Rhythm of Life

The breath is a cycle.

Inhale . . . exhale.

It is like a little life. A little experience. The breath teaches us about cycles. It teaches us that if we inhale, we must exhale. That something has a beginning and an end. It teaches us that life goes on, even after we exhale, another breath will be taken.

Every day, every moment, we are breathing. We don't have to remember to breathe, it happens automatically without any conscious effort on our part. It is like a metronome of our beingness.

Everything breathes. People, animals, everything on earth has an inbreath and an outbreath. In a sense, even the earth has a breath. Think of the ocean tide coming in and out, like an inhalation and an exhalation. Or the cycle of a day from sunrise (inhale) to sunset (exhale).

These are all little inbreaths and outbreaths of life. We inhale when we are born and we exhale as we die. There are Great cycles and small cycles, like the cycle of a ten-minute meditation or the cycle of a life.

If you start thinking of things in cycles both large and small, you will start to feel a whole new correspondence and connectedness to the flow of life. There are cycles within cycles, from breath to breath, minute to minute. Minutes are parts of hour cycles, hours are part of day cycles, and so on. We have all kinds of cyclic markers arising out of our intention based on inbreaths and outbreaths of months, seasons, birthdays, holidays, etc. All of them little cycles, little breaths, with intentions planted inside them with little time-released seeds that will sprout in these cyclic incubators of intention.

Situations and events have a cycle and a rhythm too. For instance, how I start a project affects the outcome of the project. How I begin something makes an impression like a thumb pressing into soft clay that molds the shape of things to come. The intention I put into anything I put my mind to, affects its outcome.

Imagine the power of intending consciously into these cycles of experience. Think of planting a conscious seed into this next cycle, whether it is a project you are working on or the general flow of your day. Imagine purposefully intending into a cycle of a new moon to a full moon, or this birthday to the next one.

As we near the cycle of the New Year, we have a powerful and timely opportunity to practice this idea of rhythms and cycles. The group awareness of a single day has even more power when so many minds collectively are looking at the same subject similarly, and at the same time! The New Year is a powerful cycle of time for renewal and re-intention.

And our breath is our reminder in every moment of these cycles. The breath is the bridge between the soul and the self. It is nonphysical. It is the amorphous mist that bridges matter and spirit. As we inhale and exhale we are in relationship with our lives. We can be inspired ("in spirit") as we breathe spirit in, and as we exhale we share our spirit with the world.

Breathing is as constant as the ocean tides. We breathe in, we inspire, we breathe out, we expire, a little death and an end of a cycle. When we breathe in again we are reborn once more.

Think of your next breath like this.

"I take a breath and I am born anew.
I take a deep breath and I can begin again.
And with this breath I recognize this new cycle that I am beginning now."