Some three billion years ago, the chemical process to which you and I owe every breath we take first appeared.[i]Photosynthesis began in free-living single cells, fixating carbon from sunlight for food and casting off oxygen. In time, these cells were transformed into chloroplasts inside bigger and more complex cells; in more time (say, two billion years) sufficient oxygen accrued to blanket the earth; and in still more time, that environment made possible the creation and evolution of oxygen breathers.
So Genesis has it right.[ii] The plants came first. Later, animal and eventually human life emerged, practitioners of the complementary process of respiration, forming an exquisitely symmetrical cycle. We inhale oxygen, which enables us to metabolize nutrients that fuel our bodies and our minds. And we exhale the carbon that is essential for photosynthesis back into the atmosphere, out of which all green living things make theirs.
Each day, when I sit to meditate, I focus on the breath. It’s the way most of us begin; resting the mind on that expanding and releasing, rising and falling. Observing thoughts as they come and go and, over and over again, returning to that ongoing in, then out. As a person of faith, this practice is prayer for me. I draw in the ruah, the Spirit-breath, that gives me life and holds me in existence. And as I return it, I think “here”; I am here, offering myself to this moment, to the Presence in whom I live and move and have my being. I am, simply, here.
These days, as I walk the neighborhood and the trail, I have become more mindful of the simple process of breathing, in and out. I’m not sure why that is. But as I pass by manicured lawns and through wild meadows, as the shade of spreading oaks shields me from the sun and the long grasses brush against my legs, I have been waking up to the reality that all of these living things, all these photosynthesizers, are outrageously generous partners in the ongoing dance of life on this earth. These trees, these weeds, these tender blades are keeping me alive. They are providing that without which I would suffocate and die.
And I imagine wrapping my arms around the rough trunk of the tall pine that shades my patio, and lying down in the new-mown grass to press my cheek against its green sweetness, and whispering “thank you”.
This too is prayer.
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| Spanish Countryside Morning on Day 3 |
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