If you’re in New York City, and curious to learn meditation and journaling, sign up for next month’s workshops, and explore paper, ink, and breath. Book a 1:1 session and let’s work together to breathe, write, and meditate. Prefer to write on your own time, Try out my journaling workshop recordings. Pair all of these experiences with an Odette Press journal, and infuse your week with thoughtful moments to slow down.
Early morning blue greets the day and I catch myself breathing. Inhale fills the basin of the belly, and exhales as my feet hum along the pavement. I’m tuned to the fresh air, gulls and pigeons on the metal railings, and the wide, bright sky, the city on the distant horizon. Watching the undulating river, I feel breath ebb and glide from my lungs’ depths, each creating their own rhythm in the process. It’s been happening more these days, the longer I run — the moments of flow, where column of spine, open chest, and heartbeat coalesce with the rhythm of my lungs, where silent rhythm of a run envelop all together into one, where the moment unfolds into flow state. The practice forms over time; a single mile becomes three and what felt insurmountable and unimaginable at one point flows with ease.
I aim to make the effort of running simple and so I ground into the moments of joy: quick pace, heart racing, and the imprint of endorphins lingering in the aftermath. Joy is the foundation of the process, and from there, from the basin and baseline of enjoyment, I run. Connecting to breath, day, rhythm, body in alignment with mind is the aspiration; I greet fresh air mornings, city skies, and tree lines with eyes, eager, feet on the ground, gulps of air, heart beating.
Aspire — to "strive for, seek eagerly to attain, long to reach” from Latin for inspiration and breathing, brings together breath, or spirit, with the threads of yearning. We reach toward and for something, breathing life into our ideas as life breathes each day into us. In and out, oxygen. The way to make something you aspire to sustainable is to start small: a single inhale and exhale, a simple drawing or line of text, a walk for ten minutes. Take whatever you aspire to and breathe into it repeatedly like the breath. Draw a single shape, write one line of text, sit in stillness for one minute, sing one line of song. Aspire is also "to breathe upon, blow upon, to breathe.”
From where you are, pause, and locate your own breathing. Find the places where you are rooted into the moment, into your body, into the day, the four corners of your feet, or where you’re sitting. Feel the ways you are rooted, steady, stable, supported, connected firmly to anything, then notice, again, where the air meanders, making its way around you. Feel the way life aspires to revive you, through air, through time, through oxygen, tuning into the places where your body is breathing. Your lungs, a living rhythm, and heartbeat. Imagine something you’re creating — envision it, conjuring up feeling. Take a breath. Feel the lightness and letting go of your inhale and release, noticing the way your body is breathing. What do your aspirations say?
PS. If you’re curious to breathe more life into your creative process, join me for November’s workshops, and meditate on breath, ink, and paper as you explore suminagashi, bookmaking, meditation and journaling. Book a 1:1 session for more focused attention on your creative, contemplative process. For more curiousity, mindfulness meditation, and writing, practice with Cultivating Curiosity.
Classes and Experiences:
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