Spiritual Gifts Of The Breath

Welcome to this brief breath awareness practice.

Bring one hand to your chest and one hand to your belly and gently close the eyes.

As you tune in and allow the breath to travel fully into the lungs,

Expanding into the rib cage.

And as your diaphragm lowers,

Feeling the belly,

Press forward,

Rounding into your hand.

On the exhalation,

The diaphragm gently lifts,

The navel drops back toward the spine,

The ribs contract,

And the lungs release the breath.

Our respiration gives us an opportunity to reflect on giving and receiving.

As we inhale,

We receive the gift of oxygen,

Of fresh life force and vitality.

As we exhale,

We release the energy that no longer serves us.

The oxygen that we take in is a gift from the trees that surround us.

And the carbon dioxide we release,

The trees are able to use.

So see yourself as part of a relationship with the world beyond the walls of your home and see the earth,

The woods,

The great forests as breathing in concert with all the human beings on earth.

Receiving we take in,

We receive the gift of the breath,

Of vitality.

And exhaling,

We release.

And in our letting go,

We offer a gift to the forest,

Nourishing the trees.

It's been noted that the word respiration has the word spirit within it.

We return to spirit when we breathe.

So let yourself move beyond awareness of simply the rise and fall of the breath,

The physical movement of the torso expanding and contracting and feel the expansion of your own spirit and to this wider mystery of the universe where we share our energy with the forest around us,

Where we take in a sense of the aliveness of the wider universe simply through the gift of the breath.