In Between Breaths
SOMA Breath-work has become a part of my regular spiritual practice.
If you aren’t familiar with the exercise, one of the most difficult parts is to get used to is the breath holds. Especially breath holds at the bottom of your breath, or once you’ve exhaled from a deep inhale. Those holds last for a couple of minutes, and our natural instinct is to give the body air when it asks for it. For this practice, you stay suspended in those breath holds, with a facilitator near by. The person I’ve begun to trust in this role is none other than a Virgo soul. I’ll speak more on that later. After a few sessions, and once you become familiar with the general protocol, you begin to allow yourself to experiment with ways to make the difficult parts more bearable.
Normally I focus on my somatic responses to Carlie’s guidance such as relaxing from head to toe, one body part at a time. This time I was able to notice during the four counts of breath in and four counts of breath out, the blood was moving out of my fingers and ears. We may discuss this sensation of our veins vibrating for oxygenated blood as “my hands fell asleep”. When I put it that way, you’ll know the feeling I’m talking about. I was able to use that vibration-that energy wave- to completely hypnotize myself. Affirmations were given: “I am a soul. I am not the body”.
As for why I find it noteworthy that a Virgo Ascendant is the one leading these meditations. Virgo is represented by the virgin. I’ve come to describe the reason for this by using archetypes like Mother Mary and Mary Magdalane. There are tons of others, for instance Persephone. Any female archetype that prepares us for the underworld or afterlife. I like to think of the breath holds as a moment where I leave my body. I almost have to in order to not gasp for air. My body wants a hit of that sweet oxygen even though it gets plenty and keeps enough stored up to last several minutes of deprivation for those that train. It feels very appropriate that my guide in this quest is a soul that knows what Hell is like and how to prepare for it to make it a little more Heavenly; a little more comfortable.
After we completed the session, I told the group about my mental representation of this message. I was deep under water and knew I could not gasp for air but that I would soon be able to and until then I had all the oxygen I needed. My body floated to the rhythm of the reverberation of my empty veins dancing in my hands. The fluid draining from my ear canals sounded like ocean waves. On the deep inhales when we scrunched our faces, I felt the blood return to my ears and face. There was nothing else to focus on but my body: my pelvic floor tensing and releasing with each inhale and exhale. Breathing into my stomach and then into my chest. Then release the air from my chest, allowing my shoulder blades to relax to the floor, pushing the air down into my abdomen before allowing it to escape back out into the room. I became hyper-focused on and mentally consumed and embodied.
We don’t normally hold space for this feminine intuition practice which is what Pisces season is all about. Most of us will discourage ourselves from taking time out to notice our breathing and to check on the status of the rest of our internal landscape. We tend to have better things to do, a task manager that’s always running, and responsibilities that require our attention more urgently. To me Pisces season has felt cloudy but still optimistic, even dreamy. With Neptune and Jupiter hanging out there, fantasy has taken up a lot of my thought space this winter. Now I see the sun through the water and the image of me returns when I look down at my hands and recognize myself as separate from this medium I’m suspended in. With the incoming Vernal Equinox we peer beyond the hazy, misty, and foggy atmosphere of Pisces and see the Sun peaking through from its exaltation place of Aries.
Here’s a short story about how this Piscean energy gave me one last shot of optimisim before we move into Aries and take action to really bring our ideas into the physical realm. It manifested for me as a guy named Alvaro, a wonderful distraction from the mundane; a gift from the universe. Alvaro was talking on his phone when he noticed me digging through my car, gathering all of the items I needed to present my Astrology Report at the Circle. “I love it!” He proclaimed. I thought he was talking to the person on his phone. I heard his voice remain behind me, and I’ve been trained to not allow people to hover around my six o’clock, so I turned to look at him. I have to admit I am guarded because I allowed myself to become very jaded with masculine energy. In the past, I was much more likely to put up an impenetrable wall with men, especially strangers.
He was talking about my whiteboard that just said “Virgo Full Moon” and had a bunch of glyphs on it to remind me of the prominent transits that were supporting and challenging the energy of the full moon. When I turned to look at him, he still had his phone to his ear but was clearly ending the call. He had an accent that was obviously foreign, but I couldn’t determine what might’ve been his native tongue. Certainly Romantically influenced. I smiled to acknowledge him, and that’s when he asked me if I was a healer. I told him I am an Astrologer, so kind of… (I really just like to explain to people how our ancient elders described the thought realm using these archetypes.) “Ooooh Scary!” He responded “What can you tell me about my future?” he coyly asked. I laughed and essentially told him that’s not really how it works. The judgmental side of me wanted so badly to remind me that it was not good to talk to strangers and that I shouldn’t be surprised if something bad happened to me for entertaining this man. Still, I was able to quell these thoughts and remained present.
Alvaro was acting in a way that the broken me would describe as “creepy”, but he didn’t cross any lines. In fact, I found him quite charming. Despite the fact I was digging around in my car that doesn’t even have hubcaps, he complimented me and told me I was “So elegant”. This interaction completely changed my night. We exchanged business cards and he was off to find flowers for a dance recital he was attending with friends. Just leaning into that flowy Piscean energy for a final breath hold at the top of the inhale. Soaking in that beautiful essence of life and not allowing impulse to break that concentration of things getting better and all of the daily reminders being a part of that ascension and not the ascension itself.
Last thing: I saw a boat car while I was trying to find parking last night and I just watched Waking Life last week. It wasn’t a car pulling a boat. It was just like the man that picks the main character up at the airport in the movie. In real life. Of course, because I have no picture evidence its quite unbelievable.
Happy Vernal Equinox, Happy International Astrology Day! Go Forth and Conquer Aries Season my Fellow Warriors!
Originally written in Collective Journaling at The Stoa
