Breath Work
May 1, 2020
Sense your breath as a felt experience
how does it feel as it enters your body?
Observe from above, your body being breathed.
I’m breathing in my morning meditation chair, here in Paradise
thinking about Breath
—How these days take our collective breath
away
How these days, we stand in long lines in masks
and when someone coughs
we all hold our breath and
lean as one organism
away
How these days
we wonder if the poor can hold their breath long enough
to live
through economic shutdowns of plague time.
Where is away?
How far away is enough?
With the bullying push to re-open the states
will you breathe a sigh of relief?
There’s a force greater than us
working to send breath into our bodies
allow it.
These days,
the virus demon dwells inside the breath of the afflicted
How the afflicted cannot draw breath
How they drown in their own flooded lungs
How oxygen cannot enter their bodies
How covid tears holes through the lungs
and a ventilator’s warrior blasts shreds that delicate, torn tissue
How they die alone
these days
alone and are unburied
How there’s plans for mass graves in Central Park
and the news fills with talks of
full refrigerated trailers
outside morgues, hospitals, nursing homes ….
You need breath to whistle past the graveyard
Attending to the breath is like coming home to yourself
Relax even more on the exhale….
I sit in my chair breathing this one morning, one specific day
and thoughts plague me
because breath carries death
these days
Feel this holy breath as it carries the universe
moving into and out of this holy body
How Covid-breath rips holes inside holy people, just breathing
How in astrology, Air
is represented by blades
and how
invisible sharp steel fills the holy purifying air
Breathing, how we breathe, walking through flashing swords,
spears, small paring knives, machetes
life force energy somehow thrusting out a billion blades a second
and slashing us down
one by one.
Eight hundred more people died in NYC today
Now, life is coming and going for real
Now health care workers strike
for protective equipment
to do their sacred jobs
supporting breath
and grocery store workers strike for more care
& support from their zillionaire business bosses
to help them breathe as they live
co-mingling breath in holy service
Also protesting are armed holy idiots who hold AK’s
in defense of their right to get out there mask-less and test-less
rip the lid off this thing, spread some fucking air around
Rage building in me for armed holy idiots,
for amerikkka the beautiful
My neighbor says he’s not gonna hold his breath
for unity in amerikkka.
Flow like an ocean wave rolling into shore
and then back out again
the ocean shore is littered with tossed plastic gloves and masks
and who’s gonna touch that shit?
My last activism has been picking up trash
but now…..i force myself to walk on by
Every cell welcomes this breath as it’s life force
Permeating through every tissue and organ in the body
As long as you are breathing,
there’s more right with you than wrong with you
Feel it, from the inside…
What is the sound of a ventilator
inhaling, exhaling
the pods lined up
incubating
something terrifying
In the foreground,
just be the knowing of this breathing
Like earth to her breath, the wind
In the background,
& only the silence that’s listening.
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Meditating in Amerika
April, 2020
Just be a passenger of the breath
taking you on a long winding journey down the hills of the rising inhale
and the valleys of the falling exhale.
Stories of suffering breaking my breath
Today in NYC, a person dies every 4 minutes.
confusion and prayer bow to each in Boddhisatva realms
over unmade beds, empty purell bottles
and maybe this is year zero.
Dismembered by our memories of touch
we’re watching Netflicks
people in crowds, people shoved together, or hugging
and we’re shouting from the couches
to the tv screens—NO! NO!
There are dolphins, on FB, in Venetian canals
mountain lions prowl the daylight Boulder streets
the air transformed above us by quieted cars
The sirens scream constantly in NYC —
the only sound of human life is our dyingness
Inhale light into your bones
Exhale, sending blessings through your body
Thoughts of people dying alone shreds me
I read
there are no longer funerals
Funereal practices were evidence of human civilizations.
Life will never be the same again.
And the children, taught to fear touch,
all contact with surfaces, with others
like all relating will kill them
Inhale the horror of teaching children such fear
Exhale my mind
Meditating today, my mind an open sky
A smile of loving kindness
I prayed for trump to die
to take all his supporters with him
I let go of the thought
visualize inner light flowing down to my feet
I inhale starfields, exhale love
still definitely want trump dead,
and all his friends and family
and all their friends and family
Practice inner observing
Make of your breath an anchor
Visualize a pool, so still & clear the
golden light falls all the way to the bottom
and I take them down there with me
in heavy chains
shove them into a waiting iron trunk
wind the rusting chains around
and around
hold them down
till the bubbles stop
Just Stop —
How Covid-breath rips holes inside holy people, just breathing
How in astrology
Air is represented by blades
and how
invisible sharp steel fills the holy air
How we breathe, darting through flashing swords,
spears, small paring knives, machetes
life blasting out a billion blades a second
and slashing us down
one by one.
Every 4 minutes in New York City another human being dies
The sirens scream through my meditation, 2,000 miles away
Yesterday, trump tested all the oil executives before meeting with them
all men who meet with him are tested, instantly, magically,
cos this fuck won't wear a mask
None of us can get these tests, not even health care workers exposed,
and
Die! You rich, fucking narcissistic pricks!
Enter the bowl of vastness that is The Heart
Quiet ecstasy is there
(come on, don’t you want quiet ecstasy?)
The rich are stuffing their pockets while New York City dies
Will Jeff Bezos be the last human standing?
Will we ever connect again without Mark Zuckerberg's permission?
In ICU’s, ventilators hiss incessant
Like pods lined up
Incubating something terrifying.
Flow like an ocean wave into shore
and let it float away.
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Pandora
This shit’s so big
you know god’s involved
so
bust out the bourbon
and the old myths
for this translation
Days where the day book’s irrelevance
dances on the faces of retired clocks
Quaint things like faces discarded
replaced by masks
and fear
put here,
with no clear path ahead
like wind-up toys with Alzheimers
What did we used to talk about?
I’m thinking of Pandora and that box.
There she was
magicked by Zeus to marry his enemy
made beautiful, of course
but more to his point
this perfect girl
was the most curious woman on earth
And Zeus said
“I’ve made you a fabulous box
For your wedding.
Congrats
and
Don’t ever open it.”
Well
Crouched behind lightning bolts
and a god’s will
inside that old box
the writing was on the wall
The walls we used to walk past
without masks
or held breath
And she said “Thanks, dude.”
And later, alone
she paced before it
itching, burning
made that way
The contents calling to her
“Come…
come fuck things up…”
And when she held her breath
and lifted off the easy lid
out poured plagues
diseases, war
you know —
all of bent heaven’s best human curses
And here we are
masked crusaders circling the mystery
cape-less
inside held breath
And it was said
that at the very bottom
of that mythic box
bent from the heavy weight
of that enormous pile of god shit
tiny and quiet
lay the grace
of hope.
Hope.
Who can imagine?
As thousands die and
millions suffer
from plague
from poverty
from hatred
grieving our dead, fearing our future
while everything’s burning down
As racists murder black folks
and AK’s fill the capitols
of a failed and failing
fucked-up nation
Truth reduced to babel
the towering words of lies
& the election
teetering
Roe dissolving
like heaps of good
environmental protections
Fascist white judges planted
for a lifetime
All human safety
cringing behind stinking dumpsters
RBG dying
with the economy
All disasters have left the box
yet,
Hope isn’t alone.
Her three daughters —
Anger, Action, and Courage
flank her
in sequins of power
like lionesses
Goddess power
roaring illuminated
through the empty streets
through the busy screens
through the chaos
of Now —
Anger. Courage.
Action.
—the first and final gifts
Breathe them
down to your Now-planted feet
swallow them, joining
the power
inside you.
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Zoom Seder
Seder 2020
Who’s that outside the door?
The story’s what matters
only and always and tonight
all together
we see him appearing, everywhere
Beautiful Stranger, prophet Elijah
As we tell the story, over and over, in every language
of the 10 plagues
while this 11th plague hovers over every seder in the world.
Beautiful stranger
who has such power to change the world
so
Go ahead and smear your doorposts with blood
or chocolate or purell
And we Jews mark our homes against the other stranger
Angel of Death sent to kill Egyptian children
we pray for mercy, but
what i never got was how come you gotta beg an angel
not to kill your family?
i mean, if this fucking angel
is such a bigshot that they know God
how come they don't know us?
Up on my mountain
no pharoh and no god
just the thaw of springtime
small tears of green, and mercy everywhere
remembering how as a child i loved Elijah
powerful thought form, thrilling as the dizzying wine
I could feel his presence slipping past us all
through that open door to sit in that empty chair
and drink his wine
Tonight, that chairs' a keyboard that isn't there
the power of Story in a time of plague
the symbol of perseverance that is Passover
where we dare to sit across from whatever is entering us
as air coming in, coming through
(no disruption of the thought-form
this is a Zoom seder)
We sit across from what we dare not name
and cannot control
invite our collective fear to meet us here
and maybe that's freedom from slavery
I've had a day full of springtime
and now, an evening reciting the strange, familiar story
of our rescue, through a screen
while so many need rescue
will need rescue
All plagues aside
we gather together to accept this Truth
that scary things still need
to be granted
a seat at the table of Life.
Open the door.
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