Alexis Kiesel
Community Outreach Intern

As I entered the David Owsley Gallery of Asian Art in the museum, I saw students sitting up against the wall and chairs set up facing toward George Wolfe, the meditation instructor. I had never experienced a meditation session in my life, but I felt enthralled for the new experience. The students around me shared that they had attended a session before, and although I had never done so, I felt at ease with my surroundings.

The Meditation in the Museum is held every Friday afternoon at 3:30 p.m., and I could not imagine a better way to end a week. As a busy student with a constant stream of thoughts running through my head, the opportunity to slow down and let the stresses of the week slip away was ideal. Wolfe provided all the participants with a handout that included the script he used during the session for future use. This session focused on the mantra “ong” and the idea of light within one’s self. As Wolfe referenced, meditation is considered by some to be the fourth state of consciousness in addition to the waking, dreaming and sleep states. This meditation state includes a physical relaxation and heightened sense of awareness.

Even though this was my first experience with meditation, I would encourage anyone to attend a Meditation in the Museum session. Being in the museum itself provides a peaceful, calming and relatively quiet environment, and being led through a series of instructions in order to reach a calming and relaxed state of mind is an activity beneficial to most anyone. Students can attend a Meditation in the Museum session most Friday afternoons starting at 3:30 p.m. in the David Owsley Gallery of Asian Art of the David Owsley Museum of Art. See the following link for the complete schedule for the Fall 2016 semester: http://cms.bsu.edu/web/museumofart/museumevents/meditation-in-the-museum

photos by: Emma Rogers