Ten breathing patterns and six routines (before ritual, the Middle Pillar, sleep and more) with spoken cues, a breath-following soundscape and a record of how each session leaves you feeling — plus a breath check: count your breaths a minute by tapping, time a comfortable hold, watch both change over the weeks, and set the timer to a pace just slower than your own. Each pattern is drawn as the shape of one breath, all to the same scale of seconds, with breaths a minute and a light riding the chosen one. Follow a pattern by hand — hold while you breathe in, let go to breathe out — and see how closely you kept to it; shape your own pattern by dragging its wave; and watch which nostril is open in the alternate-nostril breath.
One cycle of each pattern, the lungs filling as the line rises and emptying as it falls, all drawn to the same scale of seconds. Tap one to choose it.
Gold: before ritual and meditation · blue: to calm · orange: to energise. A resting adult breathes about twelve to twenty times a minute; most of these slow that down.
Fourfold breath
In, hold, out, hold, with equal counts: the “square” breath.
The Golden Dawn's standard preparation. It steadies the mind before any ritual, meditation or divination.
Breathe through the nose where comfortable. Never strain; if you feel dizzy, return to normal breathing. Tones: higher to breathe in, lower to breathe out, soft to hold. Press Space to start or pause.
Breath check
Two simple self-checks. Do them now and again in a few weeks of practice to see what changes.
Sit quietly and breathe the way you normally do — do not try to change it. When the first breath ends, tap the button; then tap at the end of every out-breath for a minute.
HOW OTHER TRADITIONS TEACH THE BREATH
Haṭha yoga: prāṇāyāma
the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā of Svātmārāma, 15th century
Breath controlled, and held, to steady the mind.
Kumbhaka, the holding of the breath, is its centre. The text moves from a held breath made with effort (sahita) to one that comes of itself (kevala).
The nāḍīs, the channels, are first purified: the text stresses this in its second chapter.
Alternate-nostril breathing is its best-known purifying practice.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Hatha Yoga Pradipika”; H. Y. P., trans. Muktibodhananda
PRACTISE WITH IT
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A few things to do with this tool, from a first try to a habit. Each one you tick counts as practice for the day, towards your streak and milestones.
Kept in this browser. Notes you send to the journal are kept there as well.