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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