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