Dropping into the breath

In my course on origins of somatic psychology, this week we focus on the breath. I am reminded of my experience when I completed my scuba diving certification and through this process I came to tangibly experience what I’ve come to embody as a Reiki practitioner and teacher.  My discussion became a channeled essay.

In SCUBA, one is able to become neutrally buoyant in a sea of expansive water.  You create that buoyancy through regulating your breath.  Taking too many breaths and you don’t descend, taking too little and you begin to sink too quickly.  Taking long, but steady breaths, allows your body to remain constant, held in the water, and gently propelled by your effortless swim through the currents.

Practicing Reiki is like practicing SCUBA breathing.  Dropping into the present moment, observing, being with, not trying, offering.

Somehow, being in the substance of water makes the concept of ‘ki’ and what it is that much more visible.  We are in a sea of ‘ki’, we just can’t ‘see’ it, like we could if we were all in the water.  In the ocean you can see particles of plant life floating about, random fish darting here and there, bubbles of oxygen rising from your tank, floating to the surface and releasing out and merging with the air. 

What prevents us from seeing this and feeling this phenomena is our hard and fast attachment to the ego.  This is a part of our personality that thinks ‘its in charge’.  Its only one facet, like one side of diamond.  Its not the whole jewel.  I’ve often heard EGO stands for ‘Edging God Out’.  God being a force greater than our Selves.

You can use the wetsuit as the analogy of our ego.  It allows one to travel, function and survive through the matrix of the water environment.  It’s a covering, a protection, and a container.  It keeps one’s physical body intact.  Yet, the wetsuit only works when you let some water (ki) into it.  As that water coats your body, the insulating layer of the suit allows the water to heat to your body temperature.  But when it comes down to it, the wetsuit ego, is only one layer on top of the layer of water on top of our physical body, which is basically a bag of water contained by a layer of skin.

When we remove all those layers, those preconceptions, we are exposed and engulfed by the sea of ki, of Reiki, of the Universe.  That expanse is what permits us to breathe.  It is beyond our conscious effort, it is part of our connection to the infinite.

Working with Reiki is like this circle of life, it is ever present, ever existed.  It permeates all of the world, we need to create the space and place to dive in and experience this phenomena. 

What does not serve you can leave, falling away effortlessly.  What is true to your essence remains.  That is the heart of Reiki.  It leads you to the place you were meant to be.  What do you want to manifest? 

But it is not a manipulative energy.  Like the ocean, it just is.  You can’t force the ocean!  There are no boundaries, there is just infinite, infinite potential. 

When we take in the air on the land, into our lungs, we merge with the air molecules…with the oxygen bubbles we can’t see, emitting from all the plants, the grass, the trees, the flowers, and the water around us.  We inhale the molecules that have been circulating for millions of years and that have been breathed by all the humanity and lifeforms that have gone before us. 

We all are channels for this oxygen, whether deep beneath the waves breathing through SCUBA, or taking that breath on the top of a mountain.  We are all channels for ki.  Both ki and oxygen permit us to thrive.

Copyright 2021 Eileen Dey Wurst

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