Gorgeous and Glorious

Today is one of those spectacular days that only Mother Nature can arrange.....a foot of new white snow and dazzling clear blue skies. It's colder than ( you know what), but how can anyone complain with the sun blazing overhead making every bit of snow sparkle. It's exactly what's needed the end of January after two weeks of horrid black unfit air inversions and fog.
Yesterday was our cute neighbor's birthday. I found a birthday card which said, "The secret of a long and happy life was shared with me by a very wise old sage, and for your birthday, I'm going to tell you this secret." (Open the card) "Keep breathing as long as possible."
Now, that might sound humorous, or even simplistic, but it's also extremely important. When anything happens to us, we always, instinctively, hold our breath, right? So, in my yoga classes, or when I'm listening to stressed out people, I always say "exhale." Once at a meditation retreat we were asked, "Which is more important: the inhale or the exhale?" A lively discussion followed, but in the end, the exhale was more important, because you cannot take anything in if you're already full, and so letting the old out, including the toxins and carbon dioxide, is what begins the breathing cycle. Unless you've studied breath and breathing for a living, which I have done for the past 14 years, you might not know that the inhale energizes and the exhale relaxes you. The inhale warms you, the exhale cools you off. The inhale stimulates, the exhale balances. We need both the inhale and the exhale to keep ourselves healthy, whole, and balanced, and in our stressed out society, it's not hard to realize that our habit of holding our breath, individually and collectively, continues to create imbalances, the same as accumulating too much of anything without letting something go.
Here's to our coming year, which, whether we like it or not, is going to demand letting go of many useless, irrelevant stuff, collectively and individually. Things have been out of balance too long, so.......keep exhaling and be grateful when the sun is shining.
love to all.