Excerpt from Weekly Soul (Craigie): Meditation #16

 

excerpt from Weekly Soul: Meditation #16 --

An Apache myth tells of how the creator endowed human beings, the two-leggeds, with the ability to do everything—talk, run, see, and hear. But he was not satisfied until the two-leggeds could do just one thing more—laugh. And so men and women laughed and laughed and laughed. Then the creator said, “Now you are fit to live.” Larry Dossey

Laughter vitalizes the soul. In the Navajo (or Diné) tradition, there is a sacred and joyful celebration of the First Laugh. When babies are born, they are understood to be part of two worlds: the Spirit world and the physical world. A baby’s first laughter, often at around three months, is a sign of their transition to being fully present in the physical world as a member of their family and community. The person who observes or elicits the first laugh… whose character is considered to be passed along to the child… is responsible for hosting an A’wee Chi’deedloh, the First Laugh ceremony. Guests offer food to the child, who responds (with the help of his or her benefactor) by sprinkling the food with salt crystals as a blessing for the guests and as a first expression of a life of generosity. 

 We are, certainly, hard-wired to laugh. I suspect that what we experience as humorous varies culturally, among families, and, of course, individually. Maybe you have never been able to relate to Uncle Bob’s sense of humor, and maybe your family gatherings don’t look like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but you smile, and your eyes sparkle. As is the case with people across town and across the world. 

Laughter, by the way, need not be in response to “things that are funny.” There is growing international interest in Laughter Yoga, which is a practice that was developed by a physician from India in the mid-1990s. Laughter Yoga combines warmup activities and breathing exercises to invite group participants into the shared experience of laughter for its own benefit. No Marx brothers, no Jerry Seinfeld, just the shared and demonstrably joyful experience of a community of people laughing together.

The scientific literature (which is typically no laughing matter) about the empirical benefits of Laughter Yoga shows the common theme for non-mainstream approaches to wellness: “preliminary results are promising, but more research is needed.” I suspect, though—as perhaps you do, too—that our grandmothers’ wisdom of “a laugh a day” will turn out to be right on. If you’re interested in exploring Laughter Yoga, you’ll find clubs in most larger communities, and there are the customary postings of resources and video examples on the Internet. 

From an infant’s chortle to your own sense of humor to the pure experience of hearty laughter, laughter means you are fully human; it means you are fit to live.

Reflection 

• How is laughter a part of your life? When was the last time you laughed heartily? 

 • Has laughter sometimes defused or redeemed difficult situations for you? 

 • How do you cultivate and express your sense of humor? 

• In the week to come, notice your experience of laughter both privately and with other people. Are you happy with what you see, or might this part of your life warrant a little more attention? 

Author Larry Dossey, M.D., (b. 1940) is a physician, writer, and philosopher of science and the human experience. He received a traditional medical education, served with distinction as a battalion surgeon in Vietnam, and established and practiced in a large internal medicine group, serving as Chief of Staff in his affiliated hospital. As he recounts, he began to collect stories of “miracle cures” that opened up the possibility of far richer and more complicated human experience, neither understood nor studied, than his medical training had presumed. He began to study the roles of meaning, faith, prayer, and spirituality in health and healing. In the late 1980s, he introduced the idea of nonlocality, “nonlocal mind,” which sees humans—and, indeed, all living systems—as connected in ways that are unbounded by time or space. The tantalizing early research on the benefits of distant intercessory prayer, for instance, reveals qualities of nonlocality as does the extraordinarily common experience of calling a loved one on the phone at the precise time they are calling you. Dossey’s 2016 book, One Mind, chronicles his continuing exploration of nonlocality, consciousness and the human spirit.

Weekly Soul is winner of the following awards:

• Book of the Year Award (Gold Medal) mind/body/spirit
• Reader Views Literary Awards Silver Medal mind/body/spirit
• Reader Views Literary Awards Silver Medal religion
• Kops-Fetherling International Book Awards Honorable Mention inspiration & motivation

Weekly Soul is available in hard cover, paperback, and e-book formats. 

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