ELLA AND HER MAGIC BUBBLES

By: Nicole Breanne

To learn meditation you can buy books, you can find an instructor, spend time with a
yogi, a Buddhist monk, a Meditation Master, visit the Dali Lama, or Deepak Chopra. You
can get accoutrements, the beads, the mat, the incense the gong to center your senses; you
can sit properly, align your spine, find and repeat your mantra. You can study the
different religions that practice meditation:

Bahá’í Faith- meditates daily by engaging in ablutions, (washing/purification) then by

repeating the Arabic phrase Alláhu Abhá 95 times, which translates to “God is Most
Glorious”.

Buddhism- Theravada emphasizes mindfulness, while Vipassana focuses on breathing

and the repetition of respirations.

Christianity- Mediates on the rosary, saying prayers on certain beads a certain number of
times.

Hinduism- Focuses on a “yoga” style, sit, focus, and picture enlightenment.

Islam- Muslims as obliged to pray at least five times a day, during prayer Muslims focus
and mediates on God by reciting the Qur’an.

Judaism-Mental visualizations or analytical reflective processes of making yourself

understand mystical concept well called “hitbodedut”

New Age- Mostly practiced by the hippies of the 60’s and 70’s a technique of blanking
out the mind and releasing oneself from conscious thinking. Repeating mantras,
breathing, and controlling your mind.

Sikhism- Encourages quite meditations. Focusing one’s attention on the attributes of

God, aligning the 10 “chakras”.

Taoism- Practices stillness in movement. A state of mental calm and mediation in the tai
chi form.

Just writing that has made me exhausted. While it may work for some people, I found a
much simpler, and in my opinion purer form of mediation. Which brings me to my
instructor, an 18-month-old girl called Ella. She taught me in the middle of Abu Dhabi, at
a Beer Garden.

I was recently on vacation; I was out with friends and their little girl Ella. We had all
gone out to The Beer Garden in trendy Abu Dhabi, where I was visiting. As the adults sat
around talking, drinking, having snacks, the kids ran around playing with giant blown up
beach balls. When Ella grew tired of this she came over to her Mother who provided her
with a bottle of bubbles, which seems to be a staple in every parents diaper bag.

Anyone that’s been around any child that holds bubbles in their hands has seen pure,
innocent, unadulterated joy. It’s just soap in a bottle but man, they love it. Ella’s Mom
and Dad took turns blowing bubbles in her direction as she giggled and cheerfully chased
after them. All of us at the table, and our surrounding tables laughed along. There is
something completely infectious about a child’s laughter. At one point Ella took the
bottle herself, and being 18 months old shook it violently, which then made blowing a
bubble through the wand almost impossible. “Daddy!!” she cooed handing him the bottle,
translation, “this is broken fix it.” When he was unable she turned to Mom, who had
better luck blowing smaller bubbles but still not enough to satisfy an 18 month old. Then
she turned to me, desperate; maybe this new person had special powers and could fix my
bubbles!!

I took the bottle in my hand; I unscrewed the lid, removed the wand and saw all the tiny
clusters of bubbles formed on the wand. There was no way I could get a bubble out of
this mess; the soap was too agitated from its earlier disturbance. I looked from the wand
to Ella, two and a half feet of perfection, her tan skin, her big brown doe eyes, her pouty
lips and wispy hair blowing in the breeze. Staring so hard at the wand like maybe she
could use “the force” to make the bubbles work.

So I took a deep breath and focused. Slowly I pushed a steady, calm breath through the
wand and watched as a bubble began to form. Through the iridescent surface I saw Ella’s
face. Her eyes grew even bigger, which I didn’t think could be possible and she smiled.

Nothing else mattered in that moment. There was no one else in that location, there was
no other sound, and there was stillness. There was me, Ella, and a bottle of bubbles. My
attention was on my breath, placing it in the space between the circle of the wand, my
goal was simple make a bubble, Ella smile.

The goal of Meditation is calmness, joy, and enlightenment. I found all of that in a matter
of moments. I still continue to practice what I call “Bubble Meditation” when I am
overwhelmed, when I’m sad, when I want to shout at the world, I grab a bottle of
bubbles. I pick up the wand and I focus my breath, I make a perfect bubble, sometimes I
keep blowing and fill my small area with thousands of little globes. I stare at their colors
and try to see how many I can see before they burst…yellow, blue, green, indigo, violet
SPLAT! Suddenly there’s a spray of stick soapy liquid and I have to start again.

I figured it out. Bubbles remind us of happiness. They are big, they are shiny, they fly,
they change shape, and even if a child is nowhere around, the minute you see or blow a
bubble you hear a giggle. Maybe it’s a memory of a child’s, or maybe it’s your own. No
matter how many times they pop you can always make more. Endless bubbles.

People say “You can’t live your life in a bubble” well maybe not, but I would love to live
my life surrounded by them and the joy they bring.