Summertime Blessings of sunshine's radiance, blossoming's beauty, laughter of children at play ... Love's eternal and infinite variety at the heart of Life. In the stillness of no-time we are free of fear, free to simply be without burdensome thoughts of past or future. Here, "I am who I am" ... here, we are One in Being with All. In the deep Silence of timelessness, may we surrender to the Eternal Now, be present to each holy instant, and know Love-with-us always.
People can live only by dwelling in the living breath of God. Only in this way can they be at peace and realize their aspirations. From sunrise to sunset, they dwell in the living breath of God; every sight and thought is part of that breath. God provides a place for them filled with clarity and bliss and stillness. In the silence, we are moved by this wind, which blows everywhere in the world.
Breath of life,
You ride the waves of life with me
in the rhythms of my communion with you.
You enter the comings and goings
of each day and in every prayer I breathe.
Whether I am in the stillness of quiet prayer
or in the fullness of the day's activity,
may your peace flow through my being.
"From LUMEN CHRISTI, the wording 'Nurture yourself with feasts of breath in silence and solitude' blew me away, to put it mildly. Although most mornings I do some breathing exercises, it occurred to me that I had not really paid attention to my breath otherwise in months. Going into meditation, I focused on inhaling Divine Love and exhaling peace and harmony. My mind became like a prism, drawing the energy of the pure white light of Love to a focal point and then refracting it into the colors of peace and harmony and breathing them out to the world ... thirty-five minutes in the Silence without distracting thoughts intruding!"
In any activity that requires concentrated effort, the breath quite naturally plays a role. If you have ever tried to thread a needle or repair a watch, you might have observed that without even thinking about it the breath quiets and deepens. Singers, swimmers, people who struggle with panic attacks, and a host of others learn the importance of proper breathing in order to negotiate the respective tasks at hand. Thus, that the art of contemplative practice can be facilitated by the breath should come as no surprise.
We live in a time of religious fervor, with adherents too busy clashing with each other to honor the sacred space we all share, the spiritual core of "soul-breath" – the same human family from the same Source breathing the same air on the same planet.
Windforest: take our breath away,
and return it to us refreshed
with the life you can give it.
Take it to the ends of the earth,
to nourish what you sustain,
And bring back what is offered you
there to sustain others.
Transform our breath so that new life
can be nurtured.
Breathing in I calm my body and mind.
Breathing out I smile.
Give us a heart for simple things:
Love and laughter
Bread and wine
Tales and dreams
Fill our lives with
Green and growing hope
Make us a people of justice
Whose song is Allelujah
And whose name
Breathes Love.
Amen.
... a Prayer by Walter Wink
In this latter part of life, my prayer of the heart is most often without words. My tongue is stilled. My mind is stilled. The prayer of the heart becomes the heart's own respiration. I breathe in and I breathe out. It is God's breath. God breathing in, God breathing out. It is God's breath breathing me.
There are two graces in breathing:
drawing in air and discharging it.
The former constrains, the latter refreshes:
so marvelously is life mixed.
Breathing properly and consciously assumes an attitude of openness and attentiveness. Our breath has a connection with the deeper emotional layers of consciousness. This is evident when we are emotional, angry, or anxious. At the same time, however, our breath remains open to those dimensions of our consciousness where we unfold and become receptive to God.... We need to discipline ourselves to attain an inner stillness and receptive attention toward God, who is our beginning.
When we understand how precious each moment is, we can treat each breath, each moment, as a newborn baby. Awareness can become that tender.
Take the breath of the new dawn,
make it a part of you,
it will give you strength.
Breathing is the connection between the mind and the body. When the mind concentrates on the breath, it focuses attention on the present moment. Breathing is the first step on the path to discover your spiritual nature. As you get the body to breathe correctly, the mind settles down, and that creates fertile ground to develop whatever spiritual nature exists within you.