breathe | Camano Island Artists Abu and Nana

Happy Chinese New Year!! For me, it’s all about celebrating the many ways we channel energy. A good day to celebrate life!

Understand how kindness allows energy to flow within our cells and the cells of others.

Now that’s an interesting idea. What is it about acts of kindness? Can I change the direction of my day when I offer someone the right-of-way at an intersection? Can I breathe easier when I flow with my natural, kind energy?

Of course I can. This day and every day can be satisfying, one foot in front of the other.

With kindness we see the beautiful side of our world.

Today, I commit to being true to the person I admire.
Today, I remember to breathe kindness in and out.
Today, with kindness I know I will see the beautiful and fun things in life.

Let this day begin!

Did you know you can read ‘GETTING TO HAPPY: LEARNING TO READ EMOTIONAL MESSAGES” for free with your Prime Membership. Borrow this book for a month!

With the New Year comes days of struggle but just as many, if not more, days of peace and satisfaction. Already this year, a project is developing from within. It is called, BREATHE AND RECEIVE, Challenge Confusion. It is a way to look for ways to balance a lifestyle committed to well-being-ness!

A poem came to me yesterday. I’ll share it with you. I put it to music and gave it a read. Kind of reminded me of the late 50’s in Berkeley, where coffee houses hosted practicing poets who read on stage with an occasional bongo playing in the background. — a great memory. I have recorded this poem with this memory in mind.

Have fun with your interpretation!

MAKE PEACE, RELEASE

 Long ago I gave up.
 Urged to be generic.
 Breath, Air,  Body, Soul, Spirit, 
 Food, Job, Money, Family, Rules.
 What manner of life have I found myself in?
 So I breathe and I breathe and I breathe and I breathe.
 So I breathe and I breathe and I breathe and I breathe.

 Am I happy or am I sad?
 Of that I am not certain.
 Heart beating messages of love.
 Why this great despair?
 Am I doomed to this confusion?
 Yet I breathe and I breathe and I breathe and I breathe.
 Yet I breathe and I breathe and I breathe and I breathe.

 Time is closing in each day
 Like fog I cannot stop it.
 No other can see my Secret,
 spoken between my breath, 
 Am I adrift, alone, forgotten?
 Yet I breathe and I breathe and I breathe and I breathe.
 Yet I breathe and I breathe and I breathe and I breathe.

 A sudden breath inspires Me
 It is I who knows the Secret.
 No longer in fog, lucidity lights the way
 I am at peace and divulge what was hidden:
 All you need is love. All you need is Love.
 And I breathe and I breathe and I breathe and I breathe.
 And I breathe and I breathe and I breathe and I breathe.

 — Barbara Dean Aliaga

Download a recording of Make Peace, Release.