The following talk is given by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist and author.

I'm good evening.

I'd like to begin tonight with a poem, this is a new favorite of mine.

I was meditating with my cat the other day and all of a sudden she shouted, what happened?

I knew exactly what she meant but encouraged her to say more, feeling that if she got it all out on the table she'd sleep better that night.

So I responded, tell me more dear and she soulfully meowed.

Well, I was mingled with the sky, I was calm, it's whizzing here and there, I was sun's in heat hell, I was galaxies.

But now look, I'm landlocked in fur.

To this I said, I know exactly what you mean.

What to say about conversation between mystics.

So the title of tonight's talk may have something to do with landlocked in fur.

We'll go from there.

So you might not have found over these days that you've been dissolved into galaxies of light.

But many I know from our groups have sensed an openness and times of really feeling at home or with experience in a fluid way and then contracted.

And the next season has been one of in some way anxiety or tension or tightness that's something's wrong feeling.

So one way of understanding this whole awakening process or even the word enlightenment is freedom from that identification with the landlocked self.

When we're not stuck inside a limiting story and felt sense of selfness.

And you'll notice as you're moving through the day here that the moments that you feel most free, there's not a preoccupation with your story, with comparing yourself to others or to how you should be with judgments.

There's more of that kind of relaxed openness or just part of a part of a flow.

So I'm curious in terms of language.

How many of you are aware, at least some of the time, of when you feel caught in a small identity, when you're living in something smaller than you know you are?

Can I just see by hand somebody kind of track that a little?

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