Skin Breathing (ritual, experience, pagan)

[Mike182]

ok, at Pagan Society today, we did a pathwalking exercise... and like normal, i didn't tod very well because i suck at visualising things. however, during todays exercise my mind slipped into a fairly deep state of altered consciousness (trance) where i felt my entire body pulsing, and as various things were mentioned during the pathwalking exercise, i felt different pulsing sensations of different intensitites which corresponded to the action or visualisation of the exercies - for example, one of the things was picking up a glass of water and drinking it, i felt a solid pulse on my hands, and then a rushing pulsing down my throat.

as a group, we discussed our feelings, sights and experiences after the exercise - i started talking about my experience, and the guy who was orchastrating the exercise started asking me about invocations, meditations, astral projections, and other trance based workings. i've always had problems with these, so i had a go at explaining how my mind sees pictures of things i have seen in real life, it doesn't create images from scratch, and how i do indeed suck at trances.

i've never really sat down and asked anyone why i can't seem to do these things before, but talking to this guy, he things i am a kinesthetic, i learn through my body, and he will arrange a time with me to teach me skin breathing techniques.

i've never heard of this before, anyone have any experience with this?

[Gentoo]

Maybe you're part amphibian

I haven't heard of it, maybe it's just a term that doesn't mean what it sounds like. Or, if I had to guess, I would say that it's an advancement on breathing techniques. As beginners we are taught to focus on breathing through our mouths but perhaps there's a step beyond that, perhaps it is through the skin. Interesting though, I'd like to hear more about it.

[Mike182]

Originally Posted by Gentoo

Maybe you're part amphibian

I haven't heard of it, maybe it's just a term that doesn't mean what it sounds like. Or, if I had to guess, I would say that it's an advancement on breathing techniques. As beginners we are taught to focus on breathing through our mouths but perhaps there's a step beyond that, perhaps it is through the skin. Interesting though, I'd like to hear more about it.

well, i'll definatley post what i learn when he starts this session with me

he used the term as a reference to alternative ways to induce a transe state... the term moon breathing is one not widely used term for drawing down the essence of the moon in spell work/ritual, maybe skin breathing could be some art of drawing in energies for trances through control of body pulses via the chakras?

it sounds like a very weird concept, like i said, i've not come across it before, and a quick google search came up with nothing, and it's not a term used in any of my Pagan books.

[Shadow Wolf]

I'll admit, I am clueless as to what this is. Keep us updated when you find out more.

[ChrisP]

Originally Posted by Mike182

i've never really sat down and asked anyone why i can't seem to do these things before, but talking to this guy, he things i am a kinesthetic, i learn through my body, and he will arrange a time with me to teach me skin breathing techniques.

i've never heard of this before, anyone have any experience with this?

I'm very much the same Mike. Reading your posts, I would say that this is very true. Some of us learn by watching, some by listening others by doing. You're a doing kind of guy, and in my mind there's no substitute for practice.

Good luck with this, trial and error is the best way to learn imho. Look forward to hearing how it goes. A few tips would be nice.

[Feathers in Hair]

This is interesting! Learning through the skin- it sounds especially good for grounding!

[Mike182]

Hey all! i've been meaning to post this for about a week now - i've had a training session on Skin Breathing, and it works a lot better for me than visualisation techniques! this is a technique for those of us who, when trancing, experience body pulses as opposed to visions or sounds and smells.

basically, sit still, and focus on your breathing. spend a few minutes just breathing, it doesn't matter what thoughts come into your mind (if any ) as concentration isn't a massive part at this stage.

once you are focused on your breathing, take some deep breathes.

after a couple of deep breathes, concentrate on the very tips of your fingers, and *feel* the air you are breathing being drawn in through the tips of your fingers. feel them tingle and pulse, and as you breathe, feel the tingling and pulsing slowly surge up through your fingers and into the whole of your hand. then, in rythem with your breathing, feel the pulsing rise into your arms, and then into your shoulders, and then down into your lungs, your tummy, your hips, your legs, and then your feat. it will take practise to get this propperly, i've still not gotten the hang of it because i've not been practising enough - i need to create a propper routine for this practise.

once you can feel your body pulsing, take your right hand, and tap the left side of your chest (you can do it the other way round, it really doesn't matter) as you tap, feel the ripples of energy spread out from your fingers - like a stone hitting a still water surface, feel the ripples of you tapping spread through your body. take time to really feel this, and take time to really remember this, as it comes in handy later on.

that's pretty much it. you may have noticed that i didn't instruct you to also pull the pulsing upwards towards your third eye - you can do this, it will work for invokations etc. but i'm not going to instruct anyone to do that because 1) i've not done it yet, and i advice people to w eary and talk to someone who is experienced before they start doing this - some will say it's in no way dangerous, and that's fine, i'm just advising caution.

by taking the time to feel and remember the tapping, you are teaching your body to remember the feeling and trance experience through that set of actions - it means that when you are more experiences, that set of movements will trigger trance state a lot quicker than starting from scratch each time.

[Shadow Wolf]

Thank you for filling us in on this. I'm going to have to try that sometime.