JUST BREATHE...

As we made our way home from New Mexico, four weary but spiritually enhanced travelers, daylight ebbed into dusk creating the most entrancing sunset I have seen in years. I took this picture out of the window of the car we were traveling in. It seemed as though the clouds had frenzied themselves into a tornado, but it was just a spectacular formation. This photo is completely unenhanced.

Our spiritual retreat this past weekend introduced me to Shelly, a woman with shamanic healing ability, and a kind and generous soul. She guided the four of us onto our respective, intended paths, and taught us how to redirect the negative energies plaguing our emotional and physical beings.

I think the most important thing I learned was how to breathe. I had not realized it before, but I don't breathe much on any given day. I was guided in how to open all of the seven chakras and how to breathe up through them. I learned the method of breathing from the abdomen as opposed to my usual, shallow chest breathing, and how to tell the difference between the two. As I progressed and practiced throughout the weekend, I could not believe how much better I felt. It was as though each breath pulled new and fresh energy and life inside me as each exhale released years upon years of negativity and dis-ease. I have made a vow to myself that each day shall be filled with this conscious breathing until one day, quite on its own, it becomes a natural phenomenon and not a conscious endeavor. When I reach that point I know I will have crossed into another plain of existence.

Thank you Shelly for the the awesome lessons learned (and the great cooking), thank you Anna and Tiffany for the chance to share this trip with you and get to know one another on a deeper level, and thank you Andy for coming along, even though your foot, ribs and finger were broken. We were an awesome foursome.