The first time I went scuba diving the most profound feeling was letting my neutral buoyancy slowly carry me underwater. Not having to struggle to submerge myself, but instead allowing myself to slip slowly under. Watching the water cross the line of my mask. From below the light arks downwards in shifting rays, warped and fractured by the rippling surface.
I feel I'm watching my emotions from the same distance today, floating in neutral buoyancy.
I was fascinated to learn that underwater, your breath changes this buoyancy. You can add enough weight to offset your displacement. And then enough air in your buoyancy compensator device (BCD) depending on your depth. But when you breath, you displace more water, and you rise. When you exhale, you fall.
When I got my dive certification, my instructor and I sat on the bottom, and then inhaled, allowing ourselves to slowly levitate. Balancing the inhale and exhale to stay suspended, like Luke Skywalker amidst the misty trees of the Dagobah system.
Today I am suspended beneath the water of my thoughts. Letting myself rise slowly on each inhale, settling back on the exhale. I see my life above the surface, all the practices to return to, the people to see, the places to go, the things to do.
But today I allow myself to practice suspension, reveling in the quiet of the breath held before the rise back to surface.