To Breath by Gunilla Norris
excerpt from Hints for the Heart: Embodying the Soul
an excerpt from Hints for the Heart: Embodying the Soul by Gunilla Norris.
Between the first breath we take and our last exhalation is a life of breathing. It is a constant we don’t think about much. It takes care of itself. For the most part we are unaware of the ancient love and fidelity it represents. In Genesis 2:7 we read that it is God’s breath that made us living souls. In Navajo spirituality the name for God is Breath Giver.
To inhale is to be filled, to be infused and inspired. Our origin is dust and earth and God’s breath. It took billions of years for us to be formed and to become living souls. In cosmology we learn that two billion years ago the prokaryotes, by gathering their oxygen from the oceans, released oxygen into earth’s development, and though they themselves perished, unable to use the oxygen, a eukaryotic cell emerged that could use it, the Vikengla. From there the first multicellular animals emerged in the earth’s ecosystem. What gratitude we owe to these very ancient ancestors that breathed us into the possibility of being. We would be nothing but dust without oxygen. I wonder if it isn’t spiritually important to remember daily that from the very beginning of the universe we have been breathed into life by the uncountable lives that developed over millennia to eventually become human. To know this and really feel it is to understand how sacred the ability to breathe is.
Sensing into this more deeply, we can feel that each time we inhale we are given life anew. Each time we exhale we return the breath to God’s constantly expanding and evolving creation. We are never breathing alone. We are breathing with everything. Take trees, for instance. They use the carbon dioxide we produce in our exhalations. They give us oxygen in return. We breathe with trees and with the earth itself that sustains not only trees but everything else as well.
It is no mistake then that paying attention to one’s breath is a practice hallowed by most spiritual traditions. There is so much more to it than filling our lungs. When we fill our lungs with oxygen, it energizes the heart with oxygen that is then sent through the blood stream to nurture and energize the whole body. Could we think that to breathe might be considered a sacrament of the body?
We know that conscious breathing is calming and restorative. A day filled with breath breaks instead of coffee breaks would balance us and refresh us. And those breath breaks could be times of gratitude, contemplation, and prayer. We might be able to remember and experience that Spirit, through creation, still breathes life into us, breath by breath. It takes a lot of pausing to sense and experience this ordinary miracle. When we make a practice of living in awareness of this constant gift, we will slowly become infused by grace. We will not take things so much for granted. We will know we are not breathing alone, and so will be able to live in more understanding and care toward others and the earth itself. We might even become breathtaking . . . perhaps God’s plan for all of creation from the beginning.
To use one’s breath as a form of prayer is an ancient use. When we do so we will be praying with countless people from the past and in the present. A breath prayer invites a person to inhale a thought, a truth, an intention, and or a quality of being. In exhaling, something is sent out on the airways to a destination we might not know. One can inhale compassion, for instance, and exhale kindness to someone in need of it. We don’t need to know who that someone is, though we might practice this for someone specific whom we hold dear. A friend of mine calls this love breathing.
After these reflections in the offered suggestions for further practice, please know there is no right way to proceed. The suggestions are merely prompts. It’s important to find your own way. Please trust in what comes to you intuitively.
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For decades Gunilla Norris, an award-winning author, has been writing much-loved books on the spirituality of the everyday. In her life the experience of honoring what is right before her has led to deeper connections to life and joy and to inviting others through her writing into the mystery of the holy that is always present. Hints from the Heart is a love letter to her readers. To know more about the author and her books please visit www.GunillaNorris.com.