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Since Your Life is Messy...

Go to Your Bosom...

Spiritual Sayings for Earthlings, Prelude

NOTE: This and upcoming posts will become the contents of a book, Spiritual Sayings for Earthlings. Enjoy...

Earthlings

Some might be
spiritual beings from
somewhere else.
An invisible place.
A higher, better place.
Extraterrestrials.

They might be
divine sparks in
bodies, skin bags, worm sacks
they despise and
don’t identify with.

They might just be
visitors passing through
this vale of tears,
impatient to get home.

There might be
many different ways
for them to get back home.

To us earthlings
they live strange lives.
We are at home here.
There is no better
place to go.

They live in fear.
They do not feel
safe here, away
from their home,
among us earthlings.

Since they feel safer when
everyone else is like them,
they force their ways
on us earthlings.
They seek to eliminate
our earthling ways.

These spiritual sayings
are for us earthlings.

The Breathing Thing, Part Two

When we use the word “breath” to refer to one cycle in a narrative of cycles called breathing, then it does refer to a thing; that is, a meeting that is a narrative with many participants.

Now “breath” no longer refers to an abstract mental concept. It is one narrative cycle in the larger narrative of a meeting with many participants, a meeting called breathing. It refers to a concrete thing; a meeting with concrete, actively breathing participants. 

You are participating in the meeting of breathing right now. You joined the breathing meeting with your first breath and have been participating in it ever since. You will participate in the meeting until your last expiration.

Everyone that is now breathing is an active participant in the thing, the on-going meeting, called breathing. The meeting has been going on since breathing began. It will go on as long as breathing continues. While we’re breathing, we’re participating in the meeting with everyone else that is breathing. It’s an inter-species meeting.

This cycle of the cosmic, inter-species breathing meeting will end with the last expiration of the last one breathing.

What we do while we breathe together matters. How we treat everyone else we’re breathing with matters.

How we treat air especially matters. It matters to everyone breathing in this cosmic breathing meeting that is happening now. It will matter as well to those who inhale the first breath that begins the next meeting of the cosmic cycle of breathing.

The Breathing Thing, Part One of Two

Breath. The word is not the thing. Nor does the word refer to the thing itself.

We cannot see breath with our eyes. We cannot imagine it. The word “breath” refers to an abstract concept in our mind.

[There is no image of breath to insert here]

 Breathing is a thing. The word “breathing” isn’t the thing; it refers to the thing.

And here’s the thing: breathing happens. We can see, hear, feel, and smell it. But it’s not an object. We cannot hold it in our hand. We cannot put breathing in a box and sell it.

Breathing is a meeting. It is a narrative with many participants. In non-technical terms, the narrative goes like this:

Diaphragm draws downward. Belly and lungs expand outward. Air responds and flows into nostrils downward into lungs. As air fills lungs, lungs expand making room for air. Diaphragm pauses a split second, relaxes, and pushes upward. In response to diaphragm’s push, lungs contract; air retreats from lungs and flows out nostrils. Diaphragm draws downward again…

The narrative of breathing is cyclic. Like the cycles of seasonal winds, each cycle is unique.

Part Two is about the importance of how we treat everyone we breathe with.
 

Our Life Here Together

No, we’re not spiritual beings
having a human experience.

We’re not just visitors here,
passing through,
on our way to a better
or worse place.

This is not a boarding school.
We’re not just here to
learn lessons, pass this grade,
take a break back home,
and return for the next grade,
until we graduate and no longer
have to come back.

Our home is not an invisible,
better place somewhere else.

This is our true home.
We were born here.
We’re from here.
We live here now.
We will die here.

We do not have bodies.
We are bodies.
You’re somebody.
I’m somebody too.

We’re human beings.
We’re neighbors.
We depend on each other
for our lives.

What we say matters.
Our words help and harm.

What we do matters.
Our actions help and harm.

The children we see, of all species,
inherit the consequences of
what we say and do.

How we live affects everyone else
for generations to come.

We’re all in this together.
We cannot do this alone.
We all need each other.

We need each other to live
the best lives we can live.

We need to love each other
and help each other live.

Our lives are so short.
We have so little time.

We can do better.
We must do better.
We have to do better
than we are now.

I am committed to doing my best.
I trust you’re committed to doing your best too.