Category: Breath Diary

I’d like to share an excerpt of The Ghost Road by Pat Barker with you. The Ghost Road is the third volume of a trilogy that follows the fortunes of shell-shocked British army officers towards the end of the First World War. The other books in the trilogy are Regeneration and The Eye in the Door. This trilogy, I can safely say, is one of the best pieces of literary works I‘ve ever read. 

The Ghost Road is set at the end of World War I in 1918. As the psychologist William Rivers takes on new shell shock cases, he remembers his research trip to Eddystone island in Melanesia years before. One ritual of the locals of Eddystone island was head-hunting, a pursuit which had been abolished by a British colonial administration. „The contrast between the primitives’ deeply considered approach to death and the pointless killing (of the First World War) indulged in by supposedly more civilized people is only hinted at, but it gives the book, particularly in its deeply eloquent concluding pages, enormous resonance.“ cites Publisher‘s Weekly.

The excerpt I’ve chosen deals with the death of an elderly resident, Mbuko, of Eddystone island, and offers insights into the dying process and into what it means to die.

In response to the death of George Floyd and the numerous recent police killings of unarmed Black people, singer/songwriter H.E.R. composed her latest song I can’t breathe. 

22 year old Gabriella Wilson aka H.E.R. impresses with powerful images, lyrics and spoken word in the video to I Can’t Breathe.

In this interview, Michele Granberg of Positive Energy TV talks with the boundlessly inspiring Chani Getter about spirituality. Chani Getter works as an interfaith minister, coach and counsellor for the LGBTQ community and Footsteps, an organization that helps individuals leaving ultra-orthodox Judaism. When asked what her message about spirituality is, Chani Getter said: “To breathe. Because when we breathe we remember….our essence lives in us. Everything else is trappings.”

As a response to the current situation, I devoted my April posts to bats who, as I wrote, are getting very bad press at the moment. As an act of solidarity I’m continuing with my bat posts in May.

In my capacity as a breath teacher, I can‘t offer a miracle breathing technique that protects anyone from disease. What I can offer is education and a pledge for co-existence.

Like all other living beings, humans need a sustainable habitat, clean air, clean water and healthy food. Like all other living beings, us humans are a product of the environment we create. If human industries pollute the air and water and produce disease inducing foods, no amount of conscious breathing is going to protect us and other living beings. 

If anything, it is breathing that teaches us that humans are animals among other animals, living beings among other living beings.

Gazing repeatedly at one of my favourite photos of animals visibly breathing, titled “early in the morning two morals left on glade” by Nikolay Chervonenko, I was inspired to read up about deer. In the process I discovered that the word “deer” used to stand for the word “animal” and for a “creature that breathes”, both of which would include us humans, as well. Here’s the entry in the online etymological dictionary:

Last time this year, I had a cold and cough which wouldn‘t shift and my airways became hypersensitive again, as they‘d been before I started breath work. I got the cough after I‘d cycled very fast on a surprisingly cold day and even though I was breathing only through the nose, I felt the cold air rushing straight into my lungs, as if I were breathing through an open mouth. For weeks afterwards, I still had that cold sensation in my chest and my airways felt raw. Breathing felt like standing on the corner of two avenues in New York. The outside air was invasive and I walked around with a scarf in front of my face. I kind of wished that I could stop breathing alltogether or minimize it, at least. Only when the weather became warmer did my airways relax.

It made me realise that it wasn‘t enough to only breathe through the nose. In cold conditions, I needed to only exert myself to a level where I could breathe through the nose comfortably. When I was cycling I‘d exerted myself so much that my body was pulling the air in forcibly and my heart was pumping hard. It was a real learning curve for me and a reminder to build up fitness gradually and regularly and to respect my body‘s limitations.

I recently met Rachel Marsden, a creative coach and photographer at one of her co-creative sessions in Berlin. When I told her that I was a breath teacher, she told me about a dream she’d had some years ago. “In the dream I had an experience of breathing. I felt I was breathing deeply for the first time, maybe since I was a child. When I woke up I made a painting to remind myself of this experience. I put the painting up in my bedroom and later, when I moved from Australia to Berlin, in my home office as a reminder every day. “

Last Monday I went to a creative co-working session in Berlin to write my blog. A young Asian woman sat next to me at our table, coughing away. I was irritated that she’d come to the co-working session being sick, risking the other participants catching her cough, including me. In the break, the session leader, Rachel Marsden, went up to her to greet her and asked her where she was from. Her name was Wendy and she’d just arrived in Berlin from Australia three days ago. Rachel and Wendy went on to talk about the bushfires. Back in Australia, Wendy’d woken up in her flat with her bed covered in soot. “I’d left the window open. This is probably where I got my cough”, she said. I felt ashamed at my pettiness.

I‘ve just finished reading Thomas Hardy‘s „The Woodlanders“ and there is a wonderful breathing scene in it which I‘d like to share with you. 

Fearing the ruin of her reputation, due to an affair with the married Dr Fitzpiers, Mrs Charmond, former stage actress, turned widowed heiress, approaches Mrs Fitzpiers in the Hintock woods. Her intention is to convince the kindhearted Mrs Fitzpiers that the affair with her husband was only a flirtatious fling which she would put a stop to at once. Grace Fitzpiers, at first being indignant, hearing Mrs Charmond speak, realises that the lady is deeply in love with her husband. Knowing her own husband all too well, Grace‘s indignation turns to pity.

In August, I was sitting with my neighbours and their parents in the garden by the fire. The father of my neighbour Thomas, called Norbert, was playing the guitar and we sang along to a variety of songs. It was a melancholy and joyful atmosphere at the same time. Norbert was dying of cancer and when we sang “Let it be” or “My bonnie” we weren’t just singing along to the songs, drifting off in our own associations. We were thinking of singing together with Norbert, which was a family tradition, and that this might be the last time. One of the songs Norbert played and we sang along to was “The Air That I Breathe” by The Hollies. I hadn’t heard it in years and realised I’d never listened to the lyrics before, except of course the title refrain.
Norbert died on 30th October 2019. May he rest in peace.