Tag: breathing

Breath As A Tap Root

Imagine if you will a very large dance floor where everyone is moving freely in their own rhythm weaving in and out among other bodies in motion.  Sometimes making contact with others by mutual consent to play with movement, dance, touch, and energy – and at other times silently exploring a unique world of your own.

In the very center of this dance floor is a woman who often breaks out in gales of laughter.  People move in and out of her field sometimes connecting physically and other times merely sending her love, smiles or energy – in other words nourishment.  Every time that this woman laughs it sends reverberations throughout the room and smiles break out everywhere.

She is feeding the dance like a “tap root” from which other “roots” sprout laterally out in all directions.  This tap root forms the center upon which rides the well being and growth of all the other roots.  Without it the vitality of the organism as a whole would not continue and new growth might not be supported.

The breath is like a tap root with the lungs on the inside and the air from without giving and receiving within each inhale and exhale.  Our breath grounds us in the present moment and reminds us that we are here to thrive and passionately and compassionately live our lives to the best of our ability.

We share the nourishment with others in a deeply interconnected dance of life that has been choreographed expressly for us by a central force so strong that often we just begin to imagine and embody the power we are being given.  The tap root continually reminds us that a fully lived life is within a fully embodied creative breath.

If you have never even thought about moving freely from the tap root of your breath…you might give it a try.  A breathing space of ecstatic, free, unrestricted movement from the center of your being!

WEBSITE:  www.ResonanceWithLife.com

OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT:

www.NaturalWealthJournal.com
www.WildlyFreeWoman.com

The Lessons of Murmuration

This past week I was fortunate to have come across a video that took my breath away with wonder.  Wonder and awe at the amount of interconnection that is present in our everyday moments.  Most often we overlook this and don’t pause to consider that even the next breath that we take will affect every single living thing on this beautiful planet of ours.

The following was written by Brandon Kiem on “Wired Science” about this stunning display by thousands of starlings :

“Video of a massive starling flock turning and twisting over a river in Ireland has gone viral, and with good reason. Flocking starlings are one of nature’s most extraordinary sights: Just a few hundred birds moving as one is enough to convey a sense of suspended reality, and the flock filmed above the River Shannon contained thousands.

What makes possible the uncanny coordination of these murmurations, as starling flocks are so beautifully known? Until recently, it was hard to say. Scientists had to wait for the tools of high-powered video analysis and computational modeling. And when these were finally applied to starlings, they revealed patterns known less from biology than cutting-edge physics.

Starling flocks, it turns out, are best described with equations of “critical transitions” — systems that are poised to tip, to be almost instantly and completely transformed, like metals becoming magnetized or liquid turning to gas. Each starling in a flock is connected to every other. When a flock turns in unison, it’s a phase transition.

At the individual level, the rules guiding this are relatively simple. When a neighbor moves, so do you. Depending on the flock’s size and speed and its members’ flight physiologies, the large-scale pattern changes. What’s complicated, or at least unknown, is how criticality is created and maintained.

It’s easy for a starling to turn when its neighbor turns — but what physiological mechanisms allow it to happen almost simultaneously in two birds separated by hundreds of feet and hundreds of other birds? That remains to be discovered, and the implications extend beyond birds. Starlings may simply be the most visible and beautiful example of a biological criticality that also seems to operate in proteins and neurons, hinting at universal principles yet to be understood.”

Take a look at this video and notice what you feel as you witness it:

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

An intimately choreographed dance which cannot be explained merely by science.  This is the miracle of interconnection on display for us to see instead of just feel.  As the air holds these birds in a dance of wholeness and energy the breath of the women below witnessing this miracle is contained within the same air as the birds.

How do we explain these phenomena?   Perhaps we just remember that it is the same vibration that holds us in deep interconnection as well.  We are just as much a part of this murmuration as they are to us.  We have just forgotten….

OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT: 

www.NaturalWealthJournal.com
www.WildlyFreeWoman.com

WEBSITE:

www.IgniteWealthNow.com     SOON TO BE: ResonanceWithLife!  Stay tuned!

The Miracle of Life Breathing

The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the earth in the present moment;  

to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.

–– Thich Nhat Hanh


LIFE BREATHING

All around us everything is breathing
Listen carefully
for you may miss the soft exhale
of the flower on the vine.
Or the inhale of rich brown soil
from the earthworm beneath your foot.

Butterfly wings waft the air
towards you as an offering
While bird songs are heard
in a series of exhales
As the tree that shelters
releases a leaf to the ground

Chimes move in the breeze
creating the sound of the breath
in notes sung in tune
with the expansion and contraction
of the Earth – all in union with
your next inhale….. and exhale

Be present to life breathing around you
mindful of the artful ways that
breath pulses among the
minutest of cells and atoms
woven amidst the field of being
that captures each one of us within the next inhale

All breathing for and with each other
An exchange of intimacy that
connects us in levels so deep
that even the whale in the ocean depths
senses into the next breath
that you will take.

Be still for just a moment and listen
to the symphony of breath
that fills every moment
with the exquisite pleasure
of being Alive Now.  Life is breathing.
Listen….listen

~Gaye Abbott/2011

********************

WEBSITE:  www.IgniteWealthNow.com  (Natural Wealth)

NEW FREE OFFERING!!

We invite you to go to our website and listen to Richard Cawte’s Sanctuary Creation at: SANCTUARY CREATION

Here is my review:

“Over the many years that I have spent in the study and practice of meditation and imagery I have never come across something with so much depth and potential for deepening and relaxing the mind and body.  

In Sanctuary Creation Richard Cawte’s gentle voice and beautifully detailed imagery take you down into a sensual world of nature where color, breath, and beauty activate all of the senses and drop you into a depth of being from which you can discover what it is like to fully embody your life’s moments.  

What greater tool for daily life than something like this that can be activated and created within you at any time!”   

~ Gaye Abbott, Registered Yoga Teacher

OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT:
www.NaturalWealthJournal.com
www.WildlyFreeWoman.com

 


Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath

ANNOUNCEMENT!!  I invite you to go to the Natural Wealth website to see a Sneak Preview of my upcoming book: Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath expected out in e-book and soft cover by 12/1/11!!  Got to right hand column and click on Be Breathed – Our Daily Breath.

Would love your feedback as the book is not quite finished yet…and your comments would be most welcome!  Also check out the video that took me so many takes….and laugh along with me.

REMEMBER –  Laughter is a series of exhales expressed with uninhibited joy!

Thank you for taking the time to take a peak at the Sneak!

 

 

Gaye Abbott           Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath

Breathing and Balance

Recently I was taken by the insight that being in balance is not a state to cling to.  We all know that when we are “out of balance” in our lives that it can affect many things in our body, mind and emotions.  However, I question whether that is because we are “attached” to being “in balance”?  The better question might be, do we have something to learn in the territory of imbalance?

We are told by culture, our parents, and our ever-present egos that we must “maintain” and not be taken over by feeling or emotion, get angry, be sick or out of sorts, be different, or go too far from mid-line.  The fact of the matter is that we will always go in and out of balance.  It is part of being alive as a human being, just as natural as our inhale and exhales from moment to moment.

An opportunity to explore within a yoga class the concept of moving from balance to imbalance for an entire 90 minutes brought for me great awareness on how the control of ego gets in the way of a full breath.  The breath was the barometer that informed me whether I was attached or not, which translates to whether my ego was invested in being in balance or not.

It was transparently simple!  Every time my ego became involved in maintaining “balance” – in this case within yoga poses – the results were predictable.  Struggle, effort, and breath holding or significantly diminished breath.

The most surprising result of attachment to whether I was in balance or out of balance – and we were given multiple attempts for both experiences – was that when I completely let go of what state I was in I felt more grounded and rooted and my breath was full.  In other words, balance became innately easy and falling out of balance had no ego centered judgement attached to it.  In fact falling out of balance was fun and became just another “dance step” in life.

What happened with the breath?  Every single time I was attached to a certain outcome my breath diminished, was held, or stopped all together.  With surrender to whatever was happening in the moment it all became a part of living life and savoring whatever experience unfolded itself as free of self judgement as possible.  In fact, my balance improved within letting go of the resistance to falling out of balance!

We often are so busy living life ahead of ourselves.  A diminished, held or shallow breath will clue you in to this very pattern.  Even something as simple as leaning forward when you stand or walk affects the quality of your breath.  Watch and learn!

Be willing to learn from the places of imbalance in your life and remember these 3 things:  (Courtesy of Keith Kachtick, Dharma Yoga, Austin, Texas)

*Release attachment to being in balance.
*Surrender to gravity
*Root down into the Earth as if your breath was digging deeply down into the ground

From this place – no matter what happens in your life – you will find that the breath remains full and rooted to your Source.  A state of being to return to over and over again.  Allow yourself to play with the imbalance and marry it to balance.  What a delightful dance that is!

WEBSITE:

www.IgniteWealthNow.com

OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT:

www.NaturalWealthJournal.com
www.WildlyFreeWoman.com