I will take my device to the dinner table, the bathroom, everywhere

I'm calling about a job to lose weight and you want me to pay you two hundred dollars? Isn't having jurisdiction over your own time the point of being an adult, after all? We're going to make that call, just like the elementary-school principal used to do. Put down your car keys. Got any snacks in the cabinet? Box of pierogis in the freezer? Some back issues of Vanity Fair, and a backlog of Black Mirror episodes? Better put on some sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt, and hunker down--it's a snow day. MAKE AN ALTAR, OR A MEMENTO MORI A surprise-attack way to feel alive is to meditate on death. To make a memento mori (an object or altar that represents mortality), we collect a few things--a crystal skull, a dead butterfly, a peony in a glass bottle--to set up in our bedroom. Learn to read the signs and look for patterns. Be aware of biases. Sit on the other side of the argument. Seek to understand (not just analyse). Make meaning from the information you have gathered. We have always engaged with the skills of conversion: turning seeds into bread, coal into power and ideas into innovation. Many years ago, before the names Harry, Hermione and Ron were anything more than the kind of names you might hear being called on a rather unremarkable prep-school register in the UK, human beings were sharing secret rumours, carrying out clandestine experiments and searching ancient texts -- all in the pursuit of the Philosopher's Stone. Of course, the Philosopher's Stone was no less a work of fiction than the Harry Potter novel of the same name, but its effects on the real world have been felt for generations. Mentions of the Philosopher's Stone and alchemy go back hundreds and perhaps even thousands of years to ancient Greece, China, India and Egypt.

The imaginations of alchemists, proto-scientists and fortune hunters have long been captivated by tales of this red, powdery substance that was believed to transmute base metals into gold! Gently coming out of your breathwork practice by closing it has a similar effect and gives you an opportunity to shift into whatever is next with ease. I suggest keeping your closing direct and uncomplicated. A brief internal or vocal acknowledgement that your practice time has ended is sufficient. If you want to take the closing a step further, revisit your intention from the beginning of your practice and re-affirm it silently or aloud. You will find that some of the shorter practices in the next section don't lend themselves to long closings, and a few practices don't have any closing instructions. Experiment with closing the shorter practices in a way that feels good to you. Often a quick acknowledgement that the practice is over is plenty to move forward. From getting a better night's sleep, to reducing anxiety, to setting boundaries, the breathing practices in this section are the most effective tools I've created for establishing a sense of connection, relief, and deeper purpose in every aspect of life. The practices are presented in alphabetical order. Each one has a simple title followed by an in-depth explanation of its benefits, the specific breathwork instructions, and notes that shed light on the nuances of each practice. When I brought Kestrel to our place in Ashland County, she was alone. Turned out into the pasture, she ran the length of her eight-acre pasture, whinnying and working up a lathered sweat. She calmed down in time but spent several months visibly depressed. An acquaintance lent me Shio, a dark bay pony about twelve hands high, formerly a children's hunter who had been without a companion for over a year. Shio was a contraction of his show name, Shy Boy. Newly introduced horses engage in a ritual of sniffing each other's nostrils, stomping and squealing, turning their backs on each other, pinning their ears, and sometimes kicking. This behavior often precedes a period of running together in a field. To prevent horses from injuring themselves, people often stable new horses far from others, then gradually move them closer, and at last pasture them together. Since I was putting a mare and gelding together with no other horses, I let them go into the pasture after only one day of acquaintance.

They bonded immediately. Don't you think if I had two hundred dollars, I wouldn't be calling you asking for a job? How could they do this to people who needed to lose weight and wanted to work? Once you start taking the product and you lose weight, you'll be able to sell it to your friends and family, he hurriedly read from a script. Greaaa-at, I said, sarcastically drawing out the word. And your product, does it really work? Excited now, he rolled into his canned pitch. We've had thousands lose weight and are now making ten thousand dollars a month! What kind of scam was this? Then how about you give me your product, and when I lose the weight, I'll start selling it and pay you back the two hundred dollars? We don't do it that way. An altar is a concrete way to cut through daily chaos and remember, even if just subconsciously, that every moment counts. There are altars or versions of altars in so many sacred places--in meditation rooms and mosques and Jewish temples, and in churches and pagan houses and Chinese Buddhist temples. It's been a human practice over many centuries, regardless of place or belief system, to manifest ideas and dreams and offerings through tangible objects. As Jardine sits and writes, she is looking at her windowsill, a space that was never designated as an altar but that organically became one. Pressed against the window are two black-and-white portrait postcards, one of Maya Angelou and one of Cookie Mueller. There is also a jar of ylang-ylang cream given to her by a friend, a tiny seahorse, her Japanese glass pens, an air plant in a tarnished gold Las Vegas shot glass, a ceramic poodle from the 1950s, and a vase her partner made when he was a young glassblower. Unconsciously, she has collected reminders of impermanence to be arranged in her peripheral vision. Memento moris do not just come in the form of altars. Jardine inherited a latticelike bracelet, for example, made from the hair of an ancestor--a Victorian instrument for grieving.

A skull ring is a memento mori. In fact, this pursuit, whether driven by greed or the quest for knowledge, helped spark the scientific revolution that would ultimately relegate the story of alchemy and the Philosopher's Stone to the fairytale section of the articlestore and elevate science to the position of respect that it enjoys today (at least in some parts of the world). What was so captivating about the story of alchemy, aside from the promise of being able to produce gold on demand, was the concept of conversion: being able to take something from one sphere of life and transfer it to another and, in doing so, increase its value and enrich our lives. But conversion is far from a skill lost to the sands of time. In fact, this quest for transmutation, adaptation, re-framing, re-invention and re-interpretation is as relevant today as it has ever been. Our capacity to convert raw materials (and even thoughts) into commercial assets or social institutions still defines success today. And in a world where the human appetite for consumption has left our supply of natural resources somewhat stretched, those skilled at conversion will be forever needed. Rory Sutherland, in one of his infamous TED talks, inferred that `intangible value', our capacity to convert ideas and thoughts into commercially valuable assets, was the ultimate act of environmentalism. If the only conversion happens entirely between the ears of the creator and those of the people they serve, no resources need to be dug up, harvested or chopped down. Innovation and shifts in business models are many times the result of looking outside of an industry or category for inspiration. Recycling and up-cycling has always been with us and it's of increasing importance from an environmental and sustainability point of view. Breathwork can be practiced with eyes open or closed depending on your comfort level. Closing the eyes pulls our attention inward, removing external visual distractions. This can help quiet the mind, supporting a deeper level of attunement to the breath, body, and internal landscape. Practicing with the eyes open is helpful if you want to stay visually oriented to the world around you, bring energy into your practice, or aren't ready to fully go inward. This is useful if you are just starting a breathwork practice or don't feel safe in your body. It's important to acknowledge your needs and allow your eyes to support you in the best way. This will open up more possibility for your breathwork practice to have greater benefits. Anger is a natural and often unwanted emotion that can be very difficult to express. Anger can arise from a wide range of experiences, like a long commute in traffic, being treated unfairly, not being heard, or being criticized at work or by a loved one.

How we experience anger can range from a mild irritation to intense frustration to fiery rage. Frequently, when I took Colleen for her final walk of the evening, I saw Shio lying proprietarily in the doorway of the barn while Kestrel lay on folded legs inside. Kestrel holds an important place in my heart because she was a good jumper and my first horse after adolescence. I took lessons, participated in shows, fox hunted, and rode trails with her. In all those years she ran away with me only once, on a cool day in late fall after she had been stabled for weeks due to bad weather. As she aged, I knew I needed to find another riding horse and bought Xanadu who had been trained in jumping and dressage. Xanadu gave me two foals, Grayfell and Lyric, and so at one time I had five horses in the barn. Gradually, however, the population changed. Shio developed Cushing's disease and had to be put down at the age of twenty-eight. I sold both foals I had bred and raised. Grayfell eventually served the role of clinic horse in Maumee, while Lyric won ribbons as a combined training horse in northeastern Ohio. If you really believe in this product and if you are really making ten grand a month, then why wouldn't you? Angrily, I answered for him, Of course you don't do business this way. Someone who goes after people who are at their worse and have nowhere else to go. Smashing the phone back into the cradle again, I starting crying, ashamed of myself--ashamed that I had let myself go, ashamed that I was so stupid thinking that there might be a company out there that would really help someone like me. Weeks went by and I called another weight loss ad that was mailed to my home. It came in an envelope with a bunch of other flyers for laundry service, local restaurants, cable service, etc It said that the product was money back guaranteed, cost $30, and came with free samples. I called, but I kept getting an answering machine that didn't give me any information. I hung up three times over the next two days. Finally I left my name and number.