Breathwork-facilitated 2025 Intention Setting Ceremony

Inhale 2025, exhale 2024

“My intention is to channel my inner radiance into outer joy so that I can elevate the vibe of all mankind,” says a slight, younger woman in quite a few different shades of vanilla fabric which may or may not have begun life as bed sheets. Some of her long, brown hair is organized into braids, and some is disorganized into probably unintentional dreadlocks. She is cocooned, inexplicably, in a hammock, elevated a few inches above the floor where ten other 20- and 30something people sit in a circle shaped like an amoeba. We are gathered in a deserted store in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan, perhaps the one location most antithetical to a Breathwork-facilitated 2025 Intention Setting Ceremony.

Contrary to popular understanding, breathing, an involuntary response to being alive, is work. Even through breathing is one of the few things that mammals do not have to think about, breathing is only beneficial if you think about it a lot while you are doing the hard work of breathing. You will know if you are working hard enough at breathing if you sound like you are having a panic attack and intermittently feel like you are about to pass out. Doing the work of thinking about breathing can be such hard work that people performing breathwork often performatively cry while being energetically held by a breathwork instructor, who is standing several feet away with their eyes closed but their hearts open. These highly skilled professionals, equipped with poetry or gender studies degrees from northeastern liberal arts colleges, have realized that white people with disposable income will dispose of their income in breathwork classes as a means of meeting a prospective romantic partner who will not judge the fact that they are an adult who lives with multiple roommates on a rectangular patch of floor in deep Bushwick.

“That’s beauuuutiful,” purrs our breathwork instructor, a woman in her early 30s who is hot in an unintentional, unshowered, unsane sort of way, as she presses her hands together just below her chin and smiles generously. She turns her attention to a large canvas screen, which is the only lighting in the room other than the streetlights outside. A ghostly, flickering, abstract-impressionist woman surrounded by an exaggerated glow and clusters of tiny undulating human figures project onto the screen. The room ooooos.

“How is it doing that?” asks the woman in the bedsheets.

“It’s a secret,” says the instructor with a grin. “The best magic always is. Now let’s take a deep breath in through the nose.” The room sucks in air, and everyone but me closes their eyes. “Hold it, good. And one more sip in.” The room snorts in quickly, which sounds like everyone has done a bump in unison. “One more?” Another shorter snort. “Annnnnd release.”

Everyone exhales very loudly with moans and sighs. She looks at the late-30something man next to the vanilla-colored/covered woman. He appears stricken by the attention, perhaps because he is dressed like a substitute teacher in a Chicago suburb circa 1998, and everyone else is wearing mystic pajamas.

“My intention is to be, I mean, manifest my inner lion in my romantic pursuits and better connect with my divine masculine while holding space for my divine feminine,” he says. He tries to conceal his furtive approval-seeking glances around the room. The instructor raises her eyebrows and makes one of those I didn’t see that coming expressions. He gets a few mmmms and soft snaps. He turns his head to the screen, which transforms from swirling clouds and hallucinating trees into a male figure with a small lion growing in its belly. A bit on the nose, but I’m kind of impressed.

“Yes,” says the instructor, nodding emphatically. “We need more divine masculine energy in this world right now.” A woman groans. A few people chuckle. “And another big breath in.” The instructor takes us through more breathing torture, and then nods with a smile at the woman to my right, who is wearing galaxy tights, a white tank, and a necklace with crystals so large and numerous that I feel the weight of the chain on the back of my own neck. She clears her throat.

“My intention is to align my energy with the abundance of the universe, to let go of the pain of what is behind me, and to make space for peace and love.” Louder mmmms and snaps from the peripheries of the amoeba. I clench my jaw and rebelliously take a deep breath of my own volition. The screen transforms into a solar system where the planets are hearts and the rings are rainbows, which is super annoying but also impressive. I’m wondering if the creator of this magic, which is clearly a speech-to-image algorithm, is open to venture funding just as the instructor fixes her expectant smile on me. I sit up a bit straighter.

“My intention is to triple my company’s ARR and sell my TV pilot,” I tell the room, the universe, and the algorithm. The instructor’s smile fades so quickly that I wonder if she’s had a stroke, or if perhaps someone has unplugged her from the cosmos.

“What’s an ARR?” asks Bedsheets. Only her eyes and half of her nose are visible above the edge of the hammock.

“Annual recurring revenue,” I tell her. Her brow furrows into a deep frown. The instructor quickly looks around the room. The algorithm generates a thick green arrow that rises from the lower left to the upper right of the screen, and an old-fashioned airplane helmed by an oversized pilot flies through billowy clouds of dollar signs.

“Maybe your intention is to welcome growth and invite creative energy to vibrate in universal synchronicity?” she asks hopefully. I force a polite smile. The algorithm generates a serene looking naked bald man in prayer, and a golden current swirls around him below his hands.

“I see what you did there,” I say. “I think I’m happy with my intention, which is, you know, a clear commitment to unambiguous action that will serve me in 2025.” The 30something man with a prodigious manbun to my left, who I thought was napping in a plaid LL Bean sleeping bag, sits up, still entirely encased in the bag. He looks like a homeless hipster mummy who has been re-animated by the scent of patchouli.

“Serving me is not the vibe, friend,” he says. I look over at him, looking reproachfully back at me. “You should be asking yourself how to serve the greater collective being that is all of us.” The entire room mmmms and snaps loudly. The urgency of her double-fisted snapping causes Bedsheets to fall out of the hammock.

“Thanks for your feedback, sir, but what exactly does that mean?” I ask. He glares at me, and I can see his arms cross inside of the sleeping bag. He tries to cross his legs into Indian style—lotus position—but the bag isn’t wide enough, so he stretches his legs back out and brings them to his chest, which gives him the vibe of a Tuluminati caterpillar centaur.

“First of all, you just assumed my gender,” he says. The room mmmms reproachfully. “And how does your ARR serve the symphony of existence? What benefit does your pilot provide to the shimmering universal thread that weaves together all souls, all moments, all vibrations into single, boundless tapestry of infinite collective abundance? ARR is an illusion, and your true shareholders are in this room, out there on that street, all over this world that we share,” he says, beseechingly. “You need to let go of your ego and flow with the sacred current of unity.”

The algorithm generates a winding, glowing river filled with amorphous people who are crowd surfing another amorphous person up the river. The hipster caterpillar mummy looks at the screen, and his face transforms from serenity to robotic concentration. “Hm. Needs more training data.”

“You created the algorithm?” I ask, astonished.

“I don’t like that word,” he chafes. “I call it…the aurarithm.”

“Are you raising?” I ask. Just as I’m about to explain that raising means raising capital, he responds.

“I’m not doing this for an outcome,” he says. “I’m post-economic.” The algorithm generates an image that looks a lot like the mummy’s face sitting atop a pyramid of money. The mummy looks around the room anxiously, and everyone looks at him suspiciously. “Meaning I’ve evolved beyond the need for material wealth, and I’ve dedicated my efforts to elevating and connecting those around me.” Someone in the circle says hmmm.

“Wait, didn’t I see you before the class on Little West 12th getting out of a Cybertruck?” asks Bedsheets. Mummy opens his mouth to speak. “You realize that buying that thing is how Trump got re-elected, right?”

“Does this spiritual bro cosplay you’re doing help you pick up women?” asks Substitute Teacher. I can’t tell if he’s trolling or sincerely asking, which delights me.

“Annnnnd DEEP BREATH IN,” says the instructor at a volume that underscores just how capable her lungs have become thanks to doing the work of breathing. The amoeba breathes in deeply. I feel Mummy’s eyes on me. I look over. He raises a hand underneath the sleeping bag, and a long point juts up in the middle of it. I smile back at him, and then I look ahead and close my eyes, enjoying the rush of both oxygen and retribution. I wonder if 2025 will be the year that everyone drops whatever façade they’re wearing. Whatever’s underneath is probably much more interesting.