The Air We Breathe

When you stop and think about it, we are all breathing in (and out) the same air. Every living creature, on this planet, that is reliant on oxygen for survival, breathes in and breathes out. Not just our fellow humans but every dog and cat, ostrich and lion, polar bear, and koala bear, whale, and seal – we are, in some sense, a part of one another. It is sobering to contemplate and, for me at least, offers much food for thought.

Recently, I have been seeing, on Instagram and other social media, pictures of hunters with their trophy kills, mostly from Africa. There was one, I will never be able to erase from my mind, of a whole family (mom, dad, a young girl about 12 or 13 and a young boy not much older) kneeling on a dead elephant with huge smiles on their faces. Then there was the lone hunter holding up the head of a dead giraffe, and still another, the dead lion still glorious in death, laying at the feet of the hunter, one foot planted casually on the lion’s head. To say I was repulsed would have been to understate the feelings that engulfed me. In what world, I thought, does one kill just for the pleasure of killing? In what world do we feed our own egos at the cost of a life? What motivates someone to think they may casually kill something sentient, something with the same life energy as their own, just because they can!!!

I am, I believe the best term would be, a pacifist. I detest violence. I despise war and killing and greed and egotistical beings who feel that their wants and needs and gratification is more important than the right of another living creature to go on living. Simply go on living… Not harming anyone, not detracting from anyone else’s right to go on living. “Live and let live” is such a simple, uncomplicated concept. I have my days on this earth, and you have yours. The gorilla in Africa, the koala in Australia, the penguin in Antarctica – all have been granted days on earth, days on earth, not eons, not centuries, but a short, fleeting span of years, days, hours. They have as much right to that time as I have a right to my time. They have as much right to that time as the family who traveled to Africa to kill an elephant.

Life is a gift. The air we breathe, a reminder of that every second of every day. We are gifted with life and life is dependent on air and water, temperatures that don’t exceed certain limits, food supply and, I think, as well, kindness and respect from our fellow inhabitants of this planet. I probably take the concept of “live and let live” a little farther than most. I don’t like killing anything, including insects, preferring to catch them when they invade my space and then, release them outside. In the winter, when it is too cold outside, I release them in my garage. They too, are breathing in and breathing out.

Leonardi da Vinci said, “Whoever does not respect life, does not deserve it.” And Henry David Thoreau said, “The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.” We humans are not the definition of life, we are, as is every creature on this planet, breathing in and breathing out, simply a miniscule part of the life force energy. The air we breathe is the “umbilical cord” that connects us each to each – the reality of our connection is our interdependence and our obligation to honor and preserve all life.

Take a deep breath. Hold it. Then release it into the universe and revel in the fact that it is being inhaled into the biodiversity of the lungs of life.

The Air We Breathe

Sometimes in the night

I wake from dreams and gasp

for breath as though I’ve traveled

in my sleep beneath the sea

or into outer space where nothing

breathes the air

but me

where nothing knows the luxury of

living giving something

of myself

each time I suck the sustenance

of oxygen into my lungs feel my chest

expand deflate

and wait an instant impatient

to once again conceive

myself in nothing

more than air

declare

I’m here

I’m there I’m everywhere a part

of everything and

everything is equally a part of me

and even though they breathe

a little differently I feel the life force

of the creatures of the sea

we are not


a single entity but rather just an atom

in the alchemy of life

of living giving something of ourselves

and taking waking

from our darkest dreams to light

the air we breathe

deceives us into thinking

we are greater than the whole

we breathe each living thing

as one

or like the splitting of the atom

we explode

and come

undone…

-Susan A. Katz (All rights reserved)

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