I just noticed that last week’s title was about breath. We’re doing a lot of breath work in California right now.
I always get excited when I can share my blog space with other artists and writers. Lynnea Paxton-Honn teaches presence and oneness in meditation. An avid horsewoman she bridges the Tao of horse with the Tao of human. Her compassion is boundless, yet she considers herself a student. She joins me today in response to the title of a new song by Shari Anderson, shared on the evening of August 9th at our meeting of the Women Writers of the Well.
Breathed By
Lynnea Paxton-Honn, 8/9/2021
Sitting in meditation
I breathe,
Inhale and exhale,
Stretching exhale into silence,
Jump starting with inhale.
Is it me that is breathing?
And what part of me?
How often do I
Breathe with awareness?
Not near as often
As my body
Breathes me,
As the changing weather,
Changing emotions
Breathe my body,
Lungs attached to
Passing breezes, passing winds.
Only in full conscious awareness
Do I know I breathe
With the cosmos.
When we breathe consciously, of what might we be capable? Life is magical. Even when there is a probable, logical explanation for any given event that happens in this three-dimensional existence, it is always more fun, and many times, more impactful to embrace serendipity and enjoy the magic that unfolds. Breathe with consciousness. Who knows; someone might find the way home.
Nighttime Miracle, based on a true story.
AnaValarie, (remembered lines from Shari’s song: breathes in the light, travels through darkness, breathes out the light.)
A little boy woke up screaming.
As usual, his mother woke, was out of bed, and by his side before she had a chance to breathe out the dream she was in and breathe in the moment. “Shh, shush. It’s only a dream,” she crooned, smoothing the hair off his face.
“No,” he wailed. “Look. There.” He pointed to a shadowy darkness in the corner nearest the closet.
If she squinted, she could almost believe something was there. “Hush, Darling. It’s just a shadow.”
“It’s not. He’s, he’s talking to me. It’s a monster.” He hid his tear-stained face in his pillow. His shoulders shook, his breath labored. Worried that her little one wouldn’t sleep the rest of the night, and quite frankly, neither would she, she said, “This is what we’re gonna do. Sit in my lap.”
The boy climbed out of bed and grabbed her neck. She wrapped him into her arms. “You know how much I love you.”
“Bigger than the Earth? Bigger than forever?”
“Yes. Bigger than all the Earth. Bigger than forever. Let that big love fall right into your lap and hold it there.”
The little boy’s tummy expanded and then tightened as breath filled him with remembered love.
“When you let the air go, blow all that love right into the center of that shadow.” She pointed to the blackness near the closet.
The little boy’s breath whooshed outward as he stared into the shadow, blowing with all his might.
“Let’s keep doing that together; remembering our love, letting it fall into our laps, and then blowing that loving energy right at that monster.”
They hugged each other tightly.
“Stare right into the shadow and think about how much I love you and you love me,” she reminded him.
He nodded.
As they sat together, breathing love into a monster, she felt warmth build between herself and her son. A strong connection had always been there, but she perceived that this was a special moment. She stared at the shadow and pushed that feeling toward it, mother and son breathing in love, breathing out love, sending it to the shadow in the corner by the closet.
The shadow began to quiver.
Must be a trick of the eyes, she thought but she held her concentration, thinking only of the love she had for her son, and offering that love to his monster.
Slowly, a glow of light began around the edges, diffusing its darkness. Suddenly, bright white light flashed in that corner by the closet and disappeared.
She blinked. The corner looked normal again.
“There,” she said, “All gone.”
She couldn’t let on how mystified she felt by what just happened.
“Mom, Mom. It went home. It belongs with angels.”
“Yes. I believe it did,” she replied. She looked into his bright eyes. “That’s what happens when you send monsters love instead of fear. Can you sleep now?”
“Yes,” he said. He climbed off her lap and snuggled into his bed.
His little boy snores greeted her ears by the time she reached his door to return to her own room. What were the chances that someone had flashed car lights in this quiet cul-de-sac at the exact moment a little boy and his mother needed comfort and strength?
She sat on her bed and replayed the event. She was not aware of hearing a car’s engine roar to life, or tires against the gravely road, but…she shrugged. Snuggling under her own covers, she lay content that for this night, something happened that made life a little easier and a little more magical.
Connection 