Don't Forget Breathless...

Imagine if all the tumult of the body were to quiet down, along with all our busy thoughts about earth, sea, and air; if the very world should stop, and the mind cease thinking about itself, go beyond itself, and be quite still; if all the fantasies that appear in dreams and imagination should cease, and there be no speech, no sign:

Imagine if all things that are perishable grew still – for if we listen they are saying, We did not make ourselves....

And imagine if that moment were to go on and on, leaving behind all other sights and sounds but this one vision which ravishes and absorbs and fixes the beholder in joy; so that the rest of eternal life were like that moment of illumination which leaves us breathless."

~ St. Augustine

Sometimes I'm so moved by a passage that I must write it with a pen myself - on whatever paper or notebook is near. Feeling the curve of the words on the page helps me be with the implication in an embodied way that just reading alone doesn't match. Often, I forget about writing it out, pen to paper, shortly thereafter.

Until I open up that notebook or find the paper in a pile later... and I am swept up by the resonance again, reminded and brought back to the center of what matters to my seeking-seeing heart.

That's what happened with that quote above. I found it written on a page in a notebook I haven't opened in more than two years. The timing is, of course, perfect.

With all of this talk about the importance of our breath in mindfulness and presence, let us also not forget the pure joy of our breath being taken away as we are swept off our feet by life, in love.