Meditating and Moving the House

This morning I sat down in our second floor bedroom to meditate. The chair began vibrating. It became stronger. The curtains started swaying and, since I was looking out the window, I noticed the house was moving to and fro. Then it started making circles. This was no mystical experience, as it turns out. I noticed a few people hurry out to the street from their apartments. They stopped, looked back at their building and waited. I felt motion sick.

         This was our third earthquake since moving to Lucca. On the 20^th of this month a fairly strong earthquake with epicenter in Emilia-Romana, one of Tuscany’s neighboring regions, crumbled some buildings, killed a few, and left many shut out of their homes for several days for fear of strong aftershocks. I was asleep when that one hit and although many felt it here in Lucca I was, for the second time, oblivious. This morning’s quake was 5.8 on the Richter scale with the epicenter near Bologna, I believe, affecting many of the same areas as the last quake (technically many consider this an aftershock from the quake on the 20^th). Some had just moved back in their houses when this one hit. One priest was killed when part of his church crumbled, at least fourteen others have died, and information abounds on today’s La Repubblica site where you can find all of the details.

         As for us, Niko and classmates didn’t feel it at school and neither did Lauren who was walking around town, but at Ingrid’s school they felt it and spent the entire morning outside playing games. As for me, I will attest that it was pretty puzzling for the first few moments, disorienting for the next few seconds, and disconcerting for quite awhile after that, this house of concrete set so quickly and easily in motion. After that jolt of adrenaline to start the day I decided that sitting was even more important than before, but took the liberty of moving my meditation session outside.