Writer Jeremy Adam Smith wrote an essay for Mindful in the December issue about the messages of mindfulness that he was noticing while watching the Star Wars movies with his son. Mindful’s art director Jessica von Handorf took inspiration from that essay and enlisted photo-illustrator Kevin Van Aelst to work with Star Wars figures to create images. In the end, the package we got was infused with humor and even a little wisdom.
I was sitting quietly, meditating with about 30 other people during a group retreat when the thing I dreaded the most happened. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, “Can you keep time for a little while?” By keeping time, she meant could I get up, walk to the front of the room, take my seat on the cushion facing everyone, and ring the imposing cauldron-sized gong at the end of the meditation session?
I nodded and made my way to the seat by the gong, feeling like a rumpled mess with frizzy hair twice the size of my head, and like my heart was visibly beating through my chest. I was sure I would screw it up somehow. I would fidget. My feet would fall…
