I recently came across the works of poet, Fred LaMotte
In his writing, Three Mystical Powers, he writes
“Don’t take your next breath, receive it.”
Simple words and they struck as well as stuck with me.
We often say “Take a deep breath” but when we make the simple shift ‘from taking to receiving’ the same act of breathing becomes sacred and part of a beautiful symbiotic relationship with nature.
Taking has a very individualistic perspective. I take what I need and I move on.
But receiving brings reverence, brings gratitude. Air is there to sustain all of us, it is a shared resource and we receive it from nature.
Sometime back I was sitting under a tree. Multiple things were competing for my attention – I should finish that article, send that email, read that message, return that call… Instead, I choose to just sit and breathe. Something struck me as I sat there looking far and at nothing in particular.
Nature has everything in balance. We breathe in what the tree breathes out and the tree breathes in what we breathe out. We are both connected and exist because of each other.
I am sitting under this tree. Its shade is protecting me from the direct sunlight. I am hungry and I pluck a fruit and it nourishes me in that moment. The tree is sharing its “life” with me. And I share mine with it. I water it, I talk to it, I remove the yellowing leaves, I feed it compost, I harvest.
There is wholeness.
We are not separate from the rest of the nature. We are part of an interconnected and interdependent ecosystem that thrives on this connection. In finding our place as part of the greater life process – one that nourishes and is nourished.
An elder had once shared in a talk,
“When we think about how to care for the Earth, we must begin with the recognition that we ARE nature, we are of the Earth, all beings are connected and we are one.”