Hello Fellow Traveller,
I hope the day is one of beauty and love for you, even if it may be tinged with sadness, frustration or pain.
I’ve been taking an online course called ‘Learn To Let Go’ these past couple of weeks. The course shares practical guidance for how to follow the spiritual injunction to ‘let go’ in day-to-day life.
It’s so simple, and yet so hard.
I’ve long tried to be consistent in my writing – to have a consistent voice and tone, and to strive to capture a single truth about the nature of life and the universe.
But maybe I need to let this go. As the transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
So with that in mind, today I’m sharing five short and disparate reflections on the theme of ‘breathe’, which was the topic of a writers group I went to in Sydney earlier this week.
Breathing is essential to all our lives on this small speck of dust hovering in the vastness of space, and my reflections are by turns spiritual and scientific, serious and light-hearted – much like life itself, I suppose.
Thank you for reading.
break
Breathe
The balloon of my heart expands
and weightless, rises skyward,
until it reaches the roof,
constructed by my mind,
and tumbles back to earth.
I was at a meditation class,
And the teacher said,
“Breathe”,
And I thought,
“Mind your own fucking business”.
“This is water”,
said David Foster Wallace,
to a school of graduating fish,
“I can’t breathe,”
replied the top of the class,
“Then get out!”
came the answer.
“The mind cannot breathe,
Only the heart can breathe,”
said the philosopher of the soul.
“But I’m pretty sure,”
I told him,
“It’s the lungs
that do the job.”
I heard there was a secret cord,
That ran from top to toe,
And produced
the most marvellous breath,
In and out,
In and out,
And they called it ‘Hallelujah’.
—
Thank you again for reading, and supporting my labour of love.
Soulful Thoughts 
The balloon of my heart expands/ and weightless, rises skyward…
Beautiful, Jason.
I like that Emerson quote. I’ve been consistently using it myself. 🙂
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Thank you, Chris. And I’m sure Emerson would be happy to hear that!
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Wow, so much to think about. Consistency is safe and comfortable as is blind faith. Going all over the place like a drunken butterfly is the other extreme. Balance is key. I have always maintained that I can’t have an opinion because as soon as I express it and get feedback I have new information and hence my opinion changes. Open vs. narrow-minded. I think consistency is good if it is not foolish:) My young brother when he was about 14 wrote a completely non-sensical long page of free thoughts and put it in our local paper. Severely criticized by our Dad and other adults, I thought it was a refreshing look at free thought and good for him for having the courage to do it.
Whenever I am getting upset by my negative thoughts I focus on my breath, took me a long time to appreciate what ‘Just Breathe’ means.
I am consistently inconsistent – every day is different. What a wonderful journey we are on.
Thanks for writing this Jason. Made my day!
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Thanks so much for sharing this Colin, and sorry it’s taken me a little while to reply. I really like what you said about finding a sense of balance, and also being open to changing our opinions – which I think takes courage too. Consistently inconsistent sounds like a wonderful way to approach each day 🙂
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Interesting juxtaposition of themes Jason; I’m pretty sure that asthmatics struggle not with taking a fresh breath, but with letting go of the spent one. I think we all hang on a little too long as though we don’t trust that the next one will be there for us.
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Thanks for reading and sharing this, Allan – that’s an interesting reflection and very pertinent to letting go!
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