I love this poem by William Stafford. My favorite line, “Are you waiting for time to show you some better thoughts?”

A little over a month ago I shared a vulnerable bit of my traumatic background around random acts of racial violence. I declared my Moonshot: to drop the stones of resentment and experience holistic heart health and be of maximum service to God and my fellows.

Through mindfulness of the moment, addiction recovery, breath awareness, self-compassion and a whole lot of forgiveness, I don’t carry the role of victim or perpetrator; I am free.

Today, I grant myself space for Grace, to feel the feels, and then carry on with the work of personal transformation. I may cry about the state of affairs, and then I remember my crying isn’t gonna solve anything. I get to declare another Moonshot, another something extraordinary that wouldn’t otherwise happen…

So in doing anti-racist research and study and having the difficult conversations with our two boys about the digestible chunks of world events we digest daily, we aim to be part of solution vs. part of the problem. We read, write, meditate, heart-storm, and live, together.

The boys are growing up Caucasian, in a dominant culture that is riddled with broken social contracts, where I imagine it is hard to be male and Caucasian, just as I imagine it is hard to be female and Black…

Just as I imagine this moment in history is hard for humanity, period.

The invitation is to take a moment to pause.

Read.

Listen.

You Reading This, Be Ready
by William Stafford

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life —

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

here I am reading it aloud

https://vimeo.com/385919004

for a brief while we lived in Lake Oswego, Oregon where this amazing poet died. William Stafford was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, on January 17, 1914. He received a BA and an MA from the University of Kansas at Lawrence and, in 1954, a PhD from the University of Iowa. During the Second World War, Stafford was a conscientious objector and worked in the civilian public service camps—an experience he recorded in the prose memoir Down My Heart (1947). His presence on the planet has enhanced my life. His legacy inspires me. May it be so that my legacy matters. And may yours. You matter. Your relationships matter.

The One Minute Breath

When you practice one breath a minute, then you become Pavan Guru—you become the light and knowledge of the prana, and then you know the Universe, the Universe knows you.
-Yogi Bhajan 7/26/96

The One Minute Breath is a great technique to keep your calm through our fast changing times. Try it.

Sit in a meditation posture. Inhale for 20 seconds, hold for 20 seconds, exhale for 20 seconds.

Benefits

Optimized cooperation between the brain hemispheres
Dramatic calming of anxiety, fear and worry
Openness to feeling one’s presence and the presence of spirit
Intuition develops
The whole brain works, especially the old brain and the frontal hemispheres

One Minute Breath Tips:

To start, make yourself very comfortable. Have a shawl on that you can remove without exertion if you get warm. Be very still.

Once you are set, take 3 minutes to relax and deepen your breath (or try 3 minutes of Breath of Fire, or if you are really tense try 3 minutes of Sat Kriya).

Inhale slowly and steadily, filling your lower abdomen, your stomach area, going up to your lungs and then all the way up the chest.

Lock the breath once you fill your upper chest (after 20 seconds).

Hold (20 seconds).

Then exhale, slowly gently and steadily.

At the end of 20 seconds gently reverse to an inhale and begin again.

Having trouble working your way into it?

Don’t fight your breath. Be relaxed. Here are two approaches:

1. Give yourself permission to work up to it. Start inhaling for 10 seconds, holding for 10 seconds, exhaling for 10 seconds (or even 5 seconds if necessary). Take a day or two and then increase to 15, 15, 15, and then to 20, 20, 20.

2. Start with 20, 20, 20. If you find yourself struggling against your breath, complete the breath and then begin one minute of deep breathing. After a minute, start again, inhaling for 20 seconds, holding for 20 seconds, exhaling for 20 seconds

“Twenty seconds to inhale, twenty seconds to hold, twenty seconds to let it out. It takes one minute. And if you just practice eleven to thirty-one minutes, your blood itself will become a warrior against disease.
On average, you breathe twenty to twenty-five breaths per minute. In good health you breathe ten times a minute and a mentally balanced person breathes seven to nine breaths per minute. Fewer than that and you are a yogi.
If you sit down and breathe one breath per minute, in exactly thirty seconds you will find you are talking to yourself. In three minutes, you can get over any kind of mood. Why are you suffering? Do you want to live a long time? If you breathe an average of fifteen times a minute, and you live one hundred years, then if instead, you breathe one breath a minute, you can live fifteen hundred years because life is measured by the breath, not by years or by the calendar. When you are unconscious, your breath will be shallow and strong. But if you practice one breath a minute for eleven minutes a day, you can be in control of your mind.
If you want things to be done for you so you don’t have to do anything, then you must breathe from one to five or six breaths per minute. If you can practice that, then you can attract the Universe to you. It is no secret. It’s a simple thing. The longer and deeper your breath is, the more your psyche attracts everything to you—it’s a way to prosperity.
For thirty-one minutes do the one-minute breath meditation—it’s the story of a man who is grateful today; who is successful today; who has become compassionate without any lecture. He has realized himself. Why? It’s so simple. You live by breath, you die by breath. And if you meditate on your breath, the Pavan Guru, the knowledge of the pranic vidya of creation and creativity and all incarnations will dawn on you.
For some people it may take a short time, for some it may take a long time. But the path is the same. The procedure is the same. You will start winning yourself. You will start valuing your breath. You will start valuing your environments. You will start valuing your projections and one day you will be surprised—everyone will, in turn, value you.”
-Yogi Bhajan from Success and the Spirit
“A person who can breathe one breath a minute can multiply life fifteen times—no matter what your disease or state of
affairs is.”
-Yogi Bhajan 1/18/95