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Trent -- Pranayama
“We will begintoday with alternate-nostrilpranayama.”
Thefuck?
Early Sunday morning, Dani and I joined the rest of the folks at the yoga retreat in a session outside on the grass overlooking the ocean. We arranged ourselves on mats so as not to get wet from the slight morning dew. The frothy waves of the Mediterranean crashed down below us in a secluded cove while the just-risen sun winked in the pinky-bluesky.
I’d had a cup of coffee and some toast, so I suppose I was awake, but I had no idea what alternate-nostril pranayama was. Even in English. I rubbed my eyes with the back of myhands.
Ana, the instructor, continued talking. “We breathe in one side of our nostril, closing the other. Then we breathe out the other nostril. We repeat inreverse.”
I glanced around at the rest of the class, waiting to see what they thought of this. Dani nodded, totally on board with this weirdness, her fairy hair secured with a blackheadband.
“And,begin.”
Seriously?
But all around me, people closed their eyes and tried to breathe in the most unnatural waypossible.
“Controlling the breath gives one mental clarity. Calm, centered breathing grounds one in thebody.”
Finally, I tried it. I pressed my nose shut on one side with my thumb and breathed in. Then I held the other side shut and breathed out. After a few tries, I got the hang of it, and found myself looking forward to the next inhalation orexhalation.
“One of the things that yoga can do is bring things to the surface. We store so much in our bodies. We store our history. Quite literally, your cells are what you were. You’re always forming new ones. You can alter them.” Ana prattled on, in thickly accented English. “So with the breath, with awareness, you can release the past and create thenew.”
We continued for a few minutes, then Ana instructed us to go back to regular breathing. Set free to breathe regularly, I found myself paying more attention to the air I took in and let out. She had given me awareness of the way my body felt with oxygen running around through the intricate systems that made itup.
Yeah. It felt good. Some of the crap that had been going through my head about the last few weeks, about Degan’s death, well, it seemed to fade. Not that it went away. Not that I was all healed bybreathing.
But for once, I thought of something else. What it felt like to breathe, to experience this moment. And all I had going on was to listen to my breath, the way it scraped in the back of my throat and escaped out of mybody.
In the dewy morning, I felt alive. More alive than I ever had before, my body tingling and my senses aware, just frombreathing.
Something so simple hit me so profoundly. I could breathe while Degan couldn’t, but he hadn’t died in vain. He’d died so I could do this. I could take anotherbreath.
And each one was forhim.
If I fought against my breath, if I kept myself from living in any moment, if I tried to kill myself, if I wasted any moment—then he would have died for noreason.
I couldn’t let that happen. His life was too important. His sacrifice was tooimportant.
Every daycounted.
With the breath in my lungs and the gentle ocean breeze skimming my arms, I began to understand what Ana was talking about yesterday. How the way through distressing emotions like grief wasn’t through it or to get over it, but to assimilate it into the body. This grief would always be with me. I’d always miss him. But maybe I could learn to live with it intime.
It wasn’t like I was totally healed. I needed help. I needed therapy. I probably neededmedication.
But it was going to be okay. If I stayed in the moment right now, if I kept breathing, I was breathing forhim.
A peace came about me that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. Because even before his death, I’d lived for four years in an artificially violent situation. One where the threat of being shot was constant. We had to be vigilant,constantly.
And we couldn’t ever fully relax while in thefield.
I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, letting myself enjoy the early morning sun. The rays heated my arms, and my breathing stayed deep andcalm.
It felt strange, this peace. Like nothing I’d ever experienced. I was so used to waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something bad to happen. I knew that I had experienced just about the worst thing anyone could ever experience—the murder of my best friend in my arms—and now I was determined that no matter how uncomfortable, no matter how bad I felt, I’d do my best to live, really live, forhim.
But I heard a rustling. I popped open my eyes to see Dani getting up and walking quickly away, her face red with a sheen of sweat on herforehead.
