Month: August 2017

Posted on

Quotes about the Breathe

The practice is simply this: keep coming back to your breath during the day. Just take a moment. This will give your mind a steadiness and your breath a gracefulness…. There’s so much to let go of, isn’t there? Your nostalgia and your regrets. Your fantasies and your fears. What you think you want instead of what is happening right now. Breathe. ~Rodney Yee, Yoga: The Poetry of the Body

What can we do but keep on breathing in and out, modest and willing, and in our places? ~Mary Oliver

The tone of musical instruments and our own voice facilitate deepening the resonance of our body-mind with the universal rhythms and wholeness of spirit. Yogic practices of rhythmic breath and devotion, chanting and singing, or other forms of gentle movement such as T’ai chi, promote integration…. As we align more closely with our own rhythm, serendipity is a frequent visitor as we resonate more closely with the rhythms of the universe. ~JoEllen Goertz Koerner, “Quantum Healing,” Healing Presence: The Essence of Nursing, 2011 (2nd edition)

There is one way of breathing that is shameful and constricted. Then, there’s another way: a breath of love that takes you all the way to infinity. ~Rumi

Posted on

Day 1: No Sound, Just Breathe

[Caption: “Just Breathe” by Tao Wo retrieved from youtube.com]

Finally, the first day of the semester for our course, Religion, Spirituality, and Education. I mentioned in class that I was anxious. I was. It’s the anticipation of learning and growing with a new group of students. It gets me every semester. But as I walked to the classroom, I tried to walk it out. I just took a deep breath and knew that my breath, which I have breathed a thousand times again, was keeping me grounded.

As I entered the classroom, there was no sound, just breath. Each of us just breathing in and out. I noticed that when I entered the space, it reminded me of the times I arrived at church in the U.S. on late Saturday afternoons or early Sunday mornings. Each of you were quietly tending to your life, heads down, eyes either on your phone screens or just simply gazing out ahead of you. But  you know what? We were all breathing. Breathing the same air together—independently, yet together. So if you were feeling anxious like I was, remember your breath. Return to it.