A friend messaged me a quote today, saying it made her think of me – “Reading is like breathing in, and writing is like breathing out.” I looked it up, and it’s a quote from Pam Allyn, an author and American literacy expert.

In both yoga and meditation, breath awareness is at the heart of the practice. In meditation (at least the kind I practice), you place your attention on your breath and your intention is to rest it there. In yoga, you are often moving with your breath – such as reaching,  extending on an inhale and settling into stillness on an exhale – and even when you aren’t, you maintain an awareness of it, stay with your breath and thus in your body, in the moment. In both practices, breath is seen as essential, energy not just air, as something that can cultivate both stillness and action, presence.

The breath is always there, as long as we are, and we can always come back to it, always return, always stay with it. Our breath is constant. I love how this quote finds the breath in these other practices that are also so important to me.