The most valuable lesson I've ever learnt is to breathe. 

Ah, you laugh, I know. Breathing is just what we *do*. A baby doesn't need to learn to breath, but simply breaths. The universe fills the space of our lungs, we exhale, and over and over again the process repeats. 

Sixteen times an minute, on average. 

960 breaths an hour. 23,040 breaths a day. 8,409,600 a year. 672,768,000 breaths in eighty years, give or take. The ancient yogis believed if we slowed down the breath, we lived longer, as if we only had a certain amount allocated in a lifetime. 

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But here's the rub - we aren't taught to breath or attend to our breath. We don't know the effects that our breathing have on our health, or our psychology. Growing up asthmatic, breath was something I had to fight for, and was controlled with medicine. I wasn't taught to control my breath - it was something very much out of control. 

And then, the lessons of the yogis. How strange it is to me that I didn't know how to *properly* breath, and what it meant to be breath, until the yoga classes of my teens. I loved the science of it, and the poetry of it. It filled in the gaps of 'just breath' - a bit of advice that really meant nothing until I truly understand what it mean to breath. 

> When the breath is unsteady, all is unsteady; when the breath is still; all is still. Control the breath carefully. Inhalation gives strength and a controlled body; retention gives steadiness of mind and longevity; exhalation purifies body and spirit. – Goraksasathakam

This was a revelation to me. If I could control my breath, I could control my mind. If I could notice the breath, I could notice my mind, and not let it get away from me. What a powerful lesson. 

> Without full awareness of breathing, there can be no development of meditative stability and understanding. – Thich Nhat Hanh

When I was feeling angry, or sad, or frustrated, my breath would change, and if I could change my breath, I could change how I felt. This seemed to me a lesson every child should learn. 

Breath is so intimately connected to life. To know breath is to feel grateful for it, as if it is a precious gift we must treasure and care for. As I breath, I feel grateful for this life, and intimately connected to everything breathing around me, as if I am breathing with the entire world. 

>  For breath is life, so if you breathe well you will live long on earth. – Sanskrit Proverb

Sometimes, when all appears lost, I connect to my breath and it becomes my anchor to the world. It is all I can do, in moments of extreme grief, or anger, or sadness, to breath. It connects us to moment to moment experience. To nowness. 

> What can we do but keep on breathing in and out, modest and willing, and in our places? – Mary Oliver

Breathing also has the power to connect us to the deeply spiritual. Pranymama is a tool the yogis use for it - but we all know the headiness of quick breaths, the laziness of slow relaxed breaths, the breath that catches when we fall in love, the breath that is our child's first, or our parent's last. To the infinite.

> There is one way of breathing that is shameful and constricted. Then there’s another way; a breath of love that takes you all the way to infinity. – Rumi

What a precious gift the breath is, and what a teacher. 

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# `With Love,` 


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