HOW I CAME TO LOVE DREAMSHADOW AND TRANSPERSONAL BREATHWORK
By Liz Deluna Gordon
Like everyone, I’ve been breathing as far back as I can remember. But even as a kid, I felt a special fascination with this most fundamental of life processes. While still in high school, I read a book which included yogic breath and set out to consciously breathe better.
I practiced holding my breath for over a minute in the pool every chance I got. I made sure my breathing was deep and solid–in through my nose and out through my mouth. I intentionally filled my lungs deeply every day with breath to oxygenate my muscles. In for a count of eight, hold it for a count of eight, out for eight, wait for eight, breathe in again for eight.
It may be that some of my determination came from a rather mortifying experience I had when I was just 8 years old. I went to the dentist to get 4 teeth pulled from my overly crowded mouth. It was an after-school appointment and the nurses put me in headphones to wait, a fairly recent innovation in dental care. In no time, I fell fast asleep.I awoke to the office staff all laughing at me! They were amused at the cute little girl, sleeping in the chair with a grown-up’s snore. This was my first awareness that I was a person who snored. It was devastating to a young girl trying to be her best beautiful self. Even so, it was years before I understood the full impact of this behavior.
At 52 I was finally diagnosed with severe sleep apnea, a life threatening sleep disorder. I recorded a shocking 72 apneas an hour. This result led me to looking into the effects of not breathing properly, which include cognitive decline, heart attack, stroke and chronic fatigue. I discovered that mouth breathing can change the look of your face and cause many other problems. I think my body knew all along I wasn’t getting enough oxygen to my brain while I was sleeping, which was why I was so interested in breathing and holding onto that breath in my waking hours.
I met Lenny and Elizabeth Gibson over breakfast at Pendle Hill, a Quaker retreat and conference center outside Philadelphia. They were holding a Dreamshadow Workshop and Weekend Retreat and I was working as hospitality staff at Pendle Hill. Elizabeth kindly invited me to attend the weekend retreat’s introduction lecture but I was unable to attend due to my working schedule. Seeing my interest and enthusiasm Elizabeth asked if I would like to breathe with them. I said naively, “I like to breathe!” not really understanding the breadth of which she was speaking. I was in for a wild ride. She said they would be starting at 2:30 and to bring a pillow and blanket.
I was at work and scheduled until 2:30 so I hurried to finish my tasks and took off a few minutes early. Luckily, in my car I had a pillow-like dog bed and my favorite magic beach blanket that had accompanied me on many wonderful adventures for 40 years. I rushed in and was directed where to set up my pallet on the floor, not having a clue as to what was about to happen–I just knew I was to breathe.
As I set up, I also met my sitter, a wonderfully sweet human with a welcoming smile and honest caring intent. We exchanged our hand signals to ask for tissue, and trash and bathroom breaks. He was a seasoned Transpersonal Breathwork pro helping the clueless newbie. I was given my blindfold and the session began. Elizabeth opened with a soothing meditation to help us arrive on the mat. Which was lucky as I was still all over the place from my frenetic hurry to stop and breathe. Well breathe I did! For three hours. Three glorious hours.
Lenny started the musical journey, his music LOUD AND EXCITING! INHALE. EXHALE. INHALE. EXHALE. The energy in the room was building, pulsating to the beat. I was deeply focused on my breath, and myself, maybe for the first time ever. Just me and the insides of the black eye mask that pulsated with beautiful purple and golden colors. My inner world opening to the energy, deep inside my lungs, the energy radiation into my arms and legs and around the whole of my being. Galloping horses in the music excited me and my breathing got faster and faster. My body reminded me of spots that had been causing me pain for years, muscular lumps of hurt that I was able to push and move and eventually soothe with the sounds of the music and the power of my breath.
All the while, there were eyes…so many sets of eyes. I wasn’t alone. My mother and father came to me as a lioness and lion. There was a light at the end of the tunnel and eyes. Nothing I couldn’t handle but there were tears. Lots of tears came, and I used the signal for tissue, which my sitter placed in my outstretched hand. The inner voyage in and around my body went on and on and on. I wasn’t ready for the music to end but it did. I lay there for a moment reveling in the joy of the journey. I was dazed and amazed. Three hours felt too short. Then without talking or disrupting the flow I rose and was led out of the room, first to attend to my comfort needs and then to the next phase of the breathwork.
On a table were watercolors and markers and colored pencils for us to create something representative of my journey. For that we were given an 11×17 piece of paper with an empty circle drawn in the middle as a focal point. This was the Mandala phase of the breathwork. I drew and painted my visions as best I could, as I sipped tea and enjoyed some chocolates and cheese. Reawakening to the reality of this plane, I enjoyed the beauty of the moment. The care I received from my sitter and the group as a whole felt like a full-being hug.
We convened after dinner for the final group processing portion of the breathwork. In telling my story I was overcome with emotion both for my story as well as from listening to the others. Deep and profound realizations came up during this process. The sharing and the care with which others listened truly touched something deep in my heart and soul. This was reassuring in a world of unknowns. I don’t know that I had ever felt such a feeling before.
Most of all, I sensed that the people around me truly cared to be in touch with the deepest parts of the dark and scary and beautiful and awesome mindscapes that we all carry within and without in our daily lives, oftentimes affecting us more than we know.
Dreamshadow was a wonderful experience to have fall in my lap. I have since signed up for more weekends and have even started the facilitator training. The world needs more humans knowing and spreading the joy and strength of Transpersonal Breathwork. I am willing and want to be one of those humans. Dancing my heartbeat into the world. Healing and acknowledging my inner world, breathing and creating peace, and projecting that peace outward. Everything you need is within you and is in your grasp–all you have to do is breathe beauty into being.
Liz Deluna Gordon: Liz is a Dreamshadow Transpersonal Breathwork Facilitator-in-training and a contributor to the Drops & Buds Journal. A lifelong lover of birds, art, movement, and the earth, she has followed a wonderfully winding path through many lives and livelihoods.
Liz has worked as a hairstylist and chef, served as the events coordinator for the American Birding Association and receptionist at Pendle Hill. She is also the founder of the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in her hometown of Harlingen, Texas, where she helped turn her love of birds and birding into a thriving celebration of the natural world.
For Liz, tending the earth and tending the self have become beautifully intertwined. Currently, she cares for a lovely piece of earth in Media, PA, tending the native plants and wildlife that live alongside her. Thanks to Dreamshadow’s Lenny, she rediscovered ecstatic dance and, these days, rather than trying to save the planet through birds and birding—with many successes along the way—she is saving herself through dance, art, and transpersonal breathwork.
Liz lives in Media with her husband, two parti poodles, and two tuxedo cats. She is mother to a wonderful son, and a proud aunt and great-aunt to many excellent earthlings. She can usually be found tending her little piece of the planet, watching birds and wildlife, making art, or breathing her way into whatever comes next.
Liz can be reached at elizabird@me.com
