meditating position

zeus has been away from mt. olympus lately, i can feel his absence. something slightly awry, not-quite-business-as-usual.

when i meditated last night, for a portion of the time i was lost in the intricacy of my respiration. i broke the rules and followed the breath in, dove past my trachea, released into the lungs, the bronchi, the bronchioles, ripped its way into my bloodstream, coarsed down my vessels, through extremities, into arterioles, little side-streets, and eventually, the capillaries -- which received that breath greedily, insatiably. this physical manifestation [blood, sinews, fibroids, flesh] all of it touched by those little whisps of respiration -- the incoming breath, the outgoing breath. every minute of every day obsessed with it, caught up in it, if only i could just remain aware of it.

then the sensation of the breath on my body. pull in the top of the skull on inhalation, release of tension on exhalation. [none of it planned though, just observation] the bubbly feeling into my epidermis, is that breath? is that tingling in my fingertips also respiration? the gravity of deep breaths, and the slight superficiality of breaths that are shallow, quiet, restrained [how i breath when i'm angry].

the world, perhaps, is out to get us. but in our corner we've got respiration, so there's no need to fear.