Breath

 

This post is about breath and breathing. It is not really motivated by the awful chest infection I had through the summer, although perhaps that triggered some other thoughts when I was hacking and sputuming all over the place like a 40-a-day man. And in the picture at the top you can literally see that usually invisible process taking place.

But no, I was thinking about all the other ways that breath fits into our lives. I go to yoga classes, as do many of you I suspect, and for those who do not, breathing is a feature of every yoga class that I have been to. I think the bottom line in yoga is to try to make you at least notice your breathing, and then beyond that there are many ways that breathing is used to produce effects in the mind and in the self. 

When I play the flute, it also makes me more conscious of what is for the rest of the time a completely unconscious action. When you play you have to think of the parts of the tune where you can take a breath and how you will do it. And especially with Irish flute music, the breathing is used as a rhythmic and almost percussive device (well it is in County Mayo!). 

But away from yoga and flute playing and physical exercise, I would say that I don't think about my breathing at all. I don't have any worries that when I fall asleep my breathing will let me down. So I know that a part of my brain is taking charge of this key bit of my physical self and will carry on whatever happens. I think - and I'll have to bow to my medically-qualified friends in this one - that even if you are unconscious it is highly likely that your breathing will continue without extra help. And this is quite significant, because I know that the difference between sleep and unconsciousness is quite large in terms of consciousness levels. Which implies that breathing is one of those parts of our hard drive that will keep functioning after all the power and software are AWOL. 

Also, turning from science and medicine to culture and language, there are many ways that breath is used as a metaphor for other things. You can say that the new manager of a sports team has 'Breathed new life into the team' . Something can be 'A breath of fresh air', and if you are Tennyson putting words into the mouth of his dodgy hero, Ulysses, you can make him diss the importance of breath by saying:

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

The other phrase which I cannot help but remember is 'I will love you till my dying breath'. The phrase suddenly popped into my head in a yoga class about three months after Cro died. The teacher had been talking about this natural process that starts on the day you are born and continues automatically and rhythmically through decades without a break on every day of your life, whether you are asleep or awake. What she did not mention, but which was very prominent in my mind, was that her statement was true on all but one of those days, and one almost as miraculous as the day on which you cried your first breath as a newborn.

And we had seen Cro's dying breath three months earlier, and she had loved us till her dying breath. Although our hearts were breaking, it was a strange fierce privilege to be there at the moment that she took her last breath, of all the millions of ones she had breathed and the hundreds of thousands we had shared.

Thinking back now, I can think of other breaths we had shared, climbing mountain steps in China; holding our breath as an election result came in; gasping with pleasure at a sudden glorious sunset; and other things. 

And Cro's last breath was also the completion of an instinct and a promise. She had loved us till her dying breath. She had loved me till her dying breath. And I will love her till my dying breath too.