The Un-Doing of Breathing

We often feel that breathing is simply automatic with the ability to consciously “control it” for periods of time. Like other processes in our body we take for granted and most often just forget about them.

Until we recognize that our body innately knows that we are one with the Universe. In that oneness there are still points….a pause for us to remember that what we thought was our individual process of breathing is caught up in the stars shining, the waves moving to shore, the tree gifting us with oxygen, and the sun shining upon our face.

Michael Grab, in the video above, finds those still points as he deeply connects with the living forces of the stone elements he holds in his hands and blesses with water. May you be reminded that in every moment you are simply and elegantly an integral and sacred part of this Universe….

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NATURAL PASSAGES CONSULTING

Inspiring New Possibilities, Living From the Heart of Life While Co-creating Well Being of Body, Mind, Heart and Planet….One Breath At A Time

http://www.GayeAbbott.com

Gaye Abbott, RYT assists individuals to dissolve the layers that block well being and reveal, through a combination of the energy medicine of Jin Shin Jyutsu, yoga therapy and breath re-patterning, and as spiritual mentor/guide/coach, 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 as is Skype mentoring/coaching. Please inquire.

Coaching and Editing for Transformative and Visionary Writers

I help you reveal new possibilities in your creative work

Language is fundamental to who we are as biological beings and is the primary vehicle for taking effective action in our lives. It inherently carries within it our identity in the world and the potential for connection and collaboration.

As an advanced practitioner of Jin Shin Jyutsu I am able to see and work with the connection between the body’s energy system and that of language. Conversations actually live in our bodies. Words hold energy that stimulate our biology in various ways.

Transformative writing opens spaces, triggers possibility and stimulates your reader to take effective action. This is Language as Energy Medicine

Inquire: JoyfulGaye@NaturalPassages.com

OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT:
www.WildlyFreeWoman.com

Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath Preview, Reviews and purchase links

can be found here:

http://gayeabbott.com/books/

Supplication to the Sea

Growing up right by the Pacific Ocean and the sandy Southern California beaches was a gift that I didn’t fully see in all of it’s glory and splendor until much later in life. The memories are now held dear.

I can still close my eyes and imagine being there, the warmth of the sun cooled to perfection by a gentle breeze blowing over the water. Toes crunching in the sand often attempting to skim over the surface of the beach as the very hot grains tortured bare feet.

Trying to find the “perfect spot” to lay a towel and still be able to have the best vantage point for the constantly unfolding panorama. Standing guard over delicious morsels of food that the seagulls will nab in an instant if you but take your eyes off of them for a single moment!

The tangy smell of salt from a body of water so immense that there was no seeing to the “other side” of it. If you were fortunate, a dolphin or sea lion would leap out and entice you into the water to play. Tide pools a tempting curiosity that held attention for long moments in time, and oft times a rocky perch would suffice as a vantage point for focused reflection and pen put to paper.

Sitting on my imaginary beach beside a roaring fire the ocean waves crash and race each other to the shore. It is the water that draws me more than any other element here. It appears endless and certainly uncontrollable by a simple human like me. Only the natural elements can commune, shift and transform the tide and the world beneath in harmonious ways. Only humans can destroy the balance here.

So many hours spent in the embrace of the sea. It seems like a moment ago that I was riding the crest of a wave with sea lions racing towards the shore next to me. Riding on top of the ocean current is an exhilarating feeling – whether on boogie board, surf board or within the space of a body. What is essential is to be in contact with the salt filled water. Smelling its tang, feeling the texture next to your skin as the currents push and pull, and occasionally tasting the salty brine that you hadn’t quite expected.

It is definitely a rush to be one with a wave and it is not without an element of overwhelming awe and at times a tinge of fear for good measure. I liken it to how we approach life in any given moment. There is a doing when we take on the attitude of being the most skilled at riding a wave and all that goes into the sport of it. Added into that can be a presence of observing each minute part of this journey, yet somewhat removed from actually what is happening in any given moment. Then there is engagement, where the doing and observation is transformed – a complete and utter surrender into direct embodied relationship with the elements.

Of the latter I will weave a story of such utter engagement that there is no room for focusing on simply observing or doing. Perhaps it is a combination of all three that join together when in one moment you are skimming the surface of foam on the crest of a wave, and in the next find yourself within a watery world where a sense of direction and belonging to any order is obliterated. Where organized elemental chaos reigns.

What is it like to inhabit the inner workings of the sea when a wave has ceremoniously and suddenly dumped you within it’s crashing towards the shore?

Disorientation, panic, fear, physical upset can join each other in a dance that does not have steps. Nor are there any precise steps to learn in those moments. What rides along, resting underneath the human primal urge to survive, is an opportunity to find out what happens in the spaces in between a world of roiling, murky water becoming in an instant calm again. Providing a clear pathway to life giving oxygen and the upper world of a surface landscape.

Yet, in those moments when everything feels blown apart and resembles the experience of tumbling down a rabbit hole, an instant in time suddenly appears where one is requested by forces much greater to simply let go of the struggle. To intimately make love to, and commune in union with, the elements of water, salt and sand by allowing their united collaboration to lead the way.

Can it be that the simple practice of halting the process of breathing for a few moments while making love with the sea can provide a space of unequaled opportunity to know what it is like to surrender completely. A surrender that asks nothing less than to submit your will to the elements that make up the cells of your being.

Breaking free into the world above your private watery womb is exhilarating. Releasing into an anam cara (soul friendship) with the very elements that have just recently captured the space of your body completely. For in an instant, you realize that this merging has brought you home to freedom and a joy in simply being alive.

Suddenly finding the shifting ground beneath your soles brings gratitude. A celebration of now that only the watery embrace just moments ago could have opened space for. What is it to breathe freely once again? To feel so intimately connected with something so powerful is at once humbling and ecstatic.

Take these moments and weave them into the story of You. Know that you have been given a second chance to prostrate yourself before Life and God and all that claims aliveness. For you are among the cells that make up the entire cosmos. That have just moments ago danced with the possibility of a death of sorts, and found on the other side that there is no duality, only a claim to breathe.

To courageously and creatively express the at times painful ecstasy of what it is to be human – traveling towards the shore of Being.

____________________________________________________________________

NATURAL PASSAGES CONSULTING

Inspiring New Possibilities, Living From the Heart of Life While Co-creating Well Being of Body, Mind, Heart and Planet….One Breath At A Time

http://www.GayeAbbott.com

Gaye Abbott, RYT assists individuals to dissolve the layers that block well being and reveal, through a combination of the energy medicine of Jin Shin Jyutsu, yoga therapy and breath re-patterning, and as spiritual mentor/guide/coach, 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 as is Skype mentoring/coaching. Please inquire.

Coaching and Editing for Transformative and Visionary Writers

I help you reveal new possibilities in your creative work

Language is fundamental to who we are as biological beings and is the primary vehicle for taking effective action in our lives. It inherently carries within it our identity in the world and the potential for connection and collaboration.

As an advanced practitioner of Jin Shin Jyutsu I am able to see and work with the connection between the body’s energy system and that of language. Conversations actually live in our bodies. Words hold energy that stimulate our biology in various ways.

Transformative writing opens spaces, triggers possibility and stimulates your reader to take effective action. This is Language as Energy Medicine

Inquire: JoyfulGaye@NaturalPassages.com

OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT:
www.WildlyFreeWoman.com

Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath Preview, Reviews and purchase links

can be found here:

http://gayeabbott.com/books/

TREE BREATHING

“Remember you are a breathing being, alive right now and here. Let yourself feel the mystery and the miracle of your breath and your life as often as you can.”

Dennis Lewis from The Ten Secrets of Authentic Breathing

Trees are the lungs of the Earth. They call to us this time of year with their vibrant colors and falling leaves. Trees in their vast diversity are often taken for granted until Fall or Spring arrives. Then our attention is riveted on either blazing color or verdant green.

Many cultures revere trees as living breathing sacred life that provide purification, bathing us with life giving oxygen and cleansing waters when our environment is in balance. They are also used for prayers and ceremonies and often are a central focus for communities.

I remember as a young mother reading the book, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, to my young sons. I loved the relationship between the boy and the tree as each went through the stages of their lives.

As we enter the holidays where trees take a central focus for ritual and celebration, perhaps there is another relationship we can nurture that will remind us of the deep and abiding interrelationship that we have with trees, as well as give us moments of peace and a great reminder to breathe fully.

Here is a practice by Llyn Roberts given in the book Speaking With Nature: Awakening to the Deep Wisdom of the Earth, that I invite you to practice as the trees around us change and shift with the season:

“Find a tree you admire on your land, in your backyard, or at a nearby park. Stand on the earth next to this tree, barefoot if possible. Gaze at the tree and sniff the air. Try to sense the misty, nutrient-dense waters that evaporate from this tree being. Although you may not see moisture, you can imagine its release.

Breathe in the rich vapors that flow from the tree like a fountain.

Then breathe out sustaining energy to the tree.

As you continue to “tree-breathe”, attune to this tree’s essence. Feel its spirit for everything it offers. Importantly, feel your gratitude. Just as its invisible waters and oxygen nourish you, the love you release with each exhale is food for the tree; appreciation is a nourishing force.

This is a good time to commit to do what you can to promote healthy trees and air, with the tree as your witness.”

As we relate with the trees around us and in our communities we can be with them as a reminder to breathe fully taking time to simply be present to the moment we are inhabiting.

On the inhale silently say to yourself “ALIVE” and on the exhale, “NOW”. Then rest in the pause before the inhale naturally comes back in again.

This exact moment is a gift of awareness.

TREE BREATHING….

_____________________________________________________________

NATURAL PASSAGES CONSULTING

Inspiring New Possibilities, Living From the Heart of Life While Co-creating Well Being of Body, Being, Heart and Planet….One Breath At A Time

http://www.GayeAbbott.com

Gaye Abbott, RYT assists individuals to dissolve the layers that block well being and reveal, through a combination of the energy medicine of Jin Shin Jyutsu, yoga therapy and breath re-patterning, and as spiritual mentor/guide/coach, 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 as is Skype mentoring/coaching. Please inquire.

Coaching and Editing for Transformative and Visionary Writers

I help you reveal new possibilities in your creative work

Language is fundamental to who we are as biological beings and is the primary vehicle for taking effective action in our lives. It inherently carries within it our identity in the world and the potential for connection and collaboration.

As an advanced practitioner of Jin Shin Jyutsu I am able to see and work with the connection between the body’s energy system and that of language. Conversations actually live in our bodies. Words hold energy that stimulate our biology in various ways.

Transformative writing opens spaces, triggers possibility and stimulates your reader to take effective action. This is Language as Energy Medicine

Inquire: JoyfulGaye@NaturalPassages.com

OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT:
www.WildlyFreeWoman.com

Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath Preview, Reviews and purchase links can be found here:

http://gayeabbott.com/books/

The Open Palm

Life as it really is dictates that we will go through periods of discomfort. Sometimes minor and at other times incredibly challenging like death of a loved one or serious illness. This very discomfort reminds us that we are alive, as do the moments of pure joy and happiness. There is no good or bad here. It is ALL life unfolding – creatively being brought forth and then falling away.

Surfing the waves of change requires a presence of complete attention and devotion to what I will call here surrender. Without this practice the personal conversations take us on side trips where we can get lost and, at times, unable to find our way out for a very long period of time. If we were on a surf board we may be dumped upside down under the water!

That is until we realize that everything falls away, and new spaces open up. All we have to do is trust.

This past two weeks I have been bombarded by what I could construe as “loss” in the domain of money. As my personal conversations gathered together in anxious and survival based actions to storm the castle walls of change, my body was breached as defenses went down and the immune system sank. Strategic planning around how to avoid worst case scenarios was part of the battle plan.

Now, if you read the above paragraph again you will see language that speaks to the “all out war” approach of tackling a situation that is perceived to be threatening survival. The thoughts and conversations were literally and figuratively creating havoc with peace of mind and well being, and at the same time diminishing the possibility for actions that would get the required results – that in turn would open even more possibility.

Shifting attention inwardly immediately brought the ego/personal conversations to a screaming halt (sometimes it does scream in frustration when either not listened to or attention is deflected away)! What was being called for here?

Certainly not a grasping of actions to take – a “battle plan” if you will…..but instead an “open palm approach” where deep surrender was called for. A shift into operating from a place of simply Being. The personal thoughts and conversations were actually roadblocks, and at times insurgents against life lived in peaceful flow and trust.

As each situation encountered or personal thought of how things “should be” done, one truth kept coming forward. The necessity for absolute trust in the creative force of life unfolding the exact possibilities to take effective action on with heart and soul – that would then create the results required to bring more life and dignity.

Letting go of the grasping of how things should be we find the possibilities and absolute freedom that we have been seeking and yearning for all along.

How did this show up in my life as I surrendered to this unfolding of life? Full breath reinstated in the body and physical well being returned; a loan was funded to assist with the present circumstances; other sources of income started showing up; a new book release, The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer, supported and assisted the shift (see review below); saying YES to opportunities presenting themselves, without resistance or “background conversations”, was more often the answer given; and even a shower drain in the house that had been slow and often blocked for an entire year opened up without any assistance.

Trusting the flow of the living systems of how life operates from the deepest reservoirs of Source demands the open palm of surrender…..and full life giving breath. The butterfly can then be free to fly away…..

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The Surrender Experiment: My Journey Into Life’s Perfection by Michael Singer

When I first saw on the IONS website that Michael Singer had a new book out, The Surrender Experiment, My Journey Into Life’s Perfection—something within me knew that this was to be a perfect catalyst to complete the transition I was presently deeply in process with. That indeed proved to be correct as I journeyed with the author from the 1970’s to present time.

This is not a “how to”, technique, or even spiritual practice manual – but instead a clear and relevant declaration on how life really operates, absolutely supporting the embodiment of peaceful well being, while stimulating effective action taken from the depths of heart and soul.

The author has transparently presented his unique journey, which of course is fascinating in and of itself. However, what opened me was his devoted practice of “witnessing” ever constant thoughts, and clearly “leaning back” from them – surrendering – into a place of simple Being, where the creative Source of all life elegantly evolves and unfolds.

What struck me through each situation he encountered, or each personal thought of how things “should be”, was the absolute trust in the force of life unfolding that over time, was developed and practiced even in the most challenging circumstances. This is what I call the practice of trusting the unfolding of our lives. For it is when we simply open our palms and let go of the grasping of how things should be that we find the possibilities and freedom that we have been seeking and yearning for all along.

Thank you Michael Singer for an elegant and soul Sourced reminder of the possibilities inherent in being human and to being of service in the world.

Reviewed by Gaye Abbott, author of Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath: Weekly Breathing Spaces to Delight, Rest and Reflect In

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NATURAL PASSAGES CONSULTING

Inspiring New Possibilities, Living From the Heart of Life While Co-creating Well Being of Body, Being, Heart and Planet….One Breath At A Time

http://www.GayeAbbott.com

Gaye Abbott, RYT assists individuals to dissolve the layers that block well being and reveal, through a combination of the energy medicine of Jin Shin Jyutsu, yoga therapy and breath re-patterning, and as spiritual mentor/guide/coach, 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 as is Skype mentoring/coaching. Please inquire.

NEW OFFERING AS OF 3/20/15!!

Coaching and Editing for Transformative and Visionary Writers

I help you reveal new possibilities in your creative work

Language is fundamental to who we are as biological beings and is the primary vehicle for taking effective action in our lives. It inherently carries within it our identity in the world and the potential for connection and collaboration.

As an advanced practitioner of Jin Shin Jyutsu I am able to see and work with the connection between the body’s energy system and that of language. Conversations actually live in our bodies. Words hold energy that stimulate our biology in various ways.

Transformative writing opens spaces, triggers possibility and stimulates your reader to take effective action. This is Language as Energy Medicine

Inquire: JoyfulGaye@NaturalPassages.com

OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT:
www.WildlyFreeWoman.com

Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath Preview, Reviews and purchase links can be found here:

http://gayeabbott.com/books/

The Wild Breath

I happen to have lived in Austin, Texas for the past 4 years and, as many know, we experienced some wild and wooly weather last week. Once I wrapped my mind around the fact that Central Texas rain is not at all like California or Oregon rain – both places I have lived for longer periods of time – I adjusted to the fact that sudden, and I mean sudden, flash flooding was part of the landscape around these parts.

What no one told me was that tornadoes could also be part of nature’s wildness here, mostly because they almost never touch down in Austin. Though I wasn’t in town for last weeks tornado touch down, I saw the aftermath. This event took me into reflection around the wildness and unpredictable quality of the natural world – something that the human race has attempted to tame, domesticate and destroy since the beginning of the industrial age.

By those very actions, in attempting to create illusive and nonexistent “security”, dire consequences to the planet we live upon are very much a regular occurrence these days. Those consequences also reside within us.

We are finally beginning to realize that in this attempt to control – which we can never do anyway – nature would teach us deep soul lessons. Lessons that would illuminate the unconscious actions we have taken to separate ourselves from not only that which we are made from, but from the substance our very life depends on. Our own “wild souls” if you will, each and every cell of our being intimately connected with and from the natural world.

Just think about it. Even the very act of breathing, such a simple and profound life giving action, has also been captured into a tight container of separation from the wholeness of who we are.

The shallow and contracted breath – fed by scarcity, fear or anxiety – that so many of us have on board, represents to me this loss of the wild, untamed, and natural breath that is our innate and direct link to aliveness.

As we stare into the face of a smart phone or computer, we have lost the essential pleasure and connection that is made while in the presence of and gazing in awe at the wonder of a tree, sitting in the pristine silence of the desert, swimming with a dolphin in breath union, taking steps upon the rocks that make up the mountain, or feeling the expanse of a prairie – all reminding us of how vast and precious is life and who we are within it.

The resiliency of simply allowing the natural unfolding of life through the act of breathing connects us to that which sustains and nurtures our well being.

Perhaps if each of us paid attention to reconnecting to the wild, flowing, fully embodied breath we have been given, it would become an integral and vitally important part of the necessary foundation for cultivating and returning to our own innate wildness.

Taking time to explore the landscape of breath, the terrain that it travels, and the vitality that ebbs and flows from its very nature is an exercise in returning “home” to the wild soul of our being.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Gaye’s Review:

Delving into the wildness of this poetic prose of a book brought me “home”. Home to the elements that make up the “wild being” of who and what I am. The elements of Earth’s scared natural world, calling out to us so powerfully at this time in our planet’s history to come back “home” to the inner landscapes of our wild souls – reconnecting and communing in ways that shift the delicate balance back from the ego’s domestication, taming and destructive actions – into a natural state of cohabiting harmony in intimate and deep listening relationship with the Earth.

I could not stop reading this exquisitely powerful book, and am now on my second read through, stopping to ponder and inhabit the landscapes and the words that flow through me onto the journal page. At times I was reminded of John O’Donohue’s writing that draws us in to a much larger context from a place of simply Being. It is not just a “healing” that needs to happen here, but a complete return to absolute devotion to the wild landscapes and elements that bring us life with every breath we take. Mary Reynolds Thompson has brilliantly succeeded in opening that space for us to explore within and without, guiding us to take effective and conscious action from the wildness of all life – from the depths of our souls. – Gaye Abbott, author of Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath, Weekly Breathing Spaces to Delight, Rest and Reflect In.

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NATURAL PASSAGES CONSULTING

Inspiring New Possibilities, Living From the Heart of Life While Co-creating Well Being of Body, Being, Heart and Planet….One Breath At A Time

http://www.GayeAbbott.com

NEW OFFERING AS OF 3/20/15!!

Coaching and Editing for Transformative and Visionary Writers

I help you reveal new possibilities in your creative work

Language is fundamental to who we are as biological beings and is the primary vehicle for taking effective action in our lives. It inherently carries within it our identity in the world and the potential for connection and collaboration.

As an advanced practitioner of Jin Shin Jyutsu I am able to see and work with the connection between the body’s energy system and that of language. Conversations actually live in our bodies. Words hold energy that stimulate our biology in various ways.

Transformative writing opens spaces, triggers possibility and stimulates your reader to take effective action. This is Language as Energy Medicine

Inquire: JoyfulGaye@NaturalPassages.com

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

Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath Preview, Reviews and purchase links can be found here:

http://gayeabbott.com/books/

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