In a breath session I gave this summer, we explored the upper and lower breathing spaces. We began by writing about what we associated with the spaces „above“ and below“. Then we went on to explore those spaces: the lower breathing space by stroking the legs and circulating around the sitting bones, the upper breathing space by stroking the arms and circling round the tip of the sternum. (This is an area that is not often mobilized and can become quite stiff.) After each exploration we wrote down our associations to „above“ and below“. Then we brought the spaces together in a funnel shaped circling, starting from the pelvic floor, round the hips, the waist, the ribcage and the shoulders and then down again.
At the end we chose one word from what we‘d written for „above“ and one word for what we‘d written for „below“ and made up a hybrid word. The hybrid word would unite the two spaces with language as we had done with body work. The participant in the session came up with nosebelly, a word that actually sounds nicer in German: Nasenbauch. I came up with Knospenfische which translates into a rather more down to earth budfish. Speaking the words we‘d created out loud made us both happy and contented. It was strangely powerful. After the workshop I kept thinking about it and drew a picture of my budfish which you can see above. Whenever I look at it, it cheers me up and makes me mouth the word like a mantra: budfish.