How Breathing Connects us to The Rhythm of Life
Fifteen days ago I committed to doing thirty minutes of Whalebreathing every day for ninety days.
With each passing day, I’m becoming more aware of how much my body is waking up. What is being revealed to me includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. I’m more tuned in to the many ways I resist the flow of life. I see how, on some days, it takes a lot of work to be grounded.
On day four of this practice, I hit a wall of grief and began sobbing for my daughter, who died eighteen years ago, on May 18, at birth. (I write about that here: Blossoming in the Face of Suffering.)
Another time, my heart started racing and it scared me. I realized how disconnected I had been with my body.
Then, on other days, I find myself fully connected. I have one of those wonderful moments when I feel all my humanness and how my body is a temple.
This happened while I was doing the dishes. I noticed how my feet were firmly on the ground and the way my feet and legs connected to my hips and, in turn, connected me to the earth. I had a keen sense of my body meeting the earth and understanding the relationship between the two. I became very present in that moment, aware of the beautiful sunset out my window and the sounds coming from my yard.
When we bring ourselves back into this human body, this circle of light that we inhabit, we find a rhythm. We atune to the rhythm of nature, the rhythm of the ocean, the rhythmic pulse we see in the movement of birds and fish. We find alignment.
It’s a collective grid. It’s the universal breath.
I love finding this rhythm everywhere, even in the song playing on the radio. I hear Neil Young sing about a heart of gold:
I want to live, I want to give
I've been a miner for a heart of gold
And even in those lyrics there is an ebb and flow of energy—accepting life and giving life—that leads to the heart.
I’m reading a book called Eurythmy, The Heart, and Three-fold Walking, by John Hinkle, which suggests that even the way our feet touch the ground creates a rhythm that connects us to our hearts:
We bring love-based life-forces in continuous wheels of movement. This melts finely fixed consciousness into a shared fluid breathing. One’s light in this harmonious circle of life opens a greater self in a vastly vital experience, deeply within our breathing into this earth.
I find it fascinating to know that intentionally placing my feet in a certain way is a healing tool with the power to transform energetic systems and turn the mind and body into a vehicle for the spirit.
It doesn’t surprise me though, because there is a similar process in breathing:
Inhale
Soft short exhale
Begin the inhale again before the exhale is completed to create a circular motion
It is this circular breathing method that enables us to tap into the heart space. Yet we need to allow our bodies to be very grounded in order to achieve this. When we pay attention to the way everything in life flows, we can allow this same circular flow in ourselves. I access it through the breath. With the breath as my anchor I can ground my lower half so my heart space can open.
This can feel overwhelming. When we meet the heart, we open to feelings of love but also grief, sadness, hate, loss—this can be hard.
But when we continue to breathe and remain present, we will feel the rhythm that connects all things.
Our lives are not our own, from womb to tomb we are bound to others past and present and by each crime and every kindness we birth our future.
—David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas