By Amanda Cleary Eastep
“Breath is the percussion of language…”
The tall, willowy yoga instructor said this to the class in a lilt that hinted at her formal actor’s training and enviable diaphragmatic control.
At my age, with quadriceps straining to sustain my squatted “goddess” pose, I was just happy to control my bladder.
The morning class was the first of a wide variety of sessions offered at a writers conference. I had been preparing for months to be part of a panel discussion scheduled for the last day of the conference, so an exercise in controlled breathing seemed like a good start.
However, I had never been to a yoga class that melded hamstring stretches and writing exercises.
What does sweating to the New Age oldies have to do with writing? Well, certainly the activity could encourage relaxation, endurance, and letting go of inhibitions that might hinder creative flow (I think there are special undergarments for that).
One unyoga-like exercise in particular had us skipping around the room chanting “I am, therefore, I skip,” or something like that, which pretty much solved the inhibition problem. A few people refused to participate and loitered on the sidelines, snickering at us as we pranced by.
I so wanted to poke them in their third eye.
“We’ll see who ends up writing the great American novel!” I yelled.
I, mean, I would have if I hadn’t been gasping for air.
During the next exercise, we lay on our mats and were instructed to rest our minds and allow a group of words to enter unhindered. The words didn’t have to make sense. (So basically every first draft EVER.)
Besides bagel and cream cheese, all that came to me was the word “present.” Oh, great, a heteronym. I imagined it in its verb form, as in, you are serving on a panel in a few days and have to preSENT something of value to an audience of writers with high expectations and dreams of publication. Deep breath.
“Now say the phrase without the consonants,” the instructor guided.
A whole phrase? I only had one word. I hadn’t even had free conference coffee yet, let alone mustered the mental capacity to figure out how to pronounce even a single word with only vowels.
“I’ll give you your consonants back later,” she assured us.
Thank goodness. It’s not too easy navigating a writer’s conference short an R, N, L, S, and T.1
Hm, preSENT. No consonants, only vowels. That would sound like “eh – eh.” Got it.
Now we were supposed to walk around the room talking only in vowels to each other. The instructor approached me, stared at me like I had just stepped off a flying saucer, then proceeded to babble in vowels with an intensity that could have won her an Oscar for best supporting yoga instructor in a foreign science fiction film.
I shrugged apologetically. “Eh…eh?”
It sounds way better with consonants, I wanted to explain.
I’m often trying to explain–mostly to myself–where my words have gone–why I don’t write as much as I used to or why, when I do, my confidence shrivels like a yogi fasting beneath a Rajasthani sun.
At the time, I wasn’t sure what the point of this “yoga” exercise was, except, again, to encourage us as creative people to “let go.” Gratefully, we soon returned to our mats…all these poor introvert writers without their beloved consonants. We fell to our knees, curling over into our safe little child poses, and took a collective deep breath.
Breath is the percussion of language.
I thought about this as I pressed my face to the spongy mat (thankful I had brought my own), and my breathing returned to normal. R, S, T, L, N and an E. (Yep, still got ‘em.)
Curled up on the floor among other writers with the same dreams and aspirations and pulled hamstrings, I thought about this verse from Job 27:3:
“The spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
(OK, fine–first I thought of “…he would not let me catch my breath but would overwhelm me with misery…”)
If the breathing in and out of human beings provides the rhythm—the heartbeat—for our language, then imagine what God can breathe into our words…the consonants and the vowels, the spoken and the written.
Knowing that the instructor had a theater background, I figured the consonant exercise had something to do with her acting training. I later discovered that the “‘free and open’” vowels are associated with emotion, while consonants are thought to be connected to the intellect.2
This assertion may, in fact, have been proven by a bunch of sweaty writers in tights jumping around and trying to communicate with each other in chimpanzee.
By “taking away our consonants,” perhaps the instructor was helping us connect more singularly with our emotions… (I was definitely feeling stupid) …maybe she meant to help us turn off, if just for a moment, our overly busy and critical brains.
In the practice of yoga, there’s a phrase that’s often used: showing up to the mat. Your poses don’t have to be perfect. Comparison with those around you is discouraged. And each movement flows in tandem with your breathing.
The important thing is that you are PREsent.
As writers, we must show up to the blank page (but not in tights) with all our emotions and intellect, ideas and doubts. What we can’t do is stand on the sidelines, afraid of what others may think.
Instead, let’s join in the deep inhale and wild exhale of the Holy Spirit, in whom we “live and breathe and have our being.”3
Photo by Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash
Haha! I love this! I’m glad my yoga classes are not quite that freeing!
I’m glad you liked it, Sue. It doesn’t hurt to be stretched—literally—a little though, right?
This was great! I laughed out loud (literally) and you’ve inspired me to go do some yoga in my basement!
Laughing out loud is the best deep breath. And yay for inspiration!
I’m glad you got your consonants back.
I love the way this post emphasizes the mind-body connection. I think we can lose that in all our pondering and keyboarding.
Yes, we can. Just after I posted this, I found out about a book called Writing Begins with the Breath, Embodying Your Authentic Voice by Laraine Herring. I’m excited to check it out. Have you read it?
Loved this! Imagining poking someone in the third eye– too funny! I’m glad I yoga from the safety/comfort of my own home!
I’m not normally a violent person, but I guess yoga brings out the best in me. 🙂 Thanks for reading and commenting, Neta!
Thanks Amanda. As a fellow lover of words spoken and written, I appreciate that the word that came to you in its verb form(preSENT) transformed into the state of being form (PREsent). For so many years I have been disassociated from my body. Your post was a good nudge for me to get back to Yoga or similar practice that frees me up from my overactive mind that has a hard time letting go of many thoughts. Exercising the body brings clarity to my mind.
Exercise does help clear the mind, yes. I find the practice of hiking in the woods especially encourages that clarity. If the class did anything, it caused me to think about the breath of the Spirit in our work, but how beautiful that it was also breathed right into our bodies. Best to you as you, Catherine.
I want to attend this writer’s conference! Such a gush of creativity. I love it! There’s definitely truth in the exercise-inspiration connection. Some of my best ideas have come when I’m out walking.
I love to hike. Oddly enough, I have a lot of poetry come to me but rarely write it otherwise. Hiking does tend to clear my mind, which can also help with creativity! Thanks for reading and commenting, Peggi!