Local Date

31 October 2024

Local Time

09:50

Location

Hackney Downs, London

Country or Territory

United Kingdom

Name

Sasha Engelmann

Satellite

NOAA-19

Radio Callsign

M6IOR

Archive ID

ow736

The humidity is 100% today. When T and I wake up, we see condensation on the living room and kitchen windows- as if the flat is sweating. Yet it is not warm, it is strangely cold. Later in the morning, I find myself getting anxious at the amount of assessments I have to review for an external examiner appointment at another university, and for which I need to synthesise feedback to the whole department by the end of tomorrow. To calm down, I spend twelve minutes on the couch after lunch meditating with the help of an app. This meditation is called 'Sense' and at several points, the guiding voices says 'There's no need to go out looking for sounds. Just like a satellite dish, we can simply receive what's coming'. I find myself puzzling at this metaphor while the meditation continues, so much so that I realise I am not following the instructions anymore. Does a satellite dish 'simply receive what's coming'? And is the body anything like a satellite dish? I remember the meditation Soph invented for their students in Eindhoven, called 'Your body is an antenna'. I have always loved this meditation, and find that it makes sense- an antenna can just exist, and it can pick up a wide ranging but also environmentally limited amount of information around. A satellite dish, on the other hand, feels intent on capture, on picking up a television signal. Later in the day, after I have made some headway through the external examining, my body antenna feels less tense, more open. Outside I can hear the beginnings of Halloween, as mobs of small children spill out of houses and make small shrieks of excitement on their way down the street.

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