BREATHING: A CONTEMPLATION by Margaret Hild, Actor, Teacher and Breathexperience Practitioner in Training

My lungs fill with, and empty themselves of, air as needed, a never-ending movement that moves me as the breath comes and goes, comes and goes, reaching into the recesses of awareness—flesh and bones and…movement! I can feel that movement, the gentle round curve as the inhale turns over into the exhale, carrying my sensorial presence beyond the confines of my physical body—this formality that we call ‘human’. Then, the gentle pause at the bottom as I wait patiently for the arrival of the inhale. Where will I go this time? How will the movement move me? How can I—this soft fleshy pile of potential—allow myself to be sculpted by my own awareness of this subtle proof of my own existence? 

René Descartes once argued: “I think, therefore I am.” I offer a different turn of phrase: I sense therefore I am. It is not so much my ability to have a thought, an impulse, an idea: rather it is my ability to sense myself having a thought, an impulse, an idea. If I allow myself to actively witness the sensations of my own processes, perhaps I become available to allowing and acknowledging the processes of others.

What if we don’t breathe like a verb, ‘to breathe’? What if we allow ourselves to experience the sensation of our breath, exactly as it is, and then be curious? What if we don’t listen like a verb ‘to listen’? What if we allow ourselves to be present with someone exactly as we are—as they are—and then be curious?