Breathing Sunlight
Breathing all the time, we seldom ponder what the act truly means. It is rare to remember how our breaths—and thus our lives—depend on an ancient, beautiful biosphere. Yet it is deeply soothing to slow down and appreciate our true situation as human organisms embedded in a sea of air.
Oxygen is the gas central to our ability to move, sense, and imagine. Making up about a fifth of our atmosphere, it is given to us entirely by photosynthesis. Plants and algae release oxygen as a byproduct when, illuminated by the sun, they convert water and carbon dioxide—our own waste gas—into sugar.
The Journey of a Photon
Imagine photons bursting into existence, the products of thermonuclear fusion deep within the core of the Sun. Because the solar interior is so dense with matter and energy, a single photon takes many thousands of years just to struggle to the surface of our star. From there, however, it is a mere eight-minute sprint through the void of space to Earth.
These photons pour down onto photosynthetic trees, bushes, grasses, algae, and plankton. Within these living forms, complex pigments absorb the light. Through a dazzling display of biochemistry, they convert solar energy, carbon dioxide, and water into the sugars that fuel life. In the process, they release oxygen back into the atmosphere.
Where we can breathe it.
Breathing Light Practice
With your next in-breath, remember that the oxygen entering your body connects you directly to the vegetation of the Earth and the nuclear power of the Sun.
The Nostrils: Feel the air entering your nostrils. Notice how it is slightly cool and bracing as it arrives. Exhaled air, in contrast, feels warm and moist, laden with the carbon dioxide plants require. For a few breaths, simply observe these subtle sensations at the threshold of the nose: cool, fresh inhalation; warm, soft exhalation.
The Nasal Passages: Follow that sensation higher into the nasal passages—the tall, narrow channels resting just below and between your eyes. As the air moves through the center of your skull toward the throat, it spreads over the folded surface of the nasal mucosa, which filters, warms, and humidifies it. Tune into this hidden space, tracking the alternating rhythm of cool freshness and warm humidity.
The Throat: See if you can trace that alternation further back, down into the throat. Feel the lively coolness behind the palate on inhalation, and the soothing, velvety warmth on exhalation.
The Core: Follow the breath deeper still, past the larynx and into the upper chest. While the temperature differences become incredibly subtle here, see if you can detect the internal shift in sensation between the incoming and outgoing currents.
Using your imagination, follow the air all the way down into the alveoli—the microscopic air sacs where oxygen is absorbed into your blood and carbon dioxide released. This exchange occurs across thin, delicate membranes that intimately connect your interior world with the surrounding atmosphere. Through this boundary, you are part of an vast system, an extension of the biosphere.
Visualize the solar-powered oxygen hitching a ride through your circulatory system. See it flowing out to your feet and hands, ankles and wrists, knees and elbows, hips and shoulders. Watch it flood your torso and rise through your neck into your head. This oxygen allows your cells to gently "burn" the sugars from the food you have eaten, fueling your skin, muscles, bones, and vital organs.
Finally, feel this oxygen energizing your brain. It supports the very neural architecture that allows you to investigate, feel, and imagine during this moment. Your experience is interwoven with plants, algae, sunlight, and cells.
As you end this meditation, take with you a sense of how much is involved with every "simple" breath.