This blog mail is a bit longer than usual -I hope you will find time to read it. My usual habit of writing weekly has been broken due immediate pressing concerns -and likely ongoing, but in case you are wondering it’s not because my health and the health of my family is the cause!
Before I give you that advice, allow me to remind the key points of my previous blog posting.
Breathing begins in the womb of your mother as a pulse activating and developing every part of the BodyMind. It’s a primal function which corresponds to the natural Earthen world our matter and mind is made from -and of course, it is also influenced by your mother’s BodyMind, which whilst it instinctively blends with the natural order of development can also influence the character you create of yourself.
When you are born and start breathing a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and water, we are immediately connected and influenced by the outside world environment that ultimately governs our perceptive nature. Post birth the harmony experienced in the womb is lost and the instinct of survival is born. The uniqueness of your individual self has one overriding purpose -the restoration of harmony.
Breathing has three parts, in-pause-out.
Depending on how you are exerting yourself and/or emotionally and mentally focussed on something, the three parts of breath will vary in their time signature. The more you are mentally and emotionally maintaining a focus on something the inward breath will be shorter than the outward breath and the pause will hardly be noticed. When you stop doing the activity the middle (pause) breath will lengthen, the intaking breath will shorten before the outer breath does. What this tells us is this -the shortening of the inward breath stresses the mind, which in turn incapacitates the body. Longer inward breathing which can come from exercising or physically working an activity naturally ceases when the body demands rest.
If you work yourself up mentally and emotionally during any activity the benefit the body naturally manages is lost -because it’s being ‘told’ by the mind how to behave.
The breath ‘key’ is the middle or pausing part. If you are unduly stressing the volume of oxygen ingested (the energy giver) is lessened, which has a domino-like effect causing unnecessary stress to become resident. The middle breath loses its managing role, benefits are reduced, and problems arise. In this world where birth right freedoms are being suppressed by actions intended to defeat viral infections nothing is more important than your health. If you breathe right the immune system will continue to strengthen -even in the over 60’s where science tells us it begins naturally to weaken.
You’ve probably deduced from what I’ve said that undue stress is created by inefficient breathing cycles. to correct this, we must first acknowledge our breathing patterns are largely unconscious -or if you care to see it this way, the result of lifestyle habits. On anything unconsciously activated we only become consciously aware after the event. It’s clear we can’t change anything to the better until lifestyle habits are changed that are causal to bad breathing practises.
So, the very first thing you must do is treat habit with habit -like with like.
Our energetic natures are governed by naturally occurring patterns and movements -the same forces which causes trees to grow, animals to multiply, and all other forms of earthly life manifest life and death cycles. These are the constantly reoccurring sun and moon cycles, the movements of energetically charged particles in our outer atmosphere, and the planetary forces in our solar system influencing life on Earth.
Individually we characterise ourselves in relation to these natural forces -good, bad and indifferently. We all spend much of our time in reactive mode, in other words responding to what we classify as need. The busyness of life is on the increase -technology has developed so rapidly, day-to-day consciousness is being driven by it.
Take two common examples. Junk mail or Spam as we call it -how did they get your address and/or your email? Likely you don’t take any notice -delete or bin them, but read them or not they demand your attention. Maybe for only a few seconds -few minutes at the most. Even when you do not take notice of the content, they affect your breathing patterns. Mobile phones are even more of a problem -when the phone rings or a text notification is sounded, you take notice and often respond. Mislay the phone or forget to take it with you and mentally you (a) may feel lost without it, or (b) worry where you left it. Tiny amounts of unnecessary stress build up during the daily cycle -and this is not to mention the advertising you ignore or silence on the TV when at last during the evening you feel you can relax.
It could be manageable if these stresses were to zero out at bedtime, but of course they don’t, because we are not now talking about thoughts and feelings, we are talking badly adjusted body rhythms.
In practise what this means is we absorb unnecessary stress -changes that are so very gradual we unconsciously accept them as Right Order. Instinctively we react -that part of our BodyMind knows we are not in a Right Order state but on its own account can’t tell you how to change it. So, what does our personality mind do? It looks for breaks, holidays, and diversions.
Does all this sound familiar?
It should do because we are all caught up in a maelstrom of movements we do not control. As I said before we must treat like with like. Change our habits. In days of Yore the natural elements determined what routines we adopted -doing so to get the best out of ourselves when they worked in favour of what we wanted to do. The world now is a different place -bar a few indigenous people who still can, we must create habits that make the best of our so-called civilised world.
This is how -begin your day with purpose.
It doesn’t have to be a world inspiring idea; in fact, it is better not to be. Keep it simple and objectively realisable. So, if you want to be more loving to a person -that’s helpful only if you can express it as a recognisable action, which when achieved satisfies the purpose. Whether it be a purpose associated with work, pleasure, or passion, it stands before the day single-minded. Of course, it will not go unchallenged and if you succeed in accomplishing it before the sun is at its height, give yourself another purpose. And should be assailed by demands you do not agree are good, or meet to your purpose, acknowledge them, accept their reality -then let them go.
This is what the mind must do on all things at all times.
Acknowledge, never ignore, respect and do not judge. Accept -recognise the reality you face has powers you do not control. Release -be that by actions which fulfil your defined purpose, or be that because you have no need, because otherwise it would destroy the unity of the BodyMind.
This is the key of all ancient teachings -the only known way to unite the warring parts of body and soul. The key to harmony which can only be turned by the personality mind. To breathe rightly is to know oneself.
Know this and you will understand why the prodigal son was feted by his father.
The poem I share with you this week is a love poem -because this is what this post is about. Love is what binds us.
Love’s Credo
Fuse emotion and thoughts in one
their hidden sounds are symphony,
where words and moves unwedded coil
in past and future memory.
Stand and shout and jump for joy,
the white moon waxing sets the tide
moves our mind and seeds our life:
the joyous soul we cannot hide.
Tomorrow comes tomorrow goes;
Time cannot erase or change
the union that the law agreed
was right to be a binding creed.
Mine Quick Voice of Aquarius 