Breathing

My attention continues being drawn to my breath…something so fundamental …so automatic…so essential…yet often unnoticed.

It’s the archetypal initial act possible after emerging from the birth canal…the act that releases the need for the umbilical cord and enables each of us to be our own person…to take that first breath and then another…and another…

How many do I take in a lifetime? What other noticeable event in my life totals so many?

I’m increasingly drawn to breathing consciously, leveraging the power of breath to both alter my state of consciousness and revitalize myself. Various spiritual traditions make the most basic acts of our lives sacred and conscious: eating...sex…breathing.

True enlightenment, I suspect, arises not from the extraordinary but from the quite ordinary…from how we relate to the ordinariness of our lives.

But unlike conceptual health practices and spirituality, conscious breathing brings its own reward: it feels good...it feels right.

These markers guide me.