The breath you take.
Not the first breath ever known.
Before air touched lungs.
Before chest could rise and fall on its own.
There was another breathing.
Breathing.
Rhythm that moved through you.
Without effort.
Without knowing.
In the womb space.
Where you breathed.
Fluid floating around you.
Her heartbeat carrying oxygen through vessels to feed your forming body.
You did not breathe.
You were held in breath.
Even now,
Beneath the breath you control.
Beneath the inhale you command.
There is yet still an ancient holding.
Gravity cradling each breath.
As air clings to skin.
Because she holds it in place.
Atmosphere held.
Resting.
Wrapped around you.
By the same force held.
The same breath known in womb.
No need for deep breathing.
No breath to fix.
No thought to think.
Just a noticing.
A noticing of the breath that is already here.
Has been here all along.
Gravity holding air in body.
Earth holding gravity.
And you held in all.
In moments where breath is shallow.
Find peace.
In times of tight chest.
Know that all is welcome.
In times where no breath can be found at all.
You are still held.
The womb space requires nothing of you.
No measure of your worth.
It simply holds you.
Is yet holding you.
At times when the loneliness feels like something has forgotten you.
Remembering.
You were always held.
Standing in places and spaces.
Grasping for self.
Never forgetting.
You were always held.
And even in those times of forgetting.
The times when loneliness holds close.
Remembering that the holding never left.
Gravity has never released you.
The air never abandoned your skin.
Your lungs never hungry.
No forcing.
Because you are held.
Allowing awareness to drop.
Not into head.
Not outward towards doing.
But down into the place where breath begins.
The womb space inside you.
The centre that knows you.
That remembers what it was like to be held without effort.
Nothing to change.
Perfectly perfect as you are.
This breath moving through you.
The same breath that moved through darkness before you ever saw light.
It knows the way.
No practice needed.
Nothing to master.
Simply a remembering.
Of the holding.
Long before you learn to hold yourself.
You were held.
Nothing required.
Nothing to be earned.
A presence.
A being that was there before you ever knew light.
A returning.
An inviting.
