Standing with eyes closed we may feel our feet clutching the ground beneath us. They have forgotten to trust that the earth will support them.
This disconnect starts much higher in the tension that holds our breath captive above the heart. No wonder we have forgotten how to be as fluid and flowing as the river that easily moves around barriers.
Notice what happens as you let go of the contractions that dwell in the ego. The body softens and the breath cascades down to kiss the earth.
If everyone breathed with their feet just think how differently we would relate to our planet.
Inspiring New Possibilities, Living From the Soul of Life While Co-creating Well Being of Body, Being, Heart and Planet….One Breath At A Time
Soul Musings is a 31-day practice for the month of December immersed in deep listening to what is emerging and unfolding day by day. Eight sentences with occasional resources to explore more deeply.
Each post, invited by Soul, allows the words to emerge unscathed from prior planning, editing, or censorship. Dwelling in uncertainty and dipping a toe into mystery this union of words is an attempt to resonate within an innate way of Being…. returning “home”.
To receive daily posts simply sign up for this blog and you will be notified through e-mail. In addition there will be daily posts on the blogs below. Thank you for being part of this practice with me!
Inspiring New Possibilities, Living From the Soul of Life While Co-creating Well Being of Body, Being, Heart and Planet….One Breath At A Time
Soul Musings is a 31-day practice for the month of December immersed in deep listening to what is emerging and unfolding day by day. Eight sentences with occasional resources to explore more deeply.
Each post, invited by Soul, allows the words to emerge unscathed from prior planning, editing, or censorship. Dwelling in uncertainty and dipping a toe into mystery this union of words is an attempt to resonate within an innate way of Being…. returning “home”.
To receive daily posts simply sign up for this blog and you will be notified through e-mail. In addition there will be daily posts on the blogs below. Thank you for being part of this practice with me!
Inspiring New Possibilities, Living From the Soul of Life While Co-creating Well Being of Body, Being, Heart and Planet….One Breath At A Time
Soul Musings is a 31-day practice for the month of December immersed in deep listening to what is emerging and unfolding day by day. Eight sentences with occasional resources to explore more deeply.
Each post, invited by Soul, allows the words to emerge unscathed from prior planning, editing, or censorship. Dwelling in uncertainty and dipping a toe into mystery this union of words is an attempt to resonate within an innate way of Being…. returning “home”.
To receive daily posts simply sign up for this blog and you will be notified through e-mail. In addition there will be daily posts on the blogs below. Thank you for being part of this practice with me!
“Breathing is one of the simplest things in the world. When we breathe with real freedom, we neither grasp for or hold on to the breath. ” Donna Farhi from The Breathing Book
Though we are coming closer to Winter this picture displays the pure joy that we have all felt in putting our nose close to the new life that is arising from the ground at the first hints of Spring. As this young child bends down to savor that experience there are many things that are happening at once.
She is totally immersed in the Scent of Life with feet planted on the earth bowing down with the innocence of surrender to explore what will meet her as she inhales. This gesture is innate and reminds us of the deep connection that we have with the Earth…and ourselves….through the sense of smell.
The sense of smell is vital to our enjoyment of so many things and is the most primal of our senses. Many species depend on this sense for survival. For humans we have substituted so many “artificial” or chemical scents that many have forgotten what it is like to connect deeply with the natural smells that surround us – pleasant and not so. We have shielded ourselves from feeling the fullness of life within the connection to the natural world, other species and humans.
Have you ever smelled something and a flood of memories or even an instinctive urge to take an action pour forth? Whether it was an aftershave or perfume that a beloved person wore, freshly mowed grass, fresh buttered popcorn, a favorite flower, a negative ion ocean breeze, pine trees in the forest……or the smell of decay, waste or a certain chemical like ether that you had when your tonsils were removed as a young child a long time ago.
For those that are “mouth breathers” there is a multitude of life giving experiences that are being missed not the least of which is an exquisite sense of taste. “Seventy to seventy-five percent of what we perceive as taste actually comes from our sense of smell. Taste buds allow us to perceive only bitter, salty, sweet, and sour flavors. It’s the odor molecules from food that give us most of our taste sensation.
When you put food in your mouth, odor molecules from that food travel through the passage between your nose and mouth to olfactory receptor cells at the top of your nasal cavity, just beneath the brain and behind the bridge of the nose. If mucus in your nasal passages becomes too thick, air and odor molecules can’t reach your olfactory receptor cells.
Thus, your brain receives no signal identifying the odor, and everything you eat tastes much the same. You can feel the texture and temperature of the food, but no messengers can tell your brain. The odor molecules remain trapped in your mouth. The pathway has been blocked off to those powerful perceivers of smell–the olfactory bulbs.”
Thus, the nose is meant to be used for breathing for so many reasons and as you can see it directly affects our sense of taste. As you inhale the nose prepares the air to be the right temperature and humidity for the lungs and dust, bacteria and and other tiny particles are removed before the air even reaches the lungs.
A full diaphragmatic breath through the nose inflates all lobes of the lungs giving you more life energy, massaging internal organs, stimulating lymph and vascular flow…… opening the way to fully experiencing this exquisitely choreographed dance between smell and taste.
Fully engaging with our senses of smell and taste through breathing fully offers us the lusciousness and fullness of embodied life. Join me in the Scent of Life……
Gaye Abbott, RYT assists individuals to open energetic pathways for vibrant aliveness and full expression by removing the blocks that cover our natural innate blueprint, while addressing concerns through the opening of possibility. This is accomplished through a combination of Jin Shin Jyutsu, breath repatterning, yoga therapy and targeted guidance/mentoring revealing the larger purpose and co-creative expression that we are here for.
For those interested in receiving private sessions please contact Gaye at: JoyfulGaye@NaturalPassages.com. Travel to your location in the U.S. or globally is available. Please inquire. Skype: gaye.abbott
“I walk lighter, stumble less, with more spring in leg and lung, keeping my center of gravity deep in the belly, and letting that center ‘see.’ At these times, I am free of vertigo, even in dangerous places; my feet move naturally to firm footholds, and I flow. But sometimes for a day or more, I lose this feel of things, my breath is high up in my chest, and then I cling to the cliff edge as to life itself. And of course it is this clinging, the tightness of panic, that gets people killed: ‘to clutch,’ in ancient Egyptian, ‘to clutch the mountain,’ in Assyrian, were euphemisms that signified ‘to die'” (125).”–Peter Matthiessen, “The Snow Leopard”
It has been many years since I read Peter Matthiessen’s “The Snow Leopard”, but I still remember being mesmerized by the journey and often felt as if I was right there taking each step – both inner and outer.
Though I have not been to the Himalayas the quote above reminds me of when clinging or gripping would indeed have gotten me killed in the physical sense and closed off from possibility in a “soul’s journey” sense. This was many, many years ago on the Hawaiian island of Kauai while hiking along the original Kalalau trail of the Na Pali coast.
Kalalau cliffside trial, Na Pali coast
There are many areas along this 11 mile trial, with end destination to a pristine beach, that are considered dangerous and can result in death or severe injury. Having read about one particular part of this trial before I even left on the trip the pattern for “gripping” or contraction in breath and body was already bound up in the fears of falling over the cliff side into the ocean below, or not being able to make it past this particular part of the trail (it was about two thirds of the way in) and being the only one of the party of 4 that couldn’t go on.
This part of the journey was about the flow that Peter Matthiessen speaks of in the quote above. Allowing each breath to be a signpost for the next step and the next and the next. The trial was literally along the cliff side just as in the picture to the right. There were no handholds, a wind was blowing, and past the people you see on the trial there was a 90 degree turn that had to be negotiated with a heavy back pack on – again no barrier to falling.
As fate would have it we camped right before this part of the trial the night before we were to go on this leg of the journey. Up to this time I had been the last one in a single file line as we hiked along absorbing the boundless beauty along the way. After a very restless night and some fearful tears I was the one that lead the way before the others were even ready to embark. Perhaps it was ancient Hawaiian guides who whispered in my ear to start early, breathe fully from the belly keeping my center of gravity there, ground down through my legs and feet, take one step at a time, and completely embody the journey.
As the breath stabilized and anchored my center of gravity there were moments when my whole world shifted to NOW, and NOW, and NOW demanding that I embrace the experience and the moment of absolute presence. There was a catharsis after that 90 degree turn when safer walking territory presented itself, yet the most powerful feeling of absolute freedom permeated every part of my being.
We don’t have to be on a cliff side with a shear drop off to understand that gripping the breath residing high in the chest means not only diminishing life force and well being, but cutting off – or killing – opportunities and possibilities for thriving within the challenges that life presents to us on a daily basis.
How would you like to be breathing? How would you like to be living? Place your hands on your belly and be grateful….
Gaye Abbott, RYT assists individuals to open energetic pathways for vibrant aliveness and full expression by removing the blocks that cover our natural innate blueprint, while addressing concerns through the opening of possibility. This is accomplished through a combination of Jin Shin Jyutsu, breath repatterning, yoga therapy and targeted guidance/mentoring revealing the larger purpose and co-creative expression that we are here for.
For those interested in receiving private sessions please contact Gaye at: JoyfulGaye@NaturalPassages.com. Travel to your location in the U.S. or globally is available. Please inquire. Skype: gaye.abbott
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BREATHING SPACES 