Let Your Breath Fill the Space

Out of frost-white meadows
of Scotch broom
tall firs rise ghost-like
over the interstate
gray aside naked poplars
their tops disappearing
like breath into
foggy mystery
white on white on white.

Gulls fly out
from the mystery
beyond the yoga window
for once hushed
and silently glide
over mist that floats
like breath
above the still lake
breath on breath on breath.

Fog. I love it. It creates space within me by shutting out all the distractions that are “out there.” It is foggy often here in my new old home. Many days I awaken just to the space extending to the first line of trees. No valley floor, no hills, no mountain, no town lights, no sky. Just me, my breath, and the ghostly trees.

The times in my living when I have felt my most authentic self, are the times I am in the spaces. Sitting high in the big leaf maple tree of my childhood, walking alone in the woods and to and from the school bus stop; sitting at a campsite by a river in the Appalachians, hiking around Mt. Rainier with only the birds and animals for company, driving across the expanses of this land. It is then that I am most awake, most aware, most connected. Yoga teachers remind us often to stay connected to our breath. The breathing that makes space in our chest and between our vital organs. Perhaps it is that reminder that makes me aware of the space as I drove to the coast last Sunday. 

The sky dawns blue, but a mist lingers above the frosty ground and cold lake and escapes from my mouth, reminding me again of the life-giving breath. Hoarfrost clings to all that is cold, tiny ice crystals expanding the chain link fences, vegetation, even spider webs into the space surrounding them. I am as aware of that space as I am of the objects. I look at the webs and see the spaces between the thickened strands. The ducks float in and out of the mist, taking up tiny silent space in the expanse of water. I drive out of town past the poplar plantation. The frosted trees glistening against the azure sky are beautiful, but it is the perfect empty spaces extending in straight rows in all directions that keeps me riveted as cover the mile of road between them and me, until I am beneath them and see only the unoccupied space. The swans standing in the marsh, perhaps sensing my presence watching them from the side of the road, slip soundless into the water, gliding into space among reflections. Even the frozen trickles of water dripping from the rocks are motionless, waiting, patient in the drop zone between their origin and their destination, taking time to breath before the warmth of another day sends them on their continuing tumble.

Perhaps it is the connection to space that often keeps me tuned into themes. Like this week, beginning with my road trip and continuing through the many foggy days. On Wednesday, as I drive to yoga through thick fog, the trees keep a sentinel watch over the mystery hiding in the unseen space.

In yoga, amazingly, the theme for the week is “letting your breath fill the space.” Inhale into your abdomen, bring your inhale up to your chest, expanding as you go to make space...drop your thoughts to your heart...use the strength behind your heart....

On Thursday evening, at the drawing class I made space in my life for, the lesson is on negative space. We practice drawing the space around the subject, rather than the subject itself. When the spaces are all drawn, the rocking chair and the big-horned sheep and Frida Kahlo magically appear out of the emptiness of the paper.

My sister sends me a blog post this week: “Breathe deeply. Our breath is our most immediate and vital connection to the life force that sustains us moment by moment. Let yourself be filled with awe and wonder at the marvels of this intimate gift.” Breathing, filling the space with nothing but our breath. As I write this post, my phone signals an incoming message from my other sister. She is struggling with her ongoing love/hate relationship with technology. She can’t send email from her new computer and she would like to not care. She is wistful for the lost days of simplicity (except it wasn’t really, of course) when everything was done with pen and paper and the phone was not so damned smart and stayed connected to the wall and didn’t even have an answering machine to tell you what you missed. There was more space, more time to breathe when we weren’t connected every moment of the day and night.

I catch up on my daily email from Writers’ Almanac and find this poem from one of my favorites, May Sarton, excerpted from “New Year Resolve”:

The time has come

To stop allowing the clutter

To clutter my mind

Like dirty snow,

Shove it off and find

Clear time, clear water
.
...
 
For it is now or not

As old age silts the stream,

To shove away the clutter,

To untie every knot,

To take the time to dream,


To come back to still water.

The time is now to embrace the space, to concentrate only on the breath, to find the strength in the space behind your heart. The time is now to discover what makes your heart leap up.  The time is now to create space for possibility; to make space for mystery.

There is a Portuguese saying that I used many years ago as a salutation on letters (both the pen and paper type and the electronic): Tomando canta. It non-literally means to take care; to drink care, perhaps to breath care; to fill oneself up with special and gentle attention. Drop your thoughts and your breath to the space around your heart. Spend time there.

Tomando canta, my friends.