Flight of the bumblebee
If we look closely enough, we can see the entire universe in a bumblebee. Image courtesy of qobuz.
We should resist the urge to take it personally when people get in our mix. It’s never personal, it’s always vibrational.
Defensiveness is spiritual quicksand. The more we fight for our viewpoints, the deeper we sink into negativity. Resisting the impulse to defend our viewpoints frees up loving Presence that energizes us with the power to rise up.
∞
My wife’s a yogini who taught me how to breathe.
One of the breaths we practice is called bumblebee breath. You do it by inhaling deeply through the nose and humming like a bumblebee on the exhale while covering your eyes with the pinkies and your earflaps with the thumbs.
When I do it, my non-pretend reality is that I look like I’m pretending to play virtual reality on a pretend headset.
I may look and sound silly, but the buzzing tunes out the noise, and sends subtle vibrations through my body that induce calm. Sometimes, I get funky with it and place my ring fingers over my third eye to activate the pineal gland and engage the higher mind.
Recently, my wife got funky with me about something unimportant. Her higher mind knew it wasn’t important, but she got in my mix about it anyway. It was early in the day, and sometimes her higher mind doesn’t fully engage until she’s had a cup of tea and her morning constitutional.
Some days, my higher mind doesn’t engage at all. But on this day, it partially engaged and busted out a bumblebee breath instead of engaging in a silly argument.
Three big buzzy breaths calmed me down, but it wasn’t enough for my wife, who came back to bumble for round two. I buzzed out again, this time a little louder, and she went back to her corner after talking more junk that I didn’t hear over the buzzing.
I usually clap back at least a little when my wife pipes up on me. I know I shouldn’t, but I do it anyway because I take things personally and get defensive. Covering my ears and eyes and buzzing like a little kid was an inelegant way to respond to adversity, but it was way better than whatever noises would have come out of my mouth.
Getting buzzed still annoyed my wife, especially because she was the one who taught me how to breathe. But it didn’t annoy her nearly as much as clapping back would have.
I know that’s right because she didn’t come back to bumble with the bee for round three, and instead asked me to rub her feet. I did, and in those moments, the patterns on the undersides of her toes reminded me of bumblebees. I saw the universe in them, and it was beautiful.
