I’ve been thinking about breath lately, about how my breath is truly the core of my existence. Not just on a physiological level, with oxygenation of blood cells and carbon dioxide exchange, but on a much more spiritual plane.

When you get right down to it, everything comes back to breath. In and out, in and out. To keep myself alive, I breathe. To focus my awareness, I breathe. To calm myself down when my stress goes through the roof, I breathe and breathe and breathe again. It does not get much more basic, or more profound than that.

I wrote a poem last week called ‘breath.life.hope’ that included the following stanzas

“And so I take a breath
and I breathe again
and again and again
filling my lungs and heart and soul
with hope
because my life depends on it

because the center
of life,
mine and yours,
is always breath”

And then yesterday, when visiting my eternal muse Jen Lemen, I came across this passage:
“…That no matter what’s happening there is still the magic of my own breath, rising and falling–this one moment where if I breathe into it, I can discover what’s really going down. And truth is always less horrific and more connected than I could have imagined.”

Last week I also got a very last minute opportunity to see an amazing concert. Ingrid Michaelson, Brandi Carlile, Indigo Girls and KT Tunstall. What a line-up of fabulous women. Ingrid was the opening act, and one of the first songs she sang was “Keep Breathing”

“But all that I know is I’m breathing.
All I can do is keep breathing.
All we can do is keep breathing now.”

I’m including a random youtube video, and trust me – it cannot even come close to the experience of hearing her sing this live (talk about tingles all the way to my toes). I was having a rough week, and I must have played this song on repeat about eight hundred bazillion times because it reminded me to do exactly what I needed to do, and nothing more.

Keep breathing.

And so I did, and I got through it. There are days when we have the ability to harness the power of the universe in our bodies and minds and hands. On those days we are made of energy and mental clarity and there is nothing we cannot accomplish. Then there are those days when our breath is all that we have, and indeed, all that we need.

On those days, we need to go back to that breath, and we need to flow with it as best as we possibly can. We need to forget about trying to do more, or be more. We need to relinquish our need to be better or stronger or faster or even saner and we just need to breathe.

When I am aware of my breath, as I am when I listen to this song, I realize that my breath is a channel. It is the conduit for energy, for strength, for serenity, for clarity, for acceptance. It is the center of my life, both given and received. I have a choice in every moment of how deep I want to breathe.

There is a quote I have shared here before, from one of my favorite poets. Mary Oliver’s words move me to the most exquisite and divine places, she is pure magic. This quote, for me a call to action and a reminder to live life fully, is Mary at her most simple and her most brilliant all at once.

“Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?” ~ Mary Oliver

It’s an easy choice to breathe deep, to find the stillness in the midst of chaos. To take the air, and the energy and the strength and the clarity and the acceptance all the way into the core of my being and to release all the rest back out to the universe. To take in what I need, and to let all that I do not need be carried away and absorbed into the spaces around me instead of letting it dwell inside me.

We are usually so unaware of our breath; it is unconscious, not something requiring attention. As much as the choice to breath deeply is an easy one to make, it is also so incredibly easy to forget to make it.

Breath awareness. It is central to the practice of meditation, but also, I believe, central to the act of living a graceful and mindful life. For me, this awareness of my breath is also an awareness of my life. It brings me back to my center, and allows me to become both weightless and grounded in the very same moment.

So do me a favour today, okay? Slow yourself down and sit in stillness for a few minutes. Play the song above, find one that speaks to you or just absorb the music of your life swirling around you. And then just breathe. Don’t worry about what thoughts come into your head, or if the kids are screaming in the background. Just breathe. Your breath is a gift to the universe. Think for a moment, about how much the world receives just because you make the choice to keep breathing. On your breath you will find gratitude, and peace, and deeper understanding of where you fit into this wild and crazy existence.

Just breathe. Keep breathing.

There’s not much more you need to do, really.