I wake in the morning. My intended first impression is to note, did I wake up on my in-breath or my out-breath? Well...sometimes that happens. Often it is minutes or hours later that I remember my daily morning intention. So I ask, when I remember, do I remember on my in-breath or my out breath?
When I've shared this little practice with others, usually the first question concerns wondering what is special about one phase of breath as opposed to the other. Isn't it interesting how the mind tends to follow paths of polarity? Why is this do you think? Something is either this or it is that. And in doing so, we can create a kind of stasis around every experience, a dead field, which then renders invisible much that is happening in every moment within and without. When we form thoughts through the lens of polarity, we often inhibit the compassionate stance of simply inhabiting the tension of paradox, which is a field of vast possibilities; we dampen the dreaminess of ambiguity which would otherwise feed our creativity to move outside what is known and surrender our attachment to outcomes; we constrict the fascinations of curiosity which then sedates our sensual intelligence, holy animal nature and innocent child mind. And so how we generate our belief systems, program our expectations and perceive outcomes happens through a veil of distance from the teeming, multi-dimensional field of ever-changing aliveness that is the holographic sea we are actually swimming in.
But... my attention is too fascinated this morning by snow-melt and shifting winds to continue this line of observation. I want to go back to my breath. Easily. One reason I ask about the in-breath and out-breath is that it's a trope for setting my intention to become fully present in the moment. Paying attention to where and how I actually am, in a moment, and to the world around me. This moment. If I can begin my day consciously, conscious of how my breath is being given to me, I realize that I am being breathed by life rather than taking a breath from my own effort, And so I begin the day in a state of grace. I notice that life is a gift of grace given every moment that I am being breathed in and breathed out. And then this sense of alive grace permeates my awareness as I turn my attention to the numinous light and all the dazzling colors brightening around me; to the plush electric fur of the cat at my cold feet, to the first shimmering gold-green leaves emerging from thin gray curvatures of willow, to the early morning sun-drenched Phoebe who's been singing for an hour in her own rapture that I'm only now just noticing and joining.
This sense of grace then follows me to the sink where I note in gratitude that clean water flows and I can wash wakefulness into my eyes. My ordinary sink then becomes an altar of thanksgiving for not just this clear stream into the white bowl, but for all the waters, for this bountiful gift that makes up most of my body and that of Mother Earth's. I want to bow, place offerings and sacred relics all upon the white porcelain as the grace reveals, again, how vast the gifts of life are. But instead I inhale, say a quiet 'thank you,' exhaling, and continue moving in the flow of Grace. In-breath... out-breath, this spirit of Air turning every moment into a thanksgiving.