Davina Cohen

In the practice of pranayama each cycle of breath has three components: the inhalation, the exhalation, and the moment of suspension (“kumbhak”) between these two things we more readily identify as the actions of breathing.  “Prana” means energy, life force, vitality and “Ayama” control and extension, prolongation, deliberate sustaining.  “Kumbhak” means “pot” (no, not that kind – though smoking is most definitely a form of pranayama, but more on that later), specifically a pot that is simultaneously empty and full of potential.  There’s this incredible moment in between, akin to what theater director Eugenio Barba termed the “satz” (the moment of suspension before the main action), where anything is possible.  What a savory challenge it can be to remain in that space and what a sweet reward it is when we truly permit ourselves to do so.

Try something: exhale all your air and then let your lungs fill anew.  With that fullness you have some options.  You can hold on to your breath for dear life, straining to stay as buoyant as you were when the breath first entered your body. You can actively expel the air, forcing it out.  You can pause and do nothing, allowing the breath to remain there and release from your lungs when your body tells you its time to let go and permit the air to pass through you.  Experiment with these options and the many possibilities they encompass.  Notice how you feel, physically and emotionally, with each one.

It’s fun and useful to experiment with the kumbhak in your practice; but let’s look at the moments of pause – the moments in between things – in life in general.  If you’ve just had a particularly ecstatic experience – something new and joyous – that has come to an end, it can be tempting to cram as much of that as possible into your pot, slam the lid on it, and let it simmer, hoping that maybe it’ll bubble over for a long time to come. Similarly, during or after particularly trying experiences, sometimes it’s all you can do to refrain from dipping in there with the biggest ladle you can find and scooping all the stress of the experience out of the stew.  But very often when we try either of these tactics, what we find is that the contents fester – the empty pot becomes so full that it can’t contain everything we’ve tried to throw in there or even though we’ve hoped to empty the pot entirely, we’ve still got the sticky residue from whatever was mixed in there before.  The way to really revel in the kumbhak – to feel that fullness and emptiness at the same time – is to do nothing except pay attention.

Pranayama teacher Douglas Keller writes in Refining The Breath, “The clear, steady quality of the Ujjayi breath is described in the yoga tradition as being like a steady, unbroken flow of light clear oil or ghee (clarified butter), so steady that although in motion, it seems motionless.” As ever in yoga, the breath uncovers the dust on that magical union of opposites.  We don’t have to create the union of stillness and motion, we are invited to notice that the two are already there, coexisting at all times.

Speaking of clarified butter, spring is an especially good time to feast on raw dairy from grassfed, pastured animals.  If you’re in NYC, check out the Traditional Nutrition Guild, an excellent source for raw dairy and local, grassfed, pastured animals.  If you’re in San Francisco (where I have the great fortune to be this month), Rainbow Grocery is a good source for raw dairy (though they do not sell any meat).