Conscious
Breathing
“Start
with your breath: Our first breath in life, our first breath in
existence, we breathe in; our last breath, we breathe out. Those are
the two most important breaths that we have. One brings us into this
world; one takes us out of this world. And almost every other breath
we forget, we are not conscious of. And if we start just listening to
that breath, in and out, up and down, just listening to the power and
how it feels, that's the key to the consciousness and awareness of
all living things around you.”
Steve
Karlin (“Wisdom of the Animals,” Parabola; Fall 2017, p. 35)
So, this morning my
laptop would not boot up. It turned on to the screen saver and that's
as far as it would go. When that happens, I may as well be sitting on
a flaming asteroid in the back side of an unknown galaxy for all that I
understand about cause and effect in the world of computers. I
pounded on it, hit every key about a thousand times, said any number
of profane words, and yelled so loud that Liza got up and left the
room. Isn't that the response of an enlightened being?!
Finally, I came to my
senses, turned the laptop off and went to the kitchen to pour myself
another cup of coffee. I gathered the remnants of my sanity, took
some nice deep breaths, came back to my desk where the offensive brat
of a computer sat. I ignored it and cleaned out a drawer—check book
ledgers and day-timers dating back to 2008, loads of push pins and
staples, an old cellphone or two, some photos of the the marble
courthouse in Murphy, NC, and several out-of-date, never-used credit
cards. I'll bet you have that drawer at your house, too. After all
that, while I breathed and listened to Liza, who crept back in once
the hollering stopped, snore, I calmed down. I hit the power button
on the laptop, and voila! It started right up! This mystery is deeper
than can even be imagined—at least by me.
Breathing is the one
thing that can bring us back to earth from a rage-fueled galaxy far,
far away. It is an amazing gift that is overlooked about 99% of the
time. Just a few conscious breaths, feeling the air move into your
belly, and out again, will cause all manner of physiological changes
in your body. According to Steve Karlin, founder of Wildlife
Associates, which is dedicated to educating people about wild
animals, the conscious breath is also the entryway to greater
awareness of everything around us. The instant we shift our
concentration to our breath, we begin to hear what we weren't hearing
before. If we're outside, that might be songbirds, wind rattling the
branches of trees, dogs calling to one another in the distance. It is
as though we wake up to our environment. Our good and reliable brain
blocks out most distracting sounds, especially when we are focused on
a task, so we have to intentionally move our awareness back to our
breath to “boot up” again.
I hope you are not like
me. I hope when frustration seizes you, you don't beat and bang and
curse. But, if you are just a little like me, remember to breathe.
Three times, slowly, consciously, down and back, remembering that
this is a gift—the gift of life itself.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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