Early in the pandemic, I wrote in our PanDeepening blog about “The Air That We Breathe and the Spirit of God.” I noted that the power of breath is phenomenal, and that even the word breath (>Gk., pneuma, pneumatos = breath, spirit; > L. spirare; > Heb. ruach) tells us much about the creative Energy of Spirit/Love that binds all creation together as one living, breathing Being. We are One. We are One.
Come back to your breath
Where God resides
Where Spirit inspires
Where you are one with all creation
***You are home***
Alive with the energy of the universe
The Pandemic Year has left all of us gasping with some residual spiritual, psycho-social or physical malaise. As the vaccine is rolling out across the globe, it feels like waves of the ocean as more and more of our most vulnerable and front-line servants are breathing a little easier each day. In some ways, after the more-than-a-year marathon, even with the promise of brighter days ahead, we are a bit depleted—out of our communal breath. Spirit called us to sink deeper into our communal consciousness. “Deep” certainly “called unto deep,” until we thought we might drown in the undertow. It was unchartered territory, and we got a little lost in the abyss, what with all the chaos and confusion that was 2020, the tragic loss of life, missed opportunities for reconciliation and healing, and the enduring existential Angst wrought by so much time in isolation and separation from loved ones.
Still, so many of us learned to lean into the persistent Whisper, didn’t we? That irresistible allure of Spirit/Breath called to us in the depths of our darkness, in the silent surrender of our dreaming or the muted screams of our awakening consciousness, to another vision, a wider “We.” We began breathing into the pain of all we were losing and leaving behind, our egoic certitude, coming into the awareness that what is being composted is for life’s fullness, not its demise. We are growing in our understanding, growing in our compassion, growing in our expansiveness of identity and belonging. Our creature-kin and arbor elders, rivers and oceans, mountains, prairies, and valleys are teaching us to become silent once again, in awe and humility, wonder and gratitude, to listen with our inner ear, to see with a beginner’s eye. We are learning in a profoundly incarnational way that we are truly One. We are taking a deep breath.
This Lent, my motto has been, “Just breathe.” It sounds simplistic, but given the context of the year-long Covid marathon, it speaks to me with unfathomable depth and intentionality. From George Floyd and BLM, DAPL protests to protect Sister Water, the Me Too movement, environmentalists protecting forests, sea-dwellers, and the air itself, and pandemic servants who died for the good of the whole, these are all related. From the late Rep. John Lewis and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Greta Thunberg and Amanda Gorman, the waves of Spirit/Breath keep rolling. Moms and Dads bearing the burden of keeping food on the table and a roof over kids’ heads while home-schooling, working from home or in a high-risk setting, while caring for elderly parents, holding their breath and waiting for a vaccine, are all like human ventilators that kept families going in the midst of the maelstrom. After the derecho here in our neck of the woods, the arbor elders themselves—having lost so many of their own, and the creatures who lost their homes, their food and water sources, their anchors to life—kept breathing, and in doing so, kept all of us breathing. Together. We are One. “Oh!” we realize. “We are One!”
When we die, many of us draw our last breath with our mouths slightly open, and the opening remains until a loved one or hospice minister closes our mouth with reverence and love. I have experienced the dying of loved ones with this slight opening like a small miracle, almost like they are exclaiming, “O! Home at last!” The sight reminds me very much of a newborn whose tiny mouth forms an “O” when suckling or sleeping, or peeking out of heavy eyelids, or responding to Mama’s mesmerizing voice. “O!” We draw the same “O!” breath in surprise or dismay. We sing God’s praise with the same “O!” breath and we dive deeply into Presence just the same. “O!” It’s a tiny opening, but it’s enough for Love to enter and remain, if we can just breathe.
A Celebration of Communal Breath:
We take a moment.
We close our eyes.We inhale. (The power of God is within us.)
We exhale. (The grace of God surrounds us.)Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
—Laura Weber, Prairiewoods associate director and retreats coordinator