Guiding Thought
What do you perceive? What do you perceive as beautiful? What is beauty to you? How do you perceive beauty? How do perceptions differ? How are they similar? What do our perceptions say about individuals, as human beings, or as spiritual beings? Can you change how you perceive beauty?
Reflection / Contemplation
What I perceive is very much tied in with the totality of the how I engage in the process. I am on a breathing awareness kick, spurred on from yesterday’s writing. The one big exhale comment on creation has me connecting to big inhales.
I have not been a good or efficient breather for a good chunk of my life. I know it stems from an early exposure to cigarette smoke as my parents were both smokers and did so till they died. My shallow breathing was a mechanism of self-protection from the smoke and chemicals released by the cigarettes.
On a physical scale, shallow breathing limits the oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange, and there is a plethora of physical implications stemming from poor breathing. We need oxygen to live.
What I see now, metaphorically, at least, is how much of what we allow to take in shapes what we experience. I very much acknowledge my need to be self-protective, but I have this deep knowing that it is time for me to take a deep, deep breath. The best image I can muster is even deeper than belly breathing common in yoga and meditative practices. It is breathing through the totality of my being (the pores of my skin, muscles, bones, organs, blood, cells, atoms, etc.) which beckons.
I attended the Opera last night. It is not my favorite form of music but, I opened myself up to the offerings presented: dinner and time with a good friend before the event, great seats, being part of a group that is exposing young kids to the arts. All this even before any music and singing started. I was primed, open, and relaxed for what was to come. And sure enough, the whole experience was grand, from staging, costumes, singing, dancing, comedy and drama from the story line. Everything! There were even a few times during the performance, that I got the chills, indicative of an exchange between me and what was happening on stage. Beautiful hardly describes my experience.
What a breath, eh?
Scientific research and mystical writings attend to this big breath, how perceptual fields expand with softness. I know much of this material from both sides of the spectrum and is worthy of more words. Not now, though.
What appears to have my attention now, is wondering if Beauty is Beauty, or is it the process that takes me there, or some of both? I am not sure I can fully answer that. However, I am discovering that I need the process as much as I need a deep, deep breath.
Journey of Beauty is now available as a free book.
You no longer need to wait for the Guiding Thoughts to be posted here daily–you may move at your own pace. This link will take you to the document in Dropbox; you may download it from there.
I accept donations and gifts via paypal: paypal.me/SusanBillmaier Thank you for the energy exchange!
Here is the schedule:
Apr 18 Preliminary day Introduction: Why A Journey of Beauty (02.10.0)
Apr 19 Preliminary day Commitment and Dedication (02.10.00)
Apr 20 – 29 Days 01-10 Round One (02.10.01-10)
Apr 30 – May 9 Days 11-20 Round Two (02.10.11-20)
May 10 – 19 Days 21-30 Round Three (02.10.21-30)
May 20 – 29 Days 31-40 Round Four (02.10.31-40)
May 30 – June 8 Reflection days Gently care, de-fuse, and write one day of reflection on the Journey (02.10.41)
SusanWithPearls 