Breathe In, Breathe Out

A rhythm for keeping on...

After a extended, slogging January - long, dark days; cold, quiet - the past two months seem to have sped by with discombobulating speed (just me? Do tell…)

Suddenly, April is arriving with the promise of real spring…

around the corner, March 28th

and…

then March 29th, and 30th, and every day until all the photographers have their shots, or the petals drop

I’m not ready. Should I be? Are you?

Somehow, I seem to have gotten it into my head that a capacity for incorporating everything that comes down the pike is part and parcel of a successful creative life. Surely, readiness is the tool that leverages our moving through time and events, right? How else will we catch the inspiration? Capture the magic?

But it’s a challenge to stay on alert all the time. How can we even contemplate making meaning from all the stuff encountered on the journey? Events and ideas pile up and pull us in thousands of directions at once. Readiness to receive doesn’t equate to readiness to use.

We live in a time and culture of overflowing content, stimulation, activity, choice.

So, some days, lots of days, we follow distractions, procrastinate. Some days, plenty of days, we stare at the wall or out the window or at the screen, theoretically ready, but nonetheless unable to turn a flood of thoughts into anything more tangible - no great strides, no leaps over tall buildings !

In times of distracted unreadiness, it helps me to remember the wisdom of preschool leader extraordinaire, Teacher Heidi. With lilting Swiss accent and rhythmic sense of being, she prescribed breath.

Breathe in to access the magic of observation, reflection. Recognize and value even those tumbleweed thoughts that can’t seem to go anywhere. It’s cleansing simply to notice. And some things are meant to be catch-and-release.

Breathe out by taking small, stumbling steps toward that thing you want to try, by restarting those habits that eluded you in Jan, Feb or March.

Being, doing;

Sitting with ideas, moving them forward;

Taking stock, creating;

In, out.

Again and again and again….

This kind of breathing rhythm reminds me of writer, Katrina Kenison, who observed Dailiness as a first principle of parenting in her book, Mitten Strings for God (and in subsequent reflective writing on ordinary life). But the idea applies with or without young children in the environment. Presence, action, attention, is something we can really only live one day at a time, just as we fill our lungs one breath at a time.

Readiness, or presence, productivity, or creation ebbs and flows with daily breath.

And so, in seasons when your mind may spiral all over the place, or your readiness may lag the obvious indicators of change (as mine seems to), it’s helpful to focus on this rhythm of keeping on. Rather than seeking equipment for some imagined “winnable” creativity/productivity marathon, we’d do better to search out connection to the simplicity of daily breathing.

Live, make art, embrace the meaning or challenge of the moment…

Inhale, exhale; repeat.

Maybe when winter decides to snap into spring, I’ll get out of the way and let it!