OM SWEET OM

On Monday my youngest munchkin woke up in the middle of the night with a low grade fever and a rash all over her body. Cut to today: She and I took the morning off to hike over to her pediatrician's office for a visit.

I was slightly annoyed because it meant she missed out on the celebrations at school and I had to cancel my morning yoga class at the Martial Arts Academy. Not really a huge deal for my class since I have hardly advertised for it at all and more often than not, since starting the class last month, no one has shown up. I really should advertise..... but that's another topic for another time.

Anyway, I could tell by the time we left the house (without my phone, without my sketchbook, and without money) that this was not just going to impact my morning, but the whole day. I did what I had to do, but without any particular flare or excitement behind me. My daughter, on the other had, was perfectly happy with spending the day with Mom.

After we checked in at the doctor's office I anticipated a long wait, reached for my sketchbook, remembered I forgot it - along with everything else - and sank a little lower into my plastic seat. On the side table was one, mind you One magazine, WebMD Wire. Woopidydoo.

I opened it at random and immediately recognized a picture of a man in the lotus possition. The article was titled "Om, Sweet Om". 80 plus pages and I managed to open up to the only meditation article in it. Sometimes the Universe whispers to us, sometimes it screams.

In a nutshell the article pointed out that meditation research has become a point of interest over the past few years at several leading research facilities and the interest is growing exponentially. Though it's a difficult field for scientists to study, - try to measure metaphysical growth - several individuals have dedicated most of their professional lives to paving the way for western medicine to jump in. What was previously a subject ignored as flippant mysticism is now setting roots as a medication.

Research facilities such as Dalian University of Technology in China, National Academy of Sciences, Harvard Medical School, Society of Neuroscience, and the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center have popped up in more than 1,000 articles stating their results from continued meditation studies. Everything from anxiety, depression, blood pressure, hot flashes, HIV, ADD, ADHD, schizophrenia, rheumatoid arthritis, and daily stress is being linked with meditative studies.

Of all the articles I've read on "leading research" in meditation, I keep coming back to the same thing. Well of course meditation can help! It's as if the new world powers, the leaders in technology and life, are taking their sweet time to, not so much discover, as realize what has already been in practice for thousands of years. And been a success at that.