The last exhalation of the night still lay upon the land

December 15, 2019 3:23 PM

Breath is the simplest vehicle of transcendence.

It literally ends the trance, as the word indicates, because conscious breathing stops our racing mind and alerts our body to the fact that we want to be calmer.

Especially when we practice inhaling and exhaling through our nose. This process elongates and slows down our respiration. It helps us take fuller, deeper breaths that oxygenate our lungs to their full capacity.

Years ago, during an especially stressful period in my career, chest pains started to become a regular occurrence. To the point of a few emergency room visits, just to be safe.

And although doctors never found anything remarkable, thankfully, there was one occasion that stood out in mind. While hooked up to the ekg machine, doctors said they wanted to detect and record my heart’s electrical activity. Just to make sure the chest pains were nothing series.

But it was a busy night and they said it would take about an hour. And so, with nothing to do but sit on the hospital bed and wait, I took the opportunity to practice an impromptu nasal breathing meditation. Just to help pass the time.

About twenty minutes into it, a nurse swooshed open the curtain and came running up to my bed

NURSE: Are you feeling okay sir?

SCOTT: Yeah, why?

NURSE: Your respiration is at four.

SCOTT: Is that good?

NURSE: Well, most patients who come into the emergency room clock in at about twenty.

SCOTT: I’m just doing a breathing meditation.

NURSE: Then what are you doing here?

SCOTT: Good question.

She discharged me ten minutes later.

Lesson learned, whatever threat you seek to transcend, try to find a way to breathe through it.

Use your breath as the magnificent instrument of circulation that it truly is.