Its amazing how many people don’t drink enough water. I was trying to encourage my new roommate in China to drink more water today – seems the least I could do for how helpful she’s been since my arrival. I found myself in another rant about the significance of water for our health – our wakefulness:
“Water is so important!” Adam said, enthusiastically. It helps everything about our bodies. It’s our firstm metabolic exchange with our environment, and then water and then food. “There’s an order here – Oxygen first, then water, then food. You know the rule of ‘threes!’ You can live about three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, and three weeks without food. It all starts with breath, because we are mostly oxygen.” Amanda interjected, “I thought we were about 70% water.” “Well, of course. Water is mostly oxygen though.” Adam continued his rant as if the subtle retort between the two hadn’t been Amanda’s signal that she’d had enough. “Actually, the first thing we do after we’re born is take our first breath, and the last thing we will do before we die is breathe our last breath.” And the death of the conversation ensued. Adam’s over-zealous desire to teach so often meets its compensatory mirror of disinterest – the hint of judgment is to heavy to hide and rebellion looks this way.
I have always loved this line of thinking – this “order of things.” There are orders, layers, envelopes, spectrums to just about everything and especially living things. It’s a bit paradoxical that oxygen, the lightest, no scent, no substance, would be the most essential to our survival. That the order of importance flows from lightest to heaviest intrigues me a great deal. This spectrum maps the course of our biological origins, indeed the evolution of all life. Even Rumi in the 13th century understood this developmental course. “We begin as a mineral,” He writes, “We emerged into plant life and then into the animal state and then into being human. And at every state we forgot our former selves except in early spring when we slightly recall being green again…” He continues to reveal that we exist within a migration of intelligencies, “And though we seem to be sleeping,” He says that we, “…eventually wake up, to the truth of who we really are.” How beautiful.
How spirituality matters is completely essential to waking up to who we truly are. From how much we value water for wakefulness and practice breath as the cornerstone of consciousness the body is the matter through which spirituality is channeled. In this way spirituality, the spirit – is brought to density, to matter. To become conscious that spirituality matters takes hella practice and mighty grace. If that spectrum holds and if the more lighter an element the more fundamental (at least in this analogy) then the spirit might be more important than oxygen for our survival. All major spiritual movements of humanity have made this claim. It is completely unoriginal to me.
Their are innumerable practices outlining paths toward spiritual growth. All have in common resonances that strum specific harmonics. If in mediation you dwell with the feeling of love, it is my belief that beings, entities, helpers with like resonance are touched in communion. This is what I find more and more in my waking life, with colleagues, peers, friends, community members.
When I meditate well, I find worlds of comfort. I find powerful allies. I find that I drink my needed water and my body heals better. I wake up in China on a mattress with the words “Love” written all over it. I notice grace, I live more peaceably with others; I’m of service. I never knew oxygen was so potent. I never knew how alive with Spirit, everything actually is… Spirit literally matters here.
iamadam 