Breathive
by Crystal Craig

Space hushes.
Darkens.
The unseen gathers at the edges.
We wait for the cue:
Inhale.
Hold.
Release.
Someone sighs it out, resistance giving way.
Our separate pilgrimages
thread themselves into one low pulse.
Breath against breath.
Ribcage to ribcage.
The room becoming a living lung.
Music,
that haunting, bone-deep kind,
pulls at loose threads,
unraveling what was knotted,
loosening what was guarded,
honest ends,
a little frayed,
a little true.
Technique blurs.
Time rests her weary head on my pillow,
and together we pulse with breath.
A woman moans,
and I feel it rise through me
as if it belonged to all of us,
the depths of our collective angst.
This release,
energizing and spinning,
tingles become sparks,
multi-dimensional transcendence.
Thought dissolves.
The mind’s little labels
drop from their tidy shelves
and shatter into nothing worth keeping.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
We descend into the primal,
circular breath,
deep guttural whispers,
the ancient hum of being alive.
Bathing in the wideness of now,
one breath at a time,
finding freedom in the letting go,
in the surrender,
in the soft bravery of opening.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Tears warm my cheeks.
I find I am crying someone else’s sorrow
while she weeps the thing
I could not bear to name.
And somehow,
somehow,
this exchange of burdens
is beautiful.
This is breathwork.
This is the ceremony
of origin.