I love Donna J. Haraway. She uplifts me, from one part of myself into another, from inside of me out into the world and she inspires me to let the world in, as an act of reconciliation with existence. „To be one is always to become with many.“, writes Haraway. To evolve into the nature of things, being a body among other bodies. This is what breathing teaches us more than anything else: to become one with oneself is also to become with many. Read More
„To be one is always to become with many.“
I love Donna J. Haraway. She uplifts me, from one part of myself into another, from inside of me out into the world and she inspires me to let the world in, as an act of reconciliation with existence. „To be one is always to become with many.“, writes Haraway. To evolve into the nature of things, being a body among other bodies. This is what breathing teaches us more than anything else: to become one with oneself is also to become with many. Read More
Breath Token July 2017
A breath token is a breathing exploration that I develop for friends & clients and send out as a gift.
I‘m just reading „The Oxygen Advantage“ by Patrick McKeown. Practicing one of his basic exercises, I’d like to share it with you. Placing one hand on the chest and the other on the belly, I exert pressure against the chest and belly on the inhale and release the pressure on the exhale. I offer resistance to the inhale and let the exhale flow freely. As always, at the end of the exhale I wait for the next inhale to come by itself. The purpose of this excercise is to reduce breath volume and thus prevent overbreathing.
The benefits I experienced were
Relaxation
Clarity of mind
Slower, more regular breathing
Natural diaphragmatic breathing
Extension of the breath pause
Regeneration
There are surely other benefits for you to discover. If you have any questions or feedback please contact me.
„The net effect is to store energy“
In The Ancestor‘s Tale, Richard Dawkins and Yan Wong set off on a journey backwards in evolution. They see themselves as the pilgrims in Chaucer‘s Canterbury Tales, in their case, each journey resulting in a tale about an aspect of evolution in the „shared archaen goal, our Canterbury“. Oxygen and carbon dioxide feature along the way and the travellers have some enlightening information about cyanobacteria and a word of warning about fossil fuel. Read More
„Asthma became part of his art – if indeed his art did not create it.“
In his post „Writing and Breathing: Proust and Beckett“, Mark Bowles draws parallels between how Proust‘s asthma, Walter Benjamin‘s heart palpitations and Beckett‘s breathlessness are embodied within their writing styles. He himself was inspired by an essay called „Beckett‘s atmospheres“ by Prof. Steven Connor, Professor of English in the University of Cambridge.
“And what I’m doing, all-important, breathing in and out and saying, with words like smoke, I can’t go on, I can’t stay, let’s see what happens next.” (Beckett, „Texts for Nothing“) Read More
Breath Token June 2017
A breath token is a breathing exploration that I develop for friends & clients and send out as a gift.
Let‘s place our hands over the navel and sense what happens beneath our palms. Once we‘re in tune with the breath movement, we move the hands away from the navel, with the inhale, the palms still facing towards us. Then we let the hands come back towards the navel on the exhale. here we wait until the next inhale comes by itself and our hands move outward again. Read More
It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing
I just came across this video of Ella Fitzgerald singing „It don‘t mean a thing if it ain‘t got that swing“. That kind of sums it up for breathing, the force behind the singing voice. In natural breathing, no matter how subtle or strong the swinging motion is, it is the essence of the breath movement. When I’m in my own rhythm, from moment to moment, when I‘m in tune with myself in different situations, the right mix of looseness and good tone, I‘ve got that swing… Read More
Strelnikova breathing gymnastics
I have just learnt about Strelnikova breathing gymnastics. The gymnastics were originally developed by Alexandra Severovna Strelnikova to restore the voice of singers but turned out to be just as effective for the treatment and prophylaxis of respiratory illnesses. The central element of the gymnastics is sniffing energetically within a series of simple movements involving the whole body. Read More
Anatomy & Breath Clinic
In New York, there is a unique place called „The Breathing Project“. The Breathing Project is committed to body, movement and breath experience and education, led by experts in the field, Leslie Kaminoff and Amy Matthews. But it gets even better: they offer a free „Anatomy & Breath Clinic“. This is a session where renowned yoga teacher Leslie Kaminoff teaches „a non-standardized, adaptable, breath-centered approach to yoga“. How wonderful is that? So, if you‘re in New York….free Anatomy & Breath Clinic on Wednesdays, 4:15pm – 6:00pm.
The uses and abuses of air (1)
The Life of Breath Project’s PI Havi Carel has written this brilliant essay about the characteristics of air and our relation-ship to it. This relation-ship is tendentially a blissful one but one which changes radically when air looses its inherent capacity of nourishment and communication because its qualities have been altered or impaired. She quotes extensively from Terror from the Air by philosopher Peter Sloterdijk who discusses the idea of ‘atmoterrorism’ and makes her case that it’s high time for us to stand up for air.
“Air surrounds us. It is always there, its absence abhorred by nature. Unlike other natural elements, it is invisible, unlimited, and freely available. It is a plenitude, nature’s generosity; it is seemingly endless and expansive. Air is also of and for sharing. We share air when we laugh or talk together, when we breathe together, when we kiss. Air mediates the space between people. Thus air is both plentiful and shared. The atmosphere envelops us, providing oxygen, warmth, and shielding us from radiation. Wrapped around our planet, it is a protective layer within which all life exists. Read More