Monday, December 26
David was going to spend the next several weeks visiting the holy but lowly custodian every evening. As if taking a Winter Semester course, he began to call Walton the “Professor.” In exchange, Walton usually called him by any name that came to mind. One common label he applied to him was “Worm,” thus reminding David that he needed to constantly dig deeper and deeper through the muck and mire of his mind, and hopefully turn some of that stagnant waste and trash into something more useful, like constructive compost. Fruitful fertilizer. Meaningful manure. Practical poop.
For hours each night, throughout the entire church facility, they wandered. And they worked. Clean, scrub, polish. And David talked. About anything, about everything. Especially his problems and complaints. But, eventually, less and less about them. He opened up every part and parcel of his inner turmoil to Walton. As a result, David’s own mind began to recognize that it had been cleaned, scrubbed, and polished as well.
Walton asked myriad questions, and David eagerly spilled his insides out. The flow of words, like a manic mantra, was comforting to David. However, while his brain was draining out, there was little new information raining back in to his freshly-exposed consciousness. The river of pain flowed in only one direction. It was as if, although he knew there was so much misery and woe to share, there would someday come a time when he would be devoid of content. Maybe then he might truly be content? Perhaps that was the old man’s game – spill and spill with little or no fill.
As the eve of a new year approached, however, Walton started to divert the direction of the flow of their conversational stream. The bricks and mortar church itself was clean and organized enough. He told David that it was now time to follow the same process, complete the same chores, with David’s inner sanctuary. Walton began by sharing the briefest overview of a system of ideas with David. And these all started with the breath.
On this particular night, immediately upon entering the Sanctuary, Walton’s opening salvo blasted David with the question “Do you know how to breathe?”
“Of course I do,” was the expected response. So David, very machine-like, presented that very response to him.
“Betcha don’t. Not really. Anymore. Most people have forgotten how, and, for now, you are still a very integral part of ‘most people’.”
“But I do it every day. And a lot. Don’t even have to think about it!”
“Okay, let me watch. You breathe, and I’ll critique. Pretend we’re in the Oxygenation Olympics….”
David walked over to the front pew, sat down comfortably, took a few deep breaths, and waited for Walton’s evaluation.
“First, make it easy on yourself. No slouching. We want you to do as little work as possible for this. An effort in efficiency.”
David played the obedient servant, student, skeptic. With his feet flat on the floor, and back straight, and head erect, he continued to wait for further instruction. He was indeed going to initiate as little work for this as possible.
“Are you sitting comfortably?”
“Let Merlyn cast his spell! Quite comfortably numb!”
“Okay, we’ll do musical flashbacks for big bucks later!. But for now, you’re fine. Now, there are four words to memorize. Yes, there will always be a test later. Or death, if you choose to create that instead. The words are ‘Low – Slow – Nose – Flow.’ Would you please repeat them for me?”
“Low, Slow, Nose, and Flow,” a slight grin tweaked both David’s eyes and mouth.
“Got an ‘A’ on that one, did ya, Worm? So what’s the big deal about Low breathing? Any guesses?”
“What do you mean, low breathing? I still don’t understand how my regular way of breathing is incorrect.”
“Take another big deep breath for me, hold it for a few seconds, and observe your body in action. One-two-three-go.”
David drew in an exaggerated, noisy inhalation, his chest expanded, his shoulders lifted, he arched his back, and puffed out his cheeks. Then exploded on the exhale.
“Hey, bub. Say it, don’t spray it,” Walton paused, to let David recover from his bombastic breath. “How do babies breathe? Any idea? Any memories?”
“Sorry, Professor. Haven’t been around too many of the wee folk lately. Couldn’t tell you.”
“You should get thee to thy local hospital nursery sometime soon, and walk around, observing enlightened humanity in its simplest form. Do you some good, maybe teach you a bit of humility.”
“So, how do babies breathe that is different from my method?”
“They breathe automatically by using the diaphragm muscle, splitting the torso in half, right under the lungs. The muscle moves down, the lungs expand, the belly pooches out, and the breath is deep. For a baby, that is. On the exhale, that muscle relaxes back into place, the belly goes back in… and that is all that needs to move, as far as muscles are concerned. Meanwhile, you, Master Worm, have muscles stretching all over the place. Chest, shoulders, neck, back, waist. What a lot of unnecessary energy you expend. Highly inefficient. Now try again. Place your hand over your belly button area, and watch it, and only it, move out as you inhale slowly.”
David practiced this a few times, responding that it felt very unnatural.
“Of course it’s unnatural. You’ve been breathing with what is called the ‘fight, fright, or flight’ method of breathing for a lot longer time period than you’ve been breathing the natural breath of a young child. You’ve got some un-learning to do. Practice a couple more breaths, the natural way, and we’ll move on to step two. You can practice each of the four steps on your own time, in your own space.”
A few of David’s next breaths copied his originals, but he was at least more observant about which muscles were moving and which were not. He could get the belly-button-covering hand to move in and out slightly, but not with ease.
“What’s next? Slow?”
“Slow breath. Show who is in control of your breath, you or your inner programming. Even though breathing is automatically controlled by certain biological connections, it is a powerful exercise to learn some degree of control. In your future, you are going to discover an endless list of breathing methods used by folks all over the world, for an endless list of reasons. Right now, all we are concerned with is exploring the old habits you’ve picked up, and increasing your breathing efficiency. No wasted energy, right, Worm?”
“Right, vermicella rockinfella.”
“Good call. The word ‘Slow’ simply stands for a counting process. Ask a typical person to count while breathing, and he or she may take just a few seconds to breathe in, and the same count to breathe out. Pretty shallow, along with all that strained posture to boot. But the low breath allows for more air to be taken in, as well as controlled in the process. So I am going to count for you. Don’t worry if they are actual seconds on a clock. That doesn’t matter. Just start to inhale when I start to count, we’ll pause for a second or two in the middle, and then exhale to the same count, the same speed. Got it?”
“Ready to get set and go.”
Walton instructed David to complete repeated inhales and exhales. Every third repetition, he added one more count to each breath. When David reached ten counts in and ten counts out, he started to lose a bit of control and timing.
“Not sure I can go any slower than that, Professor,” he exhaled quickly.
“It all takes time, but you will be at a fifteen or twenty count before the week is over, I assure you. Inhale – hold – exhale – hold. Over and over, very simple process. Imagine only breathing a total of maybe three complete breaths per minute. That is the control required of an athlete, a singer, a dancer, a musician, a martial artist, a sperm whale. Actually, those deep sea creatures can go over an hour without a second breath, but I don’t want you trying that one just yet. Maybe later, David, my little dauphin dolphin.”
“Can’t wait, Walton, my wonderful wacky walrus.”
Since David had previously disclosed his intention to be actively involved in the musical arts, he knew that he would soon have to give up his reluctance to Walton’s instructions on such mundane exercises as breathing. Especially for the vocal and movement demands of an on-stage performer.
“Okay. Got Low and Slow. What’s so important about Nose-breathing? We got two openings for air. Why can’t we use them both?”
“For the answer to this, we are not looking at just the breath, but other body functions involved. In school, what were you taught about breathing through the nose?”
“It pre-heats the air, it cleans out dust particles, and, well, that ‘s all I was taught. Is there more?”
“Ever heard of the body as a chemistry set, a pharmaceutical factory, a medicine machine? Happy drugs? Endorphins? Nitric Oxide? One of the bi-products of nose-breathing over mouth-breathing is that a certain organ near the base of the brain gets stimulated, and tricked into telling the brain to start the happy-drug-making process. So nose breathing is a way to actually trigger a pain-reduction response. Smiling, grinning, eager little Happy drugs racing all over the place! And with the inner work we are going to be doing over the next few days, you are really gonna need that pain relief.”
David’s muscles automatically and instantly tightened up, triggered by hearing Walton’s foreshadowing admonition. Walton noticed the tension building up in David’s body. He stared at David for a few moments, saying nothing. David got the hint, and immediately went into nose-breathing exercises.
“Remember to keep the breath low while you do that,” Walton called out to David as he walked around, observing David’s demeanor and his body form. “And keep it slow. Slow down. Feel the air traveling through the whole nasal passage. Hold each inhalation and exhalation for just a few seconds. Don’t focus at all on specific numbers and counting the time. Just keep a slow, comfortable pace. And when you exhale, there is no rush either. Feel the air pass through the nose, feel the inner skin surface massaged by the passage of warm air. Feel a bit of a buzz after you’ve done about five or ten of these. Yeah, I see it, there it is. The buzz. Your eyes are losing focus, and your muscles just got looser on your frame. Three cheers for your parasympathetic nervous system! It works!! Keep it up, no rush at all, Worm-meister.”
After a few minutes of this practice, Walton interrupted David’s breathing pattern. “The last of the four words is Flow. This is the most complicated part, but it is also the easiest form of what is out there in la-la land. Let me explain.”
David sat back, slowly breathing, and Walton continued his instruction on this last step: “There are many types of breathing exercises used in different religions and in different forms of mental health therapy. One of the main problems with all of these different breathing exercises is that they can get very complicated. Very cognitive-oriented. Our brains only work certain ways, and some people can’t visualize, some people use auditory reasoning, and some people use kinesthetic processing. If you are a visualizing learner, then you can see pretty desert islands and palm trees and clouds going across the sky. You can count sheep. You can picture monkeys in trees with coconuts, and you might even be able to feel breezes flowing across you. That seems to be one of the most common ways to try to get people to relax, using breathing exercises.
“But if you happen to be a learner whose primary method of processing information is auditory or by the sense of touchy-feely, you can’t as effectively use these other visual exercises. It can be very frustrating, despite the fact that you are trying your best to calm down instead! You have to work harder than ever to be able to relax. That’s just not fair. So the easiest and simplest form of a breathing exercise, a universal method for all shapes and sizes, would be the simplest visualization possible. It might involve sight and sound, and it might also involve the sense of feeling, all at the same time. Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic.
“With the step called Flow, all three are present. Air flowing in, picturing a clear and very neutral, white or gray or misty, substance that anyone can visualize. It is simple, it is plain, and we are all familiar with what a cloud-like image looks like. As the air enters the system, you also feel it going through the nasal passages all the way into the body. Not just into the lungs, that specific image is too complicated and limiting. Instead, play with it and fill up the whole inside of your body. Using the “empty balloon man” body model, the body and mind both fill up with this fairly neutral stimulus of the flowing cloud, this air mass. You also hear the slight raspy sound of the breath as it enters the body. Cloud in, cloud out, over and over, nothing but cloud. There is no right or wrong way to feel, see, or hear a cloudy mass of air entering and leaving the entire body.
“You’re going to pretend that you’re a giant inflatable balloon. Feel the balloon. BE the balloon! Your whole body is empty. Inflate, deflate, inflate, deflate. So when you breathe, you’re gonna breathe fully, and not just into your nose and empty lungs. You are going to breathe into your head and neck, your shoulders, your arms, your hands, your stomach, your legs, your itzy-bitzy teeny-weeny tiny toes. Every single part of your body is going to fill up with this white or gray cosmic cloud of mist, a very simple thing to visualize. That is the step called Flow. There are no complicated visualizations. Logic be damned! Nothing to think about, nothing to count, just feel the air flowing into your body and entering into every single cell and corner and nook and cranny of your body, from top to bottom. Be the wee balloon man!”
“I think I can handle that, bossman,” David caught himself in mid-yawn. “Be the breath. Low down belly level, slow as a snail, only through the nose, for the happy drugs, and finally the crystal cloud of fullness and emptiness!”
Walton smiled, but with a serious and intent overlay to his observation. “David, this one exercise is the most powerful and important thing I’m going to teach you in all the time that we’re together. You have to practice it here while we work together. I hope you practice it back in your dorm room as well. You should practice it while you’re walking, or you’re thinking, while you’re eating, while you’re doing everything that you do for the next couple of weeks. You can even do this exercise while driving heavy equipment! I cannot overemphasize how important low-slow-nose-flow is as an important exercise for you. Now. Your past. Your future. For the time being, we will call this the Communion Breathing Exercise, because you are going to learn to commune with absolutely every aspect of your being while practicing this exercise.”
Despite his slightly dizzy and relaxed sensation from the previous breathing practice, David still had a question. “What about when I start to think about things other than white warm misty clouds circulating throughout the interior of my body? How can I keep those little monkey thoughts from ruining a perfectly good ‘high’?”
“For now, we won’t get into too much detail concerning the specifics of that aspect of the Flow breath just now. But here’s the general result of the Flow-style visualization – since you made the mistake of asking:
“The brain obviously takes in new data all day long, as we move from moment to moment. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches. Bam, bam, bam, in they go. An endless parade. Even the thoughts we have stored in the head already – they, too, seek to get processed in the same way. Just more data.
“Like the central processing unit of a computer, a good-sized multi-legged square chip sitting atop the motherboard of your brain, environmental data seems to be constantly pouring into those chip legs, and then other data also flows back out after a while. As a matter of fact, data HAS to leave in order for new data to be able to enter to be processed. Data in, data out. Garbage in, garbage out. Stimuli in, and calculated and processed responses out. Well, some of those who study this aspect of the brain claim that our own CPU’s only handle a small amount of informational input at any one moment. And whatever is in our brain at that moment then triggers reactions, be they physical, emotional, mental, or whatever. And when we sense new stuff, input new data? We experience new reactions. Out with the old data, in with the new.
“BUT, what happens if we deliberately fill the whole CPU with nothing but the full-sensory experience of warm misty air? Nothing but clouds. In and out, cloud, cloud, cloud. A very neutral image, sound, and feeling. The result? Little if any reaction at all. No thoughts, no worries, no lost sleep, no counting sheep. No painful videos on looping playback all day long. No desires, regrets, fears, guilts, angers, upset … just the warm misty cloud. A brain cloud. A body cloud. A CPU cloud. In digital binary language, nothing but “zeroes” going in to each leg of that CPU chip. No more “ones” being processed to trigger behavioral responses. The previously mentioned parasympathetic nervous system, telling the body to chill out. “Turn off all unnecessary peripheral devices.” The whole neural network blowing like a breeze through the trees. You would be a mellow fellow. I have yet to meet the human whose life becomes terribly disrupted when simply spotting a cloud in the sky.
“So much for a bit of biology mixed with computer science. Got it?”
David was amazed at Walton’s extended explanation. “Wow. I rarely see you so intense. And I agree that, finally, it IS simple. Four things to remember. A practice we all did upon entering this world. Simple as a baby’s breath. And I can also see that, psychologically, the breath as a source of Stimuli is connected to probably every behavior we ever performed. Right? I mean, breathing was the very first thing we did on that first day of life. Swoosh! Escape from the Womb Tomb, and down into Wonder World! Then the slap slap slap of the Big Bang on the Butt, and …. Waaaaah! First Breath!! So it’s got to be connected somehow to every behavioral response after that!”
After standing up from the pew beside David, Walton collected all of their cleaning supplies.
“Correct-a-mundo. We’ll be getting more into that kind of stuff in a few days. For now, go ahead and recognize that the human breath is one of very few things that is integral to all behavior, to all thought, to all feelings, to all the other senses. Yes, pretty Intense. A big deal. You ready for more, or should we call it a night, so you can go home and practice breathing? Sleeping on, around, and within, your own cosmic and calming cloud?”
David yawned quietly, and then admitted, “I got plenty of time for about two weeks, as a matter of fact. Until the band returns back to campus, I am free as a bird.”
“Or a worm?”
“Bird. Worm. Word. Berm. Whatever.”
“Then I suggest you go home for tonight, and breathe as free as a bird. Or a balloon. Or, better yet, be a bird-shaped balloon. Or a balloon-shaped bird! See how long it takes for you to get to sleep tonight with this exercise. Even if you are usually a “side-sleeper”, start the exercise on your back. It will be an easier way to relax more muscles at one time. Easier to observe the movement of your one hand on the stomach area, and also reduce the movement of the back and shoulders. One hand on the stomach, the other hand maybe by your side, tapping fingers in a flow 5-count, in and out. I have no doubt at all that you will be in la-la-land in less than five minutes.”
“La-la-land, it is! See you tomorrow, and thanks.”
“We will begin and end every session with your latest holiday present, the breathing lesson. That is one gift that keeps you in the ever-unfolding Present. Good night.”
As he headed for the church door, David asked him, “How do you know all this stuff, anyway?”
Walton replied, “And that secret, my skin-covered bag of hot air, is tomorrow’s lesson. Good night, balloon-bird-man!”
David blew out into the cold Maine nighttime air, breathing with the breeze.
*****