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Imagine that it is early morning in late summer and you are standing out on a beach watching the sunrise. The wind is calm and there is only the distant sound of slowly-crashing waves. Such a scene is archetypally serene and tranquil. What is it about this setting that makes breathing come easier?
Our surroundings have quite a say on our physiological state. Really, “environmental breath” is just another way of phrasing the feelings of inspiration which come from being sensitive to one’s inseparable natural surroundings. An increase in this sensitivity is a critical aid to foster and develop creativity—creativity itself can be seen as a familiarity with the organic landscape of ideas. This requires cultivating greater harmony between the internal (physiological and psychological) and external worlds.
It is true that when we inhale we are not drawing air in; rather, our lungs are expanding and allowing the air from our environment to enter. The spiritual and transcendental implications of this have long been understood yet remain paradigm-shattering—the air breathes into us as equally as we breathe it. Contemplating this on a moment-by-moment basis, interconnectedness becomes more understandable. Living this way, we begin to tap into the body’s inherent wisdom, which in turn is awareness of our environment.
Healthy, balanced communication between self and environment is key if a person is to arrive on a path where her language and expression can find harmony with another person or an audience of any kind. The difficulties we have communicating with others often mirror our challenges with internal communication.
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Language is both artificial and useful; it is only part of the challenge of expression. The manner in which we communicate may or may not be reducible to biological or neurological mechanics in a geographical sense (such as “this is the part of the brain where language always comes from, and within that zone this is where expressions of love and hate exist”), yet no two humans communicate identically. To be effective at bridging the divide with others, one must be able to bridge the neurological divides within oneself.
My argument is for an environment-only understanding where a ‘self’ is to be understood as something which is obviously apparent yet in a meaningful way isn’t believed to be separate—distinguishable, certainly, but in no way apart. Just as it is not necessary to get hung up on defending the belief that there is a separable self and environment, any given phrase does not need to be thought of as requiring a prescribed subject/object structure. Grammar and mechanics are one thing, and the impulse which drives the need to communicate is quite another. Instead, think of sentences as the phrasal conveyance of deeply felt propositions, which in turn are organized by our brain. And what is the brain but a self-organizing system? What is the brain but a part of the body? Ideas and thoughts are not formed in words, but through the ritual of communication. We train ourselves to use language to express ourselves, and this in turn helps us organize our internal system. The more in-sync this internal system is with the external system, the breath of our environment, the better communication we will have both within ourselves (cerebrally and physiologically) and with others (through speech and body language).
The best approach toward greater integration, hence creative expansion, is always to start now and remain dedicated to constant improvement.
The more a person experiences this oneness, the less she takes for granted such things as the beating of her heart and her awareness as to the fact of her respiration, the more she feels empowered and directed to act in accordance with the natural impulse, which is to grow and give.
I personally can see no downside to shifting one’s identity toward being a person working to conceive the utmost abundance on a consistent basis—the resistance one might feel may be due to modesty. Let modesty inform us all, and let us believe we are filled with the very same total and unquestioned abundance that we can witness in nature.
For the sake of creativity and our environment, we should keep our thinking mediated with the realization of interconnectedness. Reality is complex, and the path to true sustainability is challenging—it is important for people with their hearts in the right place to keep at it, working diligently and adjusting accordingly when their actions do not yield the desired result.
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This is great stuff, Stephen.
I like this very much: “It is true that when we inhale we are not drawing air in; rather, our lungs are expanding and allowing the air from our environment to enter us.” This nicely echoes the experience of sitting down to write and feeling, often suddenly (or afterwards), that you were not “writing out” the work, but that the work was “writing out” of you.
Is it worthwhile to think about writing as breathing?
I think it’s immensely helpful for writers to think of themselves as being part of a system or environment– arguably, a writer is only as good as the writing-state they enter, whether that state is encountered (on a late-summer beach), self-created (via what Joseph Campbell would call a sacred space: desk, music, coffee, one’s chosen time of day), or, as it usually is, a healthy combination of both.
Thanks for this.