This One Wild and Precious Life

Transcript

[0:01] Let's practice.

[0:19] Taking our seats, arranging our body, our hips, legs, lower back. Flexing our spine, our neck, tucking the chin a little bit, allowing the breath to flow easily. Accommodating and coming close to our body.

[1:38] Coming closer. To our breath. The experience of this body breathing.

[2:17] Feeling. Feeling the preciousness of this life.

[2:49] Appreciating this very breath. You're welcome.

[3:28] Take this just one breath. Away. This very breath we're breathing now. And that's a cause for deep, deep appreciation. For the preciousness of this human birth. The life we're living. And this very moment, this very breath we're breathing. We get to have this breath.

[4:59] We get to feel the sun. We get to listen to the birds. And drink water. And there doesn't have to be too much more. Life itself is a very full experience. One breath.

[6:30] Breathing out. Coming very close to this breathing experience. And mixing with space. Unfurling, unfolding into space. Appreciating. Authentic. gement.

[9:08] One of these breaths will be our last in this particular form.

[9:43] Of each and every moment.

[10:40] So taking this time. That we have. To fully be with the breath. Slowing down so we can fully, deeply appreciate. The joy. The sadness. The magic. Of this experience. The highlights. Of the sunlight. Of the water. Of the air. Moving within us.

[16:59] The words of one of my favorite poets, Who Made the World? Who Made the Swan and the Black Bear? Who Made the Grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who's moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down, who's gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention. How to fall down into the grass. How to kneel down in the grass. How to be idle and blessed. How to stroll through the fields. Which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?