Nothing could be more ordinary, nothing could be more miraculous, than this breath. Please remember, a breath is never taken, but given. Be grateful. At this very moment, what swirls the galaxy and sings the stars is breathing you. Every cell in your flesh knows this, and softly smiles.
The breath who comes to dwell in your body is the very form of the Beloved, and the very Goddess who plays by God’s elbow at the dawn of creation. (Proverbs 8).
Each rise and fall of inhalation, exhalation, polishes the golden cup of your heart, whose sparkling emptiness receives the image of God’s face from every creature.
Somewhere in the forest, a fern unfolds; that too is your breathing. A trillium gazes at all your shades of green. In the empty robin’s nest, your broken shell contains the whole blue sky.
Just for an instant, you return to the ordinary miracle of your body, and the kingdom of fear vanishes forever.
When we honor our own breath as the divine Guest, this perishing moment becomes a little Sabbath that lets eternity in. Friend, such Sabbath moments are not an escape: they heal the world.
