The Breath of God

I was told that the word for spiritual in Latin means breath. I thought that was kind of funny since that was what first touched me and lead me down a path to find it.

One of the times that I remember being conscious that the breath was tied into something special was when I learned how to knit in my early thirties. A dear friends was over visiting and she was showing me some of her handy work on some afghans that she hand knitted for Christmas gifts for that year.

I decided after she left that I should take a class as it would be an excellent way to make afghans for the children's beds. I found someone in town who taught knitting so I began to learn. The first week I did nothing but practice over and over until I got it right.

It was a few months later as I was working on my second afghan, I noticed that I was holding my breath on certain stitches and letting out on others. I also became aware that the breath followed the same pattern that I was knitting. OK, there are only two stitches when knitting and there are only two when breathing, in and out.

As I became aware, I started to count my blessing in life with the breaths and released my tension as I exhaled. My mind then became occupied with the pattern as it seemed that another part of me counted my blessings with each breath. It was amazing as I started to feel a warmth of love spread over my body as it moved though me and outside of me. The feeling also started to pore and flow into my hands as I worked on each stitch.

I remember that there was a feeling that I was connected to everything and I felt apart of a kind of love that was much bigger than the usual love that we feel for others. This love was in all things, even the things that we as humans don't consider alive. It was huge..........

The only other time in my life that reminds me of that experience was when I was 16 and my Grandmother was in an unhappy mood and what I was doing at the time only seemed to aggravate her more. Don't get me wrong, we were very close but on that day we were both angry at each other and I was on the verge of stomping off when an emotion like a soft breeze swept over me.

I remember it touching my skin and moving not just on the outside but moved though me. The anger was immediately gone and was replaced with this enormous amount of love for her. Only for a few seconds, I could see into her heart and the pain that she carried. The anger that I felt was truly gone and compassion and understanding for my grandmother soaked and saturated my inner being.

I never lost that feeling for her for the rest of my life. What ever happened that day must have been recorded in my soul and my cells because when ever we were on the verge of disagreement, anger was never in the equation when it came to her. People always knew we had a special bond but they never knew how special it really was. I can't ever explain it, but even in the separation of death we are still connected.

I now call it the "Breath of God". I wish it was in all of our relationships and experiences but like everyone else I went though all the trails and tribulations of emotions in the rest of my relationships. You would think I would learn. Only now as I reaccount my memories I am aware that those experiences could have changed my life path had I stayed conscious then.

These experiences of feeling connected later come in short bursts of energy though out the rest of my life but nothing like what I experienced with my grandmother. A year and a half ago after searching for healing, I started to search for the root of this experience and so far the path keeps leading me back to the breath of God.

Ana