A prompt, a word, it’s a curious thing where they might lead when you pay attention. I’m participating in 31 Days of SoulStrolling and today’s prompt is – inhale.  My mind went on a meandering journey when I first read the prompt. My first association to the word was about the use of drugs. “Oh, I tried it, but I didn’t inhale.”

This made me chuckle and sent me into the pathways and neurons of my brain. Why was this my first reaction? What about this word? How might ‘inhale’ and I journey together into the day?

In the midst of these mental gymnastics it was time to take my senior canine for her morning stroll. We headed up our steep driveway, slowly puttering our way along the street. I looked about, opening my eyes and heart to where this prompt may lead. On our descent down the driveway, Saintes Maries de la Mer whispered my name (she’s my fancy flamingo, a gift from my friend Kayce Hughlett).

‘Inhale’ she said to me, with a French accent,  winking her black eyes and fluttering her feathers. ‘Breathe in deeply and remember. Remember your time in our home not so far from the sea.’ You see, in October, 2015 Kayce and I strolled the sands on the beach in the town of Saintes Maries de la Mer and visited the abundant flocks of flamingoes at Parc Ornithol0gique, in the south of France.

I paused, listened to my friendly flamingo, inhaled deeply and remembered: hundreds of flamingoes, pink feathers, bright red underwings, dancing about as if choreographed to an unheard symphony all the while calling (at least to my ears) ‘ça va, ça va’ (it’s okay) over and over. Inhale. Remember. Breathe deeply.

The word resurfaced again later at yoga. Somehow in the flow from meditation to child’s pose, from downward dog to warrior one, inhale flowed into inhabit. In the midst of following my breath and being present to the poses, inhale and inhabit pulsed in, through and about my mind. I practice yoga to inhale and inhabit my body more fully – was my train of thought after class. Aha! 

A prompt, a word, it’s a curious thing where they might lead when you pay attention.

Kayce Hughlett and I invite you to join us as we practice 31 Days of SoulStrolling