Breath of Unity

I recently read a story about Forest Cleansing, going out amongst the living community of trees and breathing in their life, their essence — an ancient ritual connecting humans to the natural world.

As an avid hiking tree-hugger, I am invigorated by the smell of fresh oak and eucalyptus. I also believe trees have a silent wisdom, a timeless knowledge of mother nature’s mysteries that can only be understood through direct communion.

Forest Cleansing is a form of emotional and spiritual purging of all the negative toxicity that latches onto me during the day — a chlorophyll spiritual catharsis.

This transcendental idea of retreating into Thoreau’s woods to live deliberately and observe nature’s miraculous seasons is wonderful if you have the time and money to escape our urbanized concrete landscapes.

Most of us are working from clock to clock. Checking out of civilization to smell the Magnolia and observing the seasons in the foliage is not doable. Even Thoreau had enough and came back to civilization.

What if we could get the same spiritual catharsis by walking amongst crowds of beings in the bustling metropolis where many of us live?

What if, while stuck in hordes of slow walkers, we breathed them in with their ethnic, racial, religious, and political differences and idiosyncrasies? What if we breathed in a shared meaning, breathed in a Jungian collective consciousness?

We inhale the people,

We exhale the people.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in differences.

Breathe out differences.

Breathe in the metallic sweat of a hard day’s work.

Breathe out the salty scent.

Breathe in the vinegary smell of moving feet.

Breathe out the musty misery of the masses.

Breathe in the odor of bodily secretions.

Breathe out the stench of human desperation.

Breathe in the sulfurous sour notes of the digestion system.

Breathe out the rot of overconsumption.

Breathe in the ammonia tang of urine.

Breathe out the poisonous bile of hatred.

Breathe in the putrid stink of excrement.

Breathe out the night soil of human darkness.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in the corrosive forces that divide us.

Breathe out the simple reminders of our shared humanity.

Breathe in the prejudices that separate us.

Breathe out the humility of our shared imperfections.

Breathe in the phantoms that shroud our understanding.

Breathe out the understanding that bridges our differences.

Breathe in the bloodshed and slaughter in Gaza.

Breathe out coexistence and no more children dying.

Breathe in the heavy burdens of generational strife.

Breathe out the cries for peace in the region.

Breathe in the cycles of violence and ceaseless fighting.

Breathe out the courage of those who seek a peaceful path forward.

Breathe in the destruction, the pain, the horror.

Breathe out the need for dialogue and negotiation.

Breathe in the horror of the Israel-Hamas divide.

Breathe out the good faith cooperation to broker a future without war.

Breathe in the rockets, airstrikes, and cries of children.

Breathe in peaceful coexistence.

Breathe out man’s inhumanity to man.

Breathe in a shared humanity.

In

out

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