Sacred Self

There are times where science and spirituality seem to agree, and I think the fact that we are 'more' than just our bodies is one of those.  We may never fully understand exactly what we are or what we are made of, but we instinctively know that there is more than the obvious.

There is a poem I adore, written by Nikkita Gil, and it's called 93 Percent Stardust:

We have calcium in our bones, iron in our veins,

carbon in our souls and nitrogen in our brains.

93 percent stardust, with souls made of flames,

we are all stars that have people names.

Science says nothing is ever created or destroyed, only changed, and so the 'stuff' that makes us was once other things.  Over the ages, how many other things were we once?  The things we touch and interact with every day, those might have once been people.  In a very real sense, all things are connected, because the bits that make us up break down over time and get recombined into new things.

We talk about the body being a temple, and it is possible that we once were.  But on a much more abstract level, how can we not see ourselves as divine, if we contain within us bits of all of the rest of creation?  Okay, I know that we probably don't have a bit of everything, except that if at the very start of all things, and in all the time since, each thing breaks down and becomes new things, then we could very well have a tiny speck of all that once was!  And how incredibly amazing is that!

We don't often think of ourselves as being special.  We look for the magic outside ourselves, and we miss the wonder that exists within us.  We see our body as a physical thing, and yet, we are almost entirely empty space.  If you were to condense the matter that makes you up (so that there was no empty space in the atoms that make us up), we would be smaller than a particle of dust, and the entire human species would fit inside the space of a sugar cube!

I remember reading about this idea back when I was in school.  I don't remember precisely what I was reading, just that it was talking about how we were mostly empty space, and that if all the physical bits inside you lined up just right, you could pass right through other 'solid' matter...because everything is mostly empty space.

It really makes you wonder, how we see and feel things as being solid, when they are so insubstantial.  And if we are mostly space, if the 'stuff' that makes us who we are is so tiny, then we must be mostly mind, mostly spirit, mostly that other stuff that science struggles to understand.

I love the image that the air I breathe today is the same air that my ancestors once breathed.  I like thinking that all the living beings on this earth are connected by the constant breathing that we do.  Our lives start with an inhale and end with an exhale. 

Many cultures treat the breath as sacred, and sharing a breath with someone is an intimate way of greeting them.  One of my favorite novels has a bit where one of the characters is dying and asks someone she loves to take her last breath.  He captures it with a kiss, and I wonder if kissing is simply an extension of sharing breath with someone.

We don't live in a world that encourages you to see the magic in everyday things, let alone in yourself.  But every once in a while, it's good to stop, to really think about the crazy, miraculous things that led up to us being here.  The fantastical nature of our being, of the bodies we possess and the spirit that goes so far beyond the reach of even our own understanding.

We think that we are fleeting, that perhaps no one will remember us when we are gone, but think of the many people who lived in ages past that we know of, many of whom weren't well known in their own age.  And even those who's names may not be known, we are learning more and more about.  We have stories handed down from generation to generation that speak of the people who weren't written about.  We dream, and remember things that we have no way of knowing. 

There are connections there that can only be found by looking for them.  We are sacred, because we a part of the world, of the past and the future.  We are so much bigger and smaller than we appear.  When we remember this, we become the universe, we become the all.  And how can we not be fabulous then?