The forgetting and remembering of holy air
THE NATURE OF US writings on the earth community, love, body, embodiment, interconnection, our planetary moment, music - and the creativity and possibilities inherent in being human.
Let’s sit down here . . . on the open prairie, where we can’t see a highway a highway or fence. Let’s have no blankets to sit on, but feel the ground with our bodies, the earth, the yielding shrubs. Let’s have the grass for a mattress, experiencing the sharpness and its softness. Let us become like stories, plants, and trees. Let us be like animals, think and feel like animals. Listen to the air. You can feel it, smell it, taste it. Womiya wakan—the holy air — which renews all by it’s breath. Womiya, womiya, wakan—spirit, life, breath, renewal—it means all that. Womiya we sit together, don’t touch, but something is there, we feel it between us, as a presence. A good way to start thinking about nature, talk about it. Rather talk to it, talk to the rivers, to the lakes, to the winds as our relatives.
—John Fire Lane Deer
This quote and other references in this essay from the extraordinary book, The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram
The holy and mysterious air — the most pervasive presence I can name, enveloping, embracing. and caressing me both inside and out, moving in ripples along my skin, flowing between my fingers, swirling around my arms and thighs, rolling in eddies along the roof of my mouth, slipping ceaselessly through throat and trachea to fill the lungs, to feed my blood, my heart, my self. David Abram
Invisible yet a tangible and sensuous presence, ever changing as the day unfolds, chilling us in the morning damp, then gathering to a breeze, or perhaps a fog. As a coastal person I surf the changes in the air hourly and make adjustments to my day. It’s summer now and I especially cherish the gentle soft breezes warming me in the sun.
And this invisible element supports all life.
It unites our breathing bodies not only with the under-the-ground (with the rich microbial life of the soil, with fossil and mineral deposits deep in the bedrock), and not only with the beyond-the-horizon (with distant forests and oceans), but also with the interior life of all that we perceive in the open field of the living presence—the grasses and the aspen leaves, the ravens, the buzzing insects and the drifting clouds. What the plants are quielty breathing out, we animals are breathing in, what we breathe out, the plants are breathing in. The air, we night say, is the soul of the visible landscape, the secret realm from which all beings draw their nourishment. As the very mystery of the living present, it is the most intimate absence from whence the present presences, and thus a key to the forgotten presence of the earth. David Abram
We are inside the air, inside this mysterious presence, along with the other animals and plants, mountains and clouds. We are all breathing together, held in this swirling body of alive air, enveloped in the blue of the earth’s atmosphere.
For many cultures, the ancient Greeks, the Lakota, and the Navajo to name a few, the air was considered a sacred presence that joined us all together. Air was once associated with life and awareness, not the dead and empty element it is sometimes considered to be by our material world. We disassociated from the surrounding air and the earth along the way, forgetting we are part of a breathing whole, seeing ourselves as alone surrounded by empty space.
Only as we begin to notice and to experience, once again, our immersion in the invisible air do we start to recall what it is to be fully a part of this world. David Abram, “The Perceptual Implications of Gaia.”
Sometimes as I walk, I consciously breathe in the oxygen released by the trees, and feel them breathing in the carbon dioxide as I exhale. This simple practice is a good place to start.
When we start to remember again:
As we become conscious of the unseen depths that surround us, the inwardness or interiority that we have come to associate with the personal psyche begins to be encountered in the world at large: we feel ourselves enveloped, immersed, caught up within the sensuous world. This breathing landscape is no longer just a passive backdrop against which human history unfolds, but a potentized field of intelligence in which our actions participate. As the regime of self-reference begins to break down, as we awaken to the air, and to the multiplicitious Others that are implicated, with us, in its generative depths, the shapes around us seem to awaken, to come alive . . . David Abram
Enveloped by the surrounding world, we are held in a community of beloveds, breathing together, creating the world anew in each moment. In the following poem Sleeping in the Forest, Mary Oliver writes of the small kingdoms breathing around her in the night air, the insects, and the birds . . .
I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better
Breathing in, we breathe in the air of all our relations, remembering that we are part of a beautiful interconnected field of being. Breathing out, our love is carried to the world. We are in a nonverbal communication - a communion - with our world.
From the opening quote by John Fire Lane Deer:
Listen to the air. You can feel it, smell it, taste it. Womiya wakan—the holy air — which renews all by it’s breath. Womiya, womiya, wakan—spirit, life, breath, renewal—it means all that. Womiya we sit together, don’t touch, but something is there, we feel it between us, as a presence.
For those astrologically inclined, some relevant astrology on Uranus entering Gemini July 7—and holy air—below this forest image.
In astrology the air signs of Gemini, Libra and Aquarius are concerned with communication, connection, awareness, and information. Currently Uranus, the archetype of freedom and innovation, is moving into Gemini for seven years.
Astrologer Astro Butterfly (astrobutterfly.com) suggests:
Uranus is the planet of paradigm shift – the one that breaks the rules – and by doing so, opens our horizons to what lies beyond convention . . .
Perhaps a new type of awareness, of consciousness, will be born – especially in connection with the Neptune-Saturn conjunction at 0° Aries, which Uranus in Gemini will be sextiling. This forms a Sign 1 (birth) – Sign 3 (cognition) connection.
Will we be witnessing the emergence of a new form of intelligence or consciousness?
Will we find ways to connect with the ‘supercomputer’ of the cosmos – with the ‘script’ of the universe?
There’s an intelligent design to the cosmos. According to the “As above, so below” principle, just as atoms organize into molecules and stars into galaxies by following cyclical patterns and fractals, our brains also organize by tapping into pre-existing informational structures.
Our minds are not just neurons firing at random – we’re more like antennas, tuned into an invisible layer of information that follows a universal, archetypal framework, or ‘script’ that underlies all of existence.
Uranus in Gemini marks a new chapter in our relationship with awareness itself.
Just as the original Age of Gemini gave birth to the witnessing mind, Uranus in Gemini may signal the next leap – the emergence of a new kind of awareness that bridges human, artificial, and cosmic intelligence.
In this cycle, the “word” may no longer be limited to spoken language – it may be coded, transmitted, or intuited. It may arrive in new forms that connect us with the larger intelligence of the cosmos.
Holy air - connecting us with the larger intelligence of the cosmos. This writer, with Uranus in Gemini in her chart, is thrilled to feel this new awareness emerging.
Thank you for being here today.
With love,
Sabrina
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Sabrina Page, MA in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness
You can reach me at sabrinapage@earthlink.net. I help you focus on the deep knowing of your body, aligned with the earth and all life - embodiment - to support you in living life fully, freely, and fluidly, intertwined with nature. My background includes having studied movement, dance, and astrology - with some of the leading individuals in their fields. Sessions are individually tailored to your current needs.
More information is available on my website, sabrinapage.com
Stunning and Refreshing!!!! And sad to see how they are poisoning and manipulating the air. May we inhale that which is pure and/or find ways to safely release what is not.
Love the images from your beachside location Sabrina. I am staying near the beach in recent weeks too, I find the daily visits very meaningful as I take in more of life... holy air and breathwork is a beautiful self-honouring way of living life.