River of Breath
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Imagine
A Life of Well-Being Becoming A Reality
If I let imagining stay in my head
it’s wispy
very wispy
not substantial
doesn’t have ground.
To give my imagining
ground—
I sense my breath
moving within me
and through my body
as my immediate reality.
I live in my body
letting breath be my guide.
That’s where my creative living
comes from.
It’s where my head meets the earth—
it bows down to receive what comes up
from the unconscious
into my body
into me.
That’s how imagining my life
with vitality, ease, and well-being
becomes a reality
in times of pain, joy, sadness, and great challenges
any time.
And that’s how my state of grace happens.
Preface: A Path Opens Up
… I now feel blessed that my pain brought me into a closer relationship to my Self, to my truth, and to an experience of greater self-trust, and that the vehicle for this personal transformation was as simple, and as close to me, as my very own breath.
My first breathexperience workshop took place over five days in 1988. It was led by the founder of the practice, Ilse Middendorf, from Berlin, Germany. She was seventy-eight years old; I was fifty-six.
Ilse was a small woman, light on her feet and lively. I was drawn first to her presence. She seemed to move from her inner being. A few months later I wondered if this could be breath movement, embodied.
… I had never heard an introduction like hers:
“We let the breath come,
we let the breath go,
and in the pause, we wait—
in a peaceful rest—
until the next breath
comes back
on its own.”
I was intrigued by the simplicity of these words and by the message.
…In that first workshop, I found something real and true in me that I wanted to follow … I knew that I was experiencing something new, yet ages old, something authentic, elegantly simple, and profound …
… This is my gift and my invitation to you to become aware of yourselves in your breath experience, as you read River of Breath and view Breath Art, exploring what your breath has to tell you. In this way, we meet invisibly—from body and being to body and being, with breath connecting each of us to ourselves and to one another …
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Book Details
About the Book
River of Breath— a healing path to vitality, ease, and well-being
by Margot Biestman
In this time of profound change and renewed hope, high demands are being placed on each of us. We are called upon to respond with devotion and courage. River of Breath offers a path from old to new ways of being, a path toward personal and cultural transformation. Read it—and be touched by a truth within yourself that can feed your body and soul. Many of us long for this experience.
“Authentic to the core…you don’t read this book—you experience it. I breathe more consciously through each exquisite life tale, poem, and artwork. It flows and guides my flowing. Totally unique.”
Nancy Herrick, Physician’s Assistant, Homeopath
“Margot Biestman is saying something very personal and distinct, yet universal at the same time. She creates a portal through which others can walk into an experiential realm. She manages to do this succinctly, in a few lines, in such a way that I am reminded of the very best poetry—where the poet is saying the deepest truth of what he or she knows.”
Ann Nix, M.A. CHT, Artist, Teacher
“When you do things from your soul you feel a river in you, a joy.”
Rumi
Synopsis
River of Breath brings to light how we can meet today’s challenges with greater flexibility and confidence, and with less stress and fear, through a unique practice called breathexperience. We can find benefit and truth in the simplicity of sensing how breath—flowing through our body without our control—can support vitality, ease, and well-being, whatever the circumstances.
Margot Biestman transports the reader beyond thinking and imagining to sensing the simple, ancient, yet immediate reality of breath movement in the body. Through sensing her own breath as she writes, she allows her words and drawings to emerge from her essence and flow onto the page. For the reader, just taking in these expressions of her truth is itself an invitation to join her in an intimate breathexperience.
Margot describes how, even in our culture with its fast pace and attitude to achieve at any cost, we do not have to be victims of pushing and pulling our bodies around, creating strain, anxiety, pain, and illness. Through the experience of breath, we recognize our choices to support the truth of who we are. Conditioned patterns fall away and though some occasionally return, they lose their impact. We have the capacity to make a difference in our lives and the lives of those around us.
Margot leads us on her personal journey in the experience of breath for three-and-a-half months. She includes emotions and thoughts as parts of the oneness that breath creates—body, mind, soul, and spirit. Even when she loses breath awareness, she learns from these experiences in practicing the art of being human.
A separate section contains detailed guidelines for specific breathexperience sequences, inviting the reader to practice allowing and sensing the natural breath moving in the body. Principles of breathexperience, benefits, application in daily life, a breath class, individual hands-on treatment, and a brief history complete the book.
About the Author
Margot Biestman lives with great enthusiasm, and is inspired by the practice of breathexperience in her personal and professional life. Having come to breathexperience some twenty years ago because of debilitating back pain, she has dedicated herself to learning, practicing, and teaching this healing art with devotion. Today, at age seventy-seven, she credits this practice for allowing her to live her life with vitality and passion, less ego, and more Self.
Margot is internationally recognized as a certified practitioner of Middendorf Breathexperience, senior teacher/trainer on the staff of the Middendorf Institute for Breathexperience, and Director of the Marin-Sonoma Center of the Institute. She has a private practice in Sausalito and Sonoma where she offers classes, workshops, and individual sessions.
She is the author of several books, including Travel for Two: The Art of Compromise and Spontaneous Language, and many articles.
In addition, she is a breath dancer, who was a soloist in the première performance of “Odem: Breath Moves Body, Soul, and Spirit,” presented at the University of California Berkeley Art Museum, in April 2007. She has been a presenter at a national conference of the U.S. Association for Body Psychotherapy and has participated in a research study on the effectiveness of breathexperience at the Osher Clinic for Integrative Medicine at University of California San Francisco for patients with chronic low-back pain. She has appeared in interviews on KRON and CBS TV national news programs, and local NBC and San Francisco Access TV stations.
Margot’s fifty-year career includes extensive experience in education with people from ages three to ninety-five.
She is also an artist in several media. She was formerly a metalsmith and jeweler, and is currently painting watercolors, drawings, and creating collages. Her work has been shown in the San Francisco Bay Area and the American Crafts Museum in New York. She has recently completed a book, Breath Art, with colored illustrations and descriptions of how breath guides her in creating art pieces.
Margot lives in Sausalito and Sonoma California, with her husband of fifty-six years, and has three children, two daughters-in-law, a son-in law, and four grown grandchildren. She loves to go on adventures near and far with them—individually and in small groups—as they explore how their lives are unfolding.
Margot’s commitment to following the path of breathexperience leads her toward being an artist as a human being, living life to the fullest. When she connects with herself with breath, she enjoys herself and her connection with others with authenticity and simplicity.
She says, “When I allow breath to move me, I am free to be who I am. This guides me in living my life with passion and a sense of well-being.
Contact Information
E-mail: margot@breathexperience.com
Website: www.breathexperiencemargot.com