Category: Uncategorized

Written by Barbara Stapleton

Watching the news lately we may feel a little bit breathless! Events are happening so rapidly with the American President overturning aspects of the civil and world order at seemingly breakneck speed. Changes are happening in our own society as well; institutions that were steady and familiar suddenly seem fragile.

There can be a kind of febrile excitement at a time like this – I find myself tuning into the news to hear the latest development in war and peace and weather. And then the wise person in me may caution: slow down, take a breath, think about the consequences but then come back to yourself.

Although we can’t always control world events and societal changes that may disturb or exhilarate, we can consider and move into our own inner country – to the life within:  the life of the mind and heart and the thoughts and feelings they generate. We can listen to our own inner wisdom, the still small voice of our soul. It takes patience and humility, I find.

And that is where the breath is so important.

A number of people today practice breathwork, the directed practice of conscious breathing with an experienced practitioner. It may lead them into some surprising places and experiences. Like the nineteenth century explorers, they might discover a country they had never imagined; unfamiliar territory that carries dangers as well as delights.

That is why, I believe, the ancient religious traditions have counselled a gradual engagement with the breath. Before using such a powerful gift we need to courteously and consciously acknowledge it. The Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, teaches walking practice in alignment with the breath. Christians sing or use Gregorian chant which my teacher used to compare to catching the ebb and flow of a wave.  I like Valentin Tomberg’s practice of breathing with the sunrise (not that I always manage to get up so early), breathing with the sunset and with the starry heavens at night.

There is something mysterious about the breath. It gives us air, our lifeline. But that’s not all. Years ago I listened to a radio presenter who was herself a famous musician – a flautist. I can imagine how long she would have practised to achieve a synchronicity between flute and breath and hands. Yet during one of her recitals, she said, she suddenly realised that instead of consciously controlling her breath, it had taken over and was playing the flute for her.

It was though a greater power was breathing through her; a playful presence. I imagine that it would have been a wonderful and humbling experience and others, dancers and musicians and artists and athletes have known something similar.  Tomberg would say that when we meditate or pray or stand in awe at the beauty and grace and creativity in the world around us then we attune our breath to the divine breath which is always around us – the breath of love, the Love that ‘moves the sun and the other stars’. (Dante)

The ancient Aramaic word for this breath is ruah which is akin to wind.

When the world ‘out there’ begins to overwhelm us it may be a good thing to do something that Thomas Merton, the Benedictine monk, describes:  In a place of comparative shelter, just before the pine trees begin, I found a bower God had prepared for me. It had been designed especially for this moment. There was a tree stump, in an even place. It was dry and a small cedar arched over it, like a green tent, forming an alcove. There I sat in silence and loved the wind in the forest and listened for a good while to God.

The news of war in Ukraine is gradually drifting from our television screens. Some have said that they can no longer bear to watch images of such terrible suffering night after night on the news; the suffering of people who, until a few months ago, lived in a prosperous society very like our own.

The media, always alert to its role of mirroring the concerns of their audience, can quickly turn a blind eye.

However, one image of that suffering may remain imprinted on the memory. It is of a line of captured Ukrainian civilians crossing a quiet street. They are in single file, bowed down, each holding onto the coat of the one in front. Moments later, they have been taken out of sight behind a vacant house and executed, their bodies left like bundles of clothes on the ground.

What may come to mind if you have seen Ingmar Bergman’s film, The Seventh Seal, is the closing shot of a group of people against the horizon, holding hands as they are led by Death across the screen. His film of course, is set in fourteenth century Europe as the Black Death raged across Europe, killing one in three of the population.

Both images are profoundly troubling.

In this time, when every tragedy happening across the world is there on our television screens, how do we hold it all together – our ordinary, largely peaceful, everyday lives and the terrible events happening to our human family somewhere ‘over there’. Can we continue to hold images of gaunt Ethiopian women holding their skeletal children, without eventually turning away – feeling helpless?

Somehow, we need to hold it all together, without rejecting either what we may see as our own fortunate lifestyle (although it has its own huge problems) and the chaos created somewhere by poor government or global oppression and corrupt practices.

We can hold all our human family in our heart (as well as making financial or other practical contributions). The important thing, I think, is to keep remembering them as we go about this business of daily living; to keep them in mind and in prayer without becoming hopeless, knowing that we commend them to a Heart and Consciousness that is intimately part of our human existence.