“The Trees Are Awake; They’re Breathing”
I’m currently attending a virtual retreat called Return to the Root, hosted by a panel of incredibly thoughtful, wise women including Nina Hatfield, whose co-resting groups recently helped me re-learn stillness, and Martha Crawford, a former psychologist whose groups and seminars I cannot recommend highly enough. This retreat was attractive to me because the content centers practices of connection, healing, and sustaining through periods of great uncertainty (such as now). One practice in particular that’s highlighted throughout the agenda is breathwork. Until today, I was uninitiated, and (if I’m being honest) somewhat skeptical about the idea that breathing could be transformational. I’m doing it all the time, right? So what’s the big deal?
Let me tell you something: there’s a power in this simple exercise that you may not see coming. I cannot believe how good it felt to be told that my only task for half an hour was to lie still, breathe according to a specific set cadence, and ask myself meandering questions. An incredible amount of agency to be human flowed into a space where I had previously been holding onto a “performance of self.” Simply to live in my body, to respire — it’s a trick I lost sometime in childhood, I think. Perhaps that’s when we all lose it. Perhaps that’s why retreats like this are so valuable.
The wonderful Catherine May led us through two different breaths, all together lasting around 45 minutes. I confess, I didn’t participate in the entire exercise, because as soon as we began, I realized I was hungry and cold. Until I laid down and took a few deep breaths, I hadn’t noticed that I was habituating the discomfort of cold feet and an empty stomach to background noise. Focusing on my breathing led me to immediately scan my body for its needs, which meant I could meet them. I went to get a ham sandwich and a space heater, then resumed breathing.
How long might I have sat there cold, ignoring the chill in my toes and the rumble of my gut, if Catherine May hadn’t instructed me to do nothing else but pay attention to my body’s respiratory system? How often have I ignored the needs of my human body because I was too busy performing a kind of self that has no bodily needs? Who taught me that my body is an inconvenience, rather than a marvel? I’m animating atoms over here! After today, I hope I won’t lose sight of the wonder of that again. But if I do, now I know the solution: go lay down and breathe.
UPDATE: At the end of day one, I have this to say about Return to the Root. You need to attend it. Folks can still register to access the recording after the fact. You should do that. I have never felt more energized and empowered to organize in spite of the stochastic terror and fascism everywhere. This experience is incredibly enriching. To spend time in the company of Wisewomen who have alchemized their own experiences and distilled some truth from them is a powerful thing. The result is something like a grimoire of hope and firm-footed sense.
I feel transformed–not in the sense that I have been fixed or cured of some prior misapprehension. More like I went through a carwash and left something grimy and vaguely unsettling behind. We’re going to be okay, no matter what happens with the fascists. The oppressive structures exist, they may always exist to some degree, it sucks that they exist. But what Janine said is true: there is no oppression anywhere that wasn’t immediately, automatically resisted the minute it began. Human beings don’t know how to stay oppressed. Trees will grow up through concrete in order to be trees. I loved the quote during breathwork: “The tree imitates God by being a tree.” Trees gonna tree; humans gonna human. Eventually we’ll free ourselves. And it starts by each of us learning, one at a time, how to free ourselves internally. The quickest way to do that must be — I intuitively believe it to be — community and relationships.
Workshops like this have become a huge part of my own personal development and practice, as a human and as a writer. The recording of this will be quite a precious resource, a time capsule of wisdom from the trenches. Martha, if you happen to read this, just so you know: I feel an immediate affection for anyone who says something to me along the lines of, “this is a poem we’re going to use as the basis for a contemplative exercise.”
It’s been phenomenal so far. I wish next week was tomorrow. SIGN UP FOR THIS. You will not regret it.
