Catching the Breath
Exhale.
Scoop up your breath in your palm.
Catch it. Hold it.
This is Pneuma.
Press it firmly against your forehead, then swiftly down to your navel.
Let it fill your belly.
Sweep it up to your shoulder, then across the lungs to the other.
Feel it roll out to your fingers and down to your toes.
This is Pneuma. This is Him, the Spirit.
-
She’s the wind, you know. Not breath.
From the tip of your nose, to the back of your throat, to pressure outward and downward inside, then squeezing upward, past soft lips, then out again into the wild.
And here it comes again, flowing in you and through you
Your body like a tidepool that ebbs and flows, moved by some cosmic force
In and out and all around
The wind, you know, wrapped you in her cloak
From the moment you screamed into this world until the last gasp
She pumps you full like bellows, and then prances off, over and over again
A child that never grows tired of the same game
And so you sit with her
For hours, you sit
And she shows you her simple game:
Only watch her and keep watching her.
Learn to rest in her living emptiness
And when you wander away, wander back
Because you cannot catch her, cannot truly hold her
But she’s always ready to play, will never stop playing with you
—
Breath of fire! Like a candle inside a balloon!
Inhale, the candle grows! Exhale, the candle weakens!
Breath of fire! Breath so hot it scorches the tongue!
Exhale, arms above you! Pump the bellows! More! More!
Breath of fire! Pant and sweat and shake!
Inhale, Exhale, Inhale, Exhale!
-
You’re seated and drowning now. Strangling on nothing at all. Your blood is full of oxygen, lungs are empty, but your mind is screaming for more. Fill them, damn you!
Relax. You don’t need breath yet. You don’t need it. You don’t. Hold.
Your throat contracts. Now! Give me breath!
Relax. Not yet. Not yet.
Then, all at once, you slowly inhale and the world becomes bright and iridescent, the breath painting the skin of everything with gloss and glimmer, yourself and the world made whole and new.
