BREATHE

I managed to snag dinner at my daughter's tonight. It was lively with conversation between the adults and the two youngsters, age 10 and nearly 13. When I arrived they presented me with a few leftovers from Christmas: a key hanger (since I frequently forget my keys), and a perfect pocket rock, yellowish, with the word "Breathe" inscribed in it.

Curious, I thought, as I dropped it in my pocket and ran my fingers over it's smooth surface. This must be the motto of my life just now. I've been reading two books on breath: THE REVELATION OF THE BREATH, by Sharon G. Mijares (Editor), and LIVING FROM THE HEART: Heart Rhythm Meditation, by Puran Bair. I've been delighting in reading one in the morning, the other at night, and experimenting with the various practices during my meditation times. What occurs to me is there are periods in one's life when nothing is resolved, and the only activity is to mind the breath. Perhaps we kid ourselves when it seem like all is resolved, and it certainly doesn't hurt to mind the breath during those times, but currently in my life at least three big arenas are hanging out with loose ends to knit together in February some time. In the meantime I breathe in, and breathe out, and pause; breath in, breath out, and pause.

Curious that both books include that wonderful pause, though one is a new release (Mijares) and the other is a decade old. Breathwork is timeless...both the lessons and the practices, of course. I would dare to posit that ANY breathing with intention for more than five minutes will enhance one's outlook.

I remember the first time I resolved to sit and pay attention to my breath.I felt anxious, certain I was going to suffocate. I started with a 5-minute timer, promising I'd increase by 5 minutes every week. The tightening in my chest was not imaginary, but it did pass quickly, as did the five minutes. That was over thirty years ago. Now I live in the breath sitting and active; it is my companion, mirror and guide.

Mijare's book pulls from the major religious streams to focus on breathing practices and the function--I should say miracle--of the breath from those various aspects, including Eastern (Yoga, Buddhism, the Tao, Aikido), Western (Rebirthing, holotropic, freediving, Buteyko, Somatic Sciences) and further Explorations in Healing. One piece especially enlightened me:

"Through the sensation of breath movement, access to this intelligence [our essential source within --ed] becomes available to us. If we can 'listen' well, it will reveal its knowledge, as a guidance that leads us on the path to heal and balance ourselves. The experience of connecting with a part of ourselves that is healthy, intact, and sane becomes stronger than our orientation to aches, pains, and illnesses and gives us a sense of oneness. The breath organizes all the healthy cells in the body, allowing an environment wherein the conflicting parts are invited back into this oneness." (p. 137)

She also affirms a phenomenon I have certainly observed without having a name for: people who are continually breathless, using only the upper part of their lungs, gasping between sentences, and often experiencing every cold that comes along, every season. The term is "hidden hyperventilation" when "carbon dioxide is constantly being washed out of the system." When I observe friends afflicted with this lifelong habit, I imagine asking them to sit, relax and breathe, gently and eventually fully exhaling and pausing. I imagine daily sessions with them while they explore life in the full stream of their body's amazing capacity for rest and spaciousness.

Bair's book draws heavily on Hazrat Inayat Khan, who brought Sufism to the West, and his son, Pir Vilayat Khan, who was Bair's primary teacher. While the following quote appears metaphorical, it is not when one contemplates it for a moment:

"Breathing is the body's main mechanism for interacting with the world. Taking in and giving out, we exchange breath with the environment. Breath is the vehicle that allows us to exchange energy with the world and especially with others." (p. 109)

He states the obvious in a wonderful image: "One has a better possibility of controlling the mind if one can control the body. It is like developing the ability to ride a horse well before trying the jumps." (p. 101)

Currently a number of issues are "up" in my life: health, finances, book marketing, and employment. Each of these arenas looks like crisis to an outsider, and occasionally to me in very early morning wakefulness brought on by a meowing cat or a barking dog. But thankfully there are other constants to balance the unknowns: my partner, my family, my breath: steady, present, authentic. I do not always have access to the first two, but to breath I am wed till the moment of death.

In Mijares book, Neil Douglas-Klotz, a scholar of Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic, sites John 4:24, from the Aramaic. I think it sums up my world view: "God is breath. All that breathes resides in the Only Being. From my breath to the air we share, to the wind that blows around the planet: Sacred Unity inspires us all."

It was sacred unity that moved my granddaughters to choose a pocket rock last month with "Breathe" inscribed on it, and sacred unity that it landed in my hand this evening, when I had come for nurturing in a day of uncertainty. My best is to pass this along to you, as you breathe in, breath out, and pause.