“Transformation can be as simple as returning to the breath.”
Yesterday I received that wisdom from Cheri Huber, a monk whose work I admire and whose tweets I receive as texts because they’re designed to keep me in the present moment.
I’m not going to become a monk. And I’m often far from Zen. But I don’t ignore texts as often as I ignore other technology, so Huber’s strategy is mostly effective–even if I am annoyed by an uplifting axiom, I am still absorbing the energy of the thought, and that counts for something. Sometimes it counts for a lot.
Transforming via the breath is a concept that intrigues me; in a recent yoga class we focused on inhaling the sound/idea of “sa,” for inspiration, and exhaling the sound/idea of “hum,” for transformation. Since then I’ve played with the idea of attaching meaning to my breath, with unremarkable results. Rather than feeling inspired or transformed, for the last week or so I’ve actually felt somewhat stuck and discouraged.
But yesterday’s tweet/text has stayed with me for whatever reason, and today I noticed how, in the space of a breath, it can happen: a sudden shift of consciousness that allows negativity energy to dissolve. For me, it happened like this:
I was browsing the archives of this blog, because that’s sometimes what I do after I refer a stranger to my website–as if to assure myself that, yes, these words accurately represent me (as much as anything digital can, anyway). And when I got as far back as my first time teaching kids, I let out a sigh that became a smile, and I was transformed.
Transformed, simply by my breath. Because the sigh wasn’t one of frustration but of realization: Ahhhhhhh, yes. Of course.
“Love. Energy. That’s about it.”
I’ve been preoccupied with a desire for understanding, for wanting details and answers in light of perceived setbacks I’ve suffered. But I don’t need details or answers, I need love and energy. I need breath. Like the breath, transformation is inevitable as long as I live–and awareness will get me where I need to go.
Inhale. Exhale. We are all right.
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