The Element of Air

“I can’t breathe!” This phrase is now burned in our memory. We watched videos of Eric Gardner and then George Floyd crying out these words to police as they were arrested and we cringed at the injustice and inhumanity of the action. Later,  people would be drawn into the political divide, but at the moment we saw it, we knew it was wrong.

Breath is Life. Air is the highest necessity of Life and it is the spirit of life. One of my favorite songs is by Carolyn McDade with that title:

I have mentioned and written about the Irish enjoying “the fresh” i.e., a walk that offers the opportunity to breathe in the fresh air. We also know that attention to the breath, mindful breathing, is a key element of meditation.

In fact, time and time again, the ancient Celts honored the three-fold stages of life that are represented in our every breath: intake, still point, and release. Try it yourself. Take a few breaths, mindful of each stage. On the fourth breath, stop at the still point and rest there for a bit. Notice how centered you are, how present in the moment. As the song said “Find a stillness, let that stillness carry me.”

Last week I mentioned the Four Sacred Treasures of the Tuatha De Danaan:

             The cauldron, the sword, the spear, and the stone. They each were associated with one of the four elements. The sword represented air. A sword could cut through the air and take the life (the air, the breath) out of another human being.

Let us pray for a peaceable world, a just world, and a world where the quality of the air we all breathe is fresh.