This Holy Breath
The first two stanzas of the lyrics of this song are from a Hasidic prayer. It is one that Andrew Harvey includes in his precious book, Light the Flame: 365 Days of Prayer — a book that was incredibly important to me during the time of the pandemic. A book I purchased after deciding to participate in Harvey’s “40 Days & 40 Nights: A Prayer Journey for the Soul” sadhana that took place February to Easter of 2021.
During those 40 days, each of us in the community received a twice-daily email from Andrew Harvey, with a morning prayer and an evening prayer. For me, it was like receiving a precious gift, a ray of sunshine during otherwise dark times.
I’m not even sure if this prayer was included in the 80 received during that sadhana period, but it’s on p. 52 of the book. The moment I first read it, a seed was planted.
My rational left-brain has no idea why, but I immediately resonated with this particular prayer. Don’t know much at all about Hasidism; what I do know is that these words struck a chord within me. From that first day I read it to this very day (and probably forevermore?) I have a habit of saying this prayer in my daily meditations.
Fast-forward to Stage 2 (“Daring to Suck”) of my Songwriter’s Journey with The Brothers Koren, and the assigned 10-day challenge to sit down once a day, take three deep breaths, and on the third exhale, press “Record” on the phone and allow whatever sounds to come out – for one to two minutes – no matter how “awful” the voice or the melody seemed to be. To quote the Brothers:
The fine art of Daring to Suck has, for the most part, been lost on modern civilization. We are bombarded by the message that we should look good, feel great, and never let on that we might not have appeared straight out of the womb, ready for the show…. It is easy to be swept up in the pressure to always be presentation ready. The good stuff comes only when we dare to suck… and learn by doing.
Guilty-as-charged: I am definitely one who’s been slave to the constant pressure to “always be presentation ready.” Stage 2 was probably the hardest of the 10 Stages of the Songwriter’s Journey for me. It took every ounce of my will-power to record those two-minute Voice Notes. But if there’s one thing this recovering perfectionist does have, it’s discipline. So I just did it. And after several days in a row, at one point, the words of this Hasidic prayer came out of me in the form of song—albeit, a rough, very basic one. Germination of that seed thus began.
The Brothers heard something in it, and I am eternally grateful for them discerning what I could not. We began cultivating the little seedling.
At one point later – maybe Stage 5 (“Dancing with the Downloader”) or Stage 6 (“Unifying Critic and Muse”) – they asked me, “Given your [already established] yogic chant practice, do you think you might want to create a mantra as one of your songs?” It’s history from there.
The second half of “This Holy Breath” draws from my yogic practice of pranayama. I include phrases used by BKS Iyengar in his writings regarding the breath, specifically in his deeply poetic and inspiring reflections on pranayama in his book, Light on Life.
My own pranayama practice is ever developing (as of course, it’s a lifelong endeavor), and I hold Mr. Iyengar’s words as ever-present inspiration. The ability to regulate and refine the breath only further serves the continuing development of my singing voice. Ultimately – and thanks to the teachings of Prashant Iyengar – I’ve come to understand and experience that more than anything else, it’s about letting myself “be breathed.”
This song is my prayer for all of us – all sentient beings on this Earth at this epic time in human history. May we join our holy breath and sing in beautiful harmony together.
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