Inspiration

With the  Autumn Equinox shifting the seasons, and other profoundly energizing forces at play, including Mercury’s forward motion, Venus in Scorpio, and a Jupiter/Uranus conjunction, the legitimate  launch of dailybreathjournal is at last lovingly present and accounted for. Like all else that is changing and re-birthing, Daily Breath was developed from a past that seems of another time, though it was only in 2004 that the first ‘Breaths’ appeared.  The website opened in 2007, beautifully executed, as is this incarnation, by DMYStudio. This third rebirth is the present answer to a future that calls us to synthesize past knowledge and learning, to understand the energies and transitions weaving life together.  The ever increasing speed, the demand to produce more with less ask awareness of  energetic forces, visible and invisible.  We are learning to use these links and layers, along with new muscle required for surrendering to the flow. If I were to create a mudra for the website, (Mudra is a physical symbol of hand gestures, evoking emotion, healing, and understanding,) it would be of hands cupped open, lifted to heart level. This cup holds my experience and knowledge, mixed with the gifts of your ideas and responses. Let your cup  fill and then lift it up and let it pour  over you,  for this cup-mudra nourishes and replenishes us with the wit and the wonder of our interconnectedness  as we co-create  DailyBreathJournal;  a seed-pod touching worlds mind’s away. Energetic Forces Asana: Mayurasana/Peacock.  Not to be confused with Pincha Mayurasana/Tail feathers of the Peacock.  This is a down and dirty pose, requiring as much trial, error and re-do as the Pincha, as a good Daily Breath.  What is it about these graceful Birds that demand we grow power and  resilience through arm, legs and back? Ideas anyone? This Mayurasana begins……

The Universe has given marching orders for ever greater speed, and multi-layers of multi-taskery.  Perhaps because of the speed, I read Jane Austen-ish novels, and watch old movies where slaves are shackled to ship’s oar-benches.  They row to the steady cadence of the drummer’s beat, until orders drop from above, “Ramming speed!”  Slaves soon keel over from the fierce effort, leaving only the hero and a few uber-rowers panting sweat over their oars. You feel sorry for them until thinking, ‘Egad, their life was drab, but simple, We, on the other hand, are shackled to Ipads, Iphones, cellphones, computers, Blackberries, and a new, faster device I don’t know about yet, but is coming soon. Our daily cadence is Ramming Speed. Depite all the communication apps and snaps we’re not communicating with intimacy. We throw words at each other in drive by shootings. We hope something will stick but we can’t hang around long enough to find out. Intimacy requires time to ripen. It suffers from becoming a task.  It agonizes as we prioritize and parce ourselves out to loved ones.  Do I choose the friend who makes me laugh?  The one who is dying and needs long hours of witnessing? Is it the new neighbor who has called four times, and will not call again?  Who do I have time to be with? To be? To become? Because of all this, in honor of all this, the pre-launch of the re-configured website offers new links of relating, perhaps even unusual forms of intimacy. My hope is we row our boats ‘gently down the stream’ shackled together long enough to discover shared thought and wonderful relationship, even if we are at ramming speed. Asana: Camcatasana, better known as ‘Flipping your Dog.’ Enter from Adho Mukha Svanasana-Down Dog, lift R leg up and bend……

The absolute stillness Fell from the sky A silken silence Parachuting over Breathless everything Opening the door To summer’s truest moment, Ripe. engorged At tipping point Standstill before death. Because I stopped She shuddered Revealing her timeless land, Wrapping her color Around my naked eyes, Scenting my skin in green heat Nudging my quivering body To lie invisible, Open to her embrace.

Dog Days Floating in the still, dark pond Summer stars drop from the sky Liquid bodies circle, touch, and glide Permeable frog-skins Opening to moonlight, Scented in weight of poisonous Brugmansa. Sirius, Leo, Cassiopeia, Heavenly bodies Circle liquid space Reflecting one another Equally profound and beautiful Universe within universe Resonating wonder.

Any conversation between Itzhak Perlman and Charley Rose plays at the highest levels.  In a recent interview, Itzhak was asked, how he saw greatness, genius even, in his students.  The following responses were interesting from a musical standpoint, but fascinating from a life-support POV. *  “Potential for greatness is in our response.”  Is a powerful mandate, violin or no violin.  It hands back such responsibility to pay attention, to be present, to respond rather than react, to do the soul work of opening to life over and over.  It is easier to close down from failures and disappointments.  It feels safer, more manageable, to make life smaller, rather than remaining vulnerable. Vulnerable opens response mechanisms high and wide. * “What do you want to hear? What notes are you choosing?”  Ahhhh yes, Grasshopper, just what is it you are taking in? What is the tenor of your listening? If I say, “I might play the Mozart,” and you hear, “I’m choosing Mozart,” what is in the way?  If I want to hear greatness and I’m listening to ‘heavy metal’ then that is my level of greatness. How does that affect me?  If he says, “I love you madly,” and you hear, “Right, that will be the day,” what has happened to the ears in your heart? Just what note did you choose? *”I like to talk to music.  Forget playing the instrument.” how do we do anything really well?  We have a deep conversation with it.  Yes, we must practice.  Yes it’s helpful if the instrument is tuned, and the audience informed.  But these are almost incidental if we are bliss-filled by the heart’s desires in daily dialogues. When listening and speaking balance one another, when we enjoy the chords of our compatriots, the soaring notes in early morning’s Brahma……

Torpid Heat Lying heat-burned under stars Blazing a blue night sky Smells enter the lizard brain, Limbic pleasure centered within Rose, wisteria, gardenia, Scented layers Circling the darkness Return memory of summer nights When 16 was everything, Is everything searing First date, the over-big corsage, and ‘I’m sorry I hurt you’ bouquet. Ancient memory-lizard memory Moving within again.