Happy Birthday, One Slow Breath At A Time

Every year, I write myself a letter on my birthday. I sit with myself and I listen deeply to what needs attention.  I get out of the way and hear the voice of inner knowing…Here's 2026.

Happy Birthday One Slow Breath At A Time

6:59

Today you turn forty-six. The second number of your age always corresponds with the year. You’ve always loved that — a small order inside the mystery.

The first independent act humans do, outside the mother’s body, is to breathe.  And at the end of life, breath is the last visible movement — a final exhale into stillness.

The first independent act humans do, outside the mother’s body, is to breathe. And at the end of life, breath is the last visible movement — a final exhale into stillness.

So what happens between that first inhale and that final exhale? What is “the point” of it all?

The point is to be Here.

To enjoy the miracle of being.

You have lived this life… One slow breath at a time.

One… slow... breath at a time.

…Okay there have been some fast breaths in between, but you really are slowing it down. Good work…

The goal is to be here.

To be here.

To be here.

Here is where all the joy is…

But what is here? What about all the events and happenings in the midst of those breaths? When someone asks, "How are you?" Do you just say, "I’m here. I’m breathing…" Well, you could. More often the response from the “ego mind,” or the story of “my life” is to list what’s going well, or more often than not, to list what’s not going well.

There will always be something good.

There will always be something bad.

There will always be something unresolved.

These objects, these thought-objects, these “somethings” seem to block the experience of joyful hereness. They gather attention. They insist on themselves.

But if the goal of life is the joy of nowness, you must accept the “somethings” and land into the field of presence.

Here.

Now.

There is joy.

Despite whatever “somethings” are also arising…

This year, I wish you less of you, less of the story of “my life,” and more of Oneness.

With all that’s happening “out there,” you can still get pulled back into the somethings… into feeling serious about this whole life thing... into thinking there is a problem that needs to be fixed… Watch that. See it so it can be released.

Seriousness is often attachment dressed up as responsibility, and when there is attachment, there is suffering. It really is that simple.

An attachment is a belief about some way life is supposed to be — for you, for your family, for the world out there — which is not what it is.

An attachment is a belief that something should be different than it is. It is an argument with reality. Aha! That’s suffering.

Notice where seriousness arises.

Even in thoughts about the weather. Oh, the weather!! What a teacher of our complete inability to control anything.

"Oh, it’s going to be a bad fire year.”

“There is a drought.”

“It’s not supposed to be this way.”

Here in Colorado, it has barely snowed on the Front Range all winter long. The mind wants to attach to the thought: It’s going to be bad. It’s not supposed to be this way.

But how do you know?

Everything that our minds make up about the future is illusion. You simply do not know. Your thinking mind wants to know, to know in order to control, because then “I can do what's right, take care of things etc…”

But what a boring life you’d live without mystery, without novelty, wonder, curiosity!!

–What if a dry winter helps people finally turn toward rainwater harvesting, permaculture, and community gardens?

– What if a hot summer leads to people flinging open their windows, sleeping under the stars, dancing under the moon with a neighbor they never knew before?

You don’t know if that’s supposed to happen either, but it is just as available a perspective as fear.

Fear and anxiety are companions of the mind because they get your attention so quickly. They keep you attached, bonded to the thoughts that whisper, “Don’t let go, or else you might… it might… they might…”

But mystery and wonder are alive in every moment if you turn toward that “might” with open-hearted curiosity rather than dread.

From dread of the unknown to curiosity… what a shift!? When we shift our perspective, away from our habitual reactions we’re creating new neural pathways… New ways we've never gone before in our magnificent, ancient, and yet quite new human bodies.

(Seriously you are only in this meat suit for nine-ish decades, if you live a long life.)

This human life— it is a blip in the timeline of planet Earth. A breath. An exhale. An inhale. The beginning of a sigh.

And in those breaths, use every second to come to peace and presence.

Because it is this joyful hereness that is changing the course of human history, the evolution of human consciousness, one slow breath at a time.

Happy Birthday.

Read or listen to the letter I wrote to myself last year.