The Breath Beneath It All

Meditation Experiment #6: Earth-Based Breath Meditation

Apr 15, 2025

This week, I’m sharing the full written reflection for all readers. Paid subscribers will receive access to the guided meditation video at the end of the post, along with a companion Yin Yoga practice on Thursday.

Last week, on a rare morning when the skies weren’t pouring rain, I caught the sunrise on Cape Cod.

The “ginger orb”—as I wrote in my journal—was a fat, glowing swell of orange pulling itself up from the horizon like a drunk reappointing themselves at the bar.

It stopped me.

Stopped the chatter—the twitchy primate in my skull.

For a few moments, I wasn’t someone with a name or a plan or an inbox. I was just here. With the breath. With the light. With the turning Earth.

And somewhere in the hush, I heard Buckminster Fuller say in my mind: “Behold the blatant reminder of the spacecraft we’re on.”

Cue Star Trek music.

Maybe you’ve had a moment like that. Where the vastness silences you. Where breath and body reorient, if only for a beat.

These moments don’t explain anything. But they remind us of everything.

They remind us that even in times of chaos—when markets combust, when lovers fall apart, when nations fall into disarray—there’s still something holding us.

A light that rises again.

An Earth that keeps turning beneath us.

A Childhood Crisis of Cosmic Proportions

I was seven or eight when my mom took me to the Museum of Science in Boston. That’s when I first learned—via a man named “Keith” in a polyester vest—that the Sun would one day burn out.

A casual fact. A galactic timeline. Seven or eight billion years out.

But I remember feeling troubled. Agitated. Derailed.

I hadn’t yet grasped that my parents would die someday. I hadn’t imagined my own end. And suddenly I was confronted with the idea that the Sun had one too.

Even now, that unease hums in my bones.

I Googled recently and found out the Sun is about 4.6 billion years old. Which means our star is smack in the middle of its life—a midlife Sun.

Is it any wonder that humanity, a microcosmic speck, finds itself in its own kind of midlife crisis—grasping for permanence in pleasure, performance, and the denial of endings?

The Shift from Cosmic to Intimate

Sometimes we need a story that’s cosmic to remind us what matters here. But sometimes we need a story that’s sharp. Immediate. A story that wakes the body.

Which brings me to this:

There’s a well-worn Zen story about a student who asks a master for training.

The master ignores him. Days pass. Still the student waits.

Finally, the master leads him to the ocean. And without warning, drags him into the surf and holds him under.

The student thrashes, panics.

And only when he’s nearly out of air does the master let him go.

The student gasps for breath.

And the master says: “When you want enlightenment as much as you wanted that breath, come back.”

What If We Breathed Like It Mattered?

That story has always felt true to me—not because I want to romanticize drowning, but because it captures something essential: Sometimes, the sacredness of life only reveals itself when we’re brought to the edge.

The edge of comfort.
The edge of certainty.
The edge of breath.

Which is why I keep returning to this question:

What happens when we remember that every breath comes from Earth?

That every inhale is a borrowing. Every exhale, a return.

That the air we breathe today was breathed yesterday by whales, by trees, by ancestors. And that nothing we do—no plan, no pose—happens outside this sacred exchange.

A Quiet Invitation 🫱

You’re probably here because stillness speaks to something in you. Because you’ve felt the intelligence of breath in your bones. Or maybe because you’re still wondering what it means to feel whole again.

Either way, this space unfolds each week through rhythm—writing, meditation, and Yin Yoga practice.

If it helps you come home to yourself, I’d be honored to have you along.

👉 [Subscribe freely or with support]

This Week’s Practice: Earth-Based Breath Meditation 🌍

For paid subscribers, this week’s Meditation Experiment #6 explores the stabilizing, nourishing quality of the Earth Element.

You’ll be guided to:

Contemplate your place in the order of things
Feel the Earth of your embodied field
Sense the awareness that is awake to that field
Rest into the union of body and awareness, joined by the breath

When life feels fast or fractured, Earth brings us back to center. Let this be a small ritual of returning to what holds you.

👉 [Listen to Meditation Experiment #6 – for paid subscribers]

More to come soon. For now, may you rest into what holds you. And may that holding remind you that you're part of the whole thing.

From my practice to yours,
Josh