WHERE THE WILD BREATH LIVES
By Amanda Brutus
I want to travel to that distant shore where my wild breath lives.
That place where my breath quivers, breaks, and shakes.
That place where it quickens so I can feel the tremble of my heart and catch myself falling and feeling all at the same time.
In feeling I arrive within me so deeply that I cannot escape, ignore, reject or cast away any portions of me I tend to hide. That place where I hide the ferocious ebbs and flows of life’s uncertainties.
Where the wild breath lives reveals the wail in the walls of my bones, and the savage anger kept silent for being nice.
I want to dance in the place where my wild breath rises and falls. To get sweaty and dirty with the mess of it all. To be undone by the sheer intensity of being human.
I want that wild breath to rattle me loose. To shake the cobwebs from my lungs, to feel the hunger in my heart, and the need for release in my body.
To feel my body, oh to feel my body and not escape it but to thrive in it.
To be in wonderment of this creative masterpiece God has made.
To not be ashamed but to trust in the version I am.
I want the wild breath to consume me. To show me all the hollow places, the places where I’ve hidden all the dirty linens, pointy daggers, and corrupted thoughts that live in the nether regions of my mind screaming falsities.
I want to approach my wild breath not with trepidation but with curious innocence. To be shown those dark stairs that lead down to the basement of my subconscious that are filled with old dank boxes, discarded dreams, yesterday’s grief, and sorrowful childhood tales.
Where the wild breath lives is where my life begins. It’s the crossroads of where truth and denying intersect. It’s being brave enough to take the path less traveled and walk down the street of truth. To leave denying behind and explore another avenue awaiting me.
Where the wild breath lives is where I can meet the God in me. To be bold and accepting of me without a container or boundary but to allow the vast boundaryless void of the eternal to rise and greet me.
To soften and relax from the walls I’ve built up with mounted guns and artillery ready to fire at first sight of an unsafe approach.
Where the wild breath lives is my in – the gateway, portal into a dimensional world to explore the unexplored landscape of me.
To experience the rich seasons of my life, the winters where I’ve died, autumns where I’ve shed, summers where I’ve frolicked with lovers, springs where I’ve bloomed with my dreams.
The wild breath is my reminder to not die, give up, or forget me. But to enter softly into the garden of wildflowers –my life. To sniff the delicate lavender and juniper bushes and all manner of wild things that belong to the meadow that holds variety and not sameness.
Where the wild breath lives is my call home to myself. To discard the old and allow the new. To remember impermanence and walk with it as a friend. To welcome pleasure and know I deserve to be delighted by life, love, by my lover’s skin next to mine. To be kissed and to relinquish any rigidity and receive the sweetness of life.
I am this wild breath weaving in and out in this wild life. One inspiration, one exhalation at a time.
Where my wild breath lives reminds me to take courage and refuge in my wildness. To be untamed and discard the need for validation. To maroon myself on the island of authenticity–to be raw, messy, and unique. To allow the dis-ease of perfection to lay stranded without a boat to row itself on the vast seas of life.
To set sail for the land of humanity–where my soul took form to love, grieve, laugh, and cry.
My wild breath calls me home to feel, heal, to acknowledge, and not abandon any aspects of me. It is a call to return to the shores of my life and weep with joy.
To release what I’ve held and build a new home of playful inquiry and acceptance.
Where the wild breath lives reminds me of the unlimited consciousness that I am. That I am indeed the wild, wild universe that is ever expanding, exploding, shifting, creating. That I am a wondrous act of creative play in motion.
Where the wild breath lives is where I am.
