Power Cut Meditation

Although you know full well that there is no electricity, although you are performing lots of actions purely because of the fact that there is no electricity, although you are totally geared up to dealing with that fact, habit is stronger. Your hand just reaches for the switch as you come in the door.

There were strong winds in the night, felling a tree behind the house. Life as we know it — or possibly our lives full stop — preserved by a couple of centimetres. In the morning there was a power cut. A power cut is a funny form of meditation.

First of all, the reaction of slight panic. How to deal with all of this without a coffee? Then survival mode kicks in and you find the matches in the dark and, once you can see, life already feels a lot safer. Then you bustle about doing what needs to be done (in my case lighting the fire and putting a lot of saucepans on the stove to heat the trickle of water that was coming out of the tap — we rely on an electric pump but luckily there was a little water running down the hill under its own steam). Then you go into another room and flick the dead switch.

Although you know full well that there is no electricity, although you are performing lots of actions purely because of the fact that there is no electricity, although you are totally geared up to dealing with that fact, habit is stronger. Your hand just reaches for the switch as you come in the door.

It’s not really a metaphor, I think this is just the way we are about everything. If we are consciously changing, even when all our behaviour revolves around the change we want, any habitual situation will call out our habits, even when they are clearly ludicrous in the new context. It takes a long time to form a new habit. If we are adjusting to a life which is in some way different, whether we have chosen it or not, we shouldn’t berate ourselves if it takes time, a lot of time.

This morning I realised not only what a creature of habit I am but how extraordinarily dependent I am in so many aspects of my life. I realised that without electricity I would have to start working for and waiting for my coffee, making my own music, and relying on my own family for community and conversation and stimulus. It started to seem distantly, strangely, exciting. And then the lights came back on.

• meditation
• mindful awareness