Silence and Breath in NYC
It can be a little more difficult to catch your breath in New York City than in other places, and it’s not necessarily because of the air. For me, it’s difficult to find a place that is not buzzing with excitement, some little nook where adventure or glamour or simply the mad flow of life doesn’t enter. These quiet places are never very quiet for very long. The other option, of course, is to purchase one, or to buy time in one where the owners have already purchased some quiet. There are some excellent hotels where these things are possible, and sometimes even likely.
Churches and synagogues are also great places to go to get a moment to yourself, but there aren’t a lot of buildings open at the hours you might need a little time to reflect. Yoga studios in New York are a relatively inexpensive way to grab an hour of calm, and it’s not a bad way to get back to that place where things seem to be in equilibrium. Doing yoga helps to teach you that you’re already in equilibrium, and so if everything else that’s here. It’s one of my favorite ways to stop the noise in my head, so I can listen to the beat of my own heart.
There are also masseuses, and other ways of buying your way into silence, but yoga and meditation taught me my very favorite place. It sounds corny, perhaps, but it’s called the Here and Now. When I can get calm, there are places inside the mind and body that open up. I’ve learned that I can always get calm, if there is the possibility of taking a single slow breath. This is free, and it reminds me that I am also free. I can walk through the crowded streets in the busiest part of the day, and taking the breath can make my concentration rise to where I can send out my focus, and it returns to me with a very precise sense of being, that feeling of being the breath that was caught.