More than 2000 years ago, the great Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu said: “The True Man breathes with his heels; the mass of men breathe with their throats.”

Walking brings breath to and through our soles, toes, arch, and heels; it brings us down to the ground.

Yesterday at Tennessee Valley beach, I was entranced with stone, with what surrounds, holds, guides.  

At one point I walked on chert, and felt the ridges as though I was walking on the tail of a dragon.  No wonder we love fairytales and I think now of the book by Kenneth Grahame, The Reluctant Dragon, about a dragon who preferred writing poetry to fighting.  

Ilse Middendorf said: “Perceiving our breath as it comes and goes we discover an opening into our unconscious life, and bring about a conscious expansion into the whole of ourselves.”    The whole of ourselves, and I feel the breath move in a wave, connected like a Mobius Strip.