The Earth Breathes. Even in the cold.
Perhaps on a cold Winter's day you have gone for a walk, or for some other reason have decided or been forced to tarry outside. You might not even notice it anymore, but if it is cold enough, you breathe smoke just like a dragon.
Or at least, maybe at one time in your past, you used to be playful enough to look at it that way. If you were a kid like me, growing up some place where the Winter was cold and dry, you had to have noticed this phenomenon, and most likely had a good time pretending you could breathe smoke like a dragon, like a volcano, or like your pipe-puffing uncle.
I remember sometimes I would just sit with my mouth open -- not actively exhaling at all. Thin emanations distilled from my moisture like a living incense. I wondered in innocence as the vapors danced their way out of my mouth like fairies -- excited to fly out into the surrounding world and look for something new to cling to. Was I sad to see them go? Or was I happy to watch them play?
I imagined myself setting them free.
Something in those vapors began to speak to me. This was Magic -- right here, right now, and real. As I grew older, I realized that this wasn't smoke, this was water vapor. And that water vapor used to be my water -- my LIVING water. That steam was my life, my essence, my breath. It was a literal part of me; my inside, coming out to meet with and fill the space around me. Where exactly had that vapor come from, and where was it going? How far would it travel?
Where did my boundaries end?
My breath seemed to be Nature's way of ensuring that I was always bringing what was outside, IN, and letting what was inside, OUT.
Most of the Magic in Nature only emerges to be seen under a specific set of circumstances. We can see our breath only when it gets cold -- usually bitter cold -- so cold that the very environment we inhabit seems to be wicking away our life essence. It's not that our vapor, our life, our breath doesn't leave our mouths under any other sets of circumstance -- it most certainly does -- even on those Summer days when the sun shines gently and we bask in its warmth. The important thing is that Nature affords us these magical conditions from time to time in order to show us something about ourselves and our integral relationship with the Whole around us.
Sometimes in the course of the internal and external seasons we go through, we find ourselves "breathing in the cold Winter air" of our surroundings. This can happen due to internal or external causes. We watch as our life and vitality are sapped away by our environment -- by people we surround ourselves with, responsibilities we have placed upon ourselves, or by other unexpected "drops in temperature." If we mourn the flight of our energies, we forget our connection with them, and we become weaker, smaller, more brittle and delicate.
But if we sit still, we will begin to notice that our energies are willful and are seeking freedom. That freedom doesn't mean they are no longer a part of us. Who ever said it meant that!? Our energies, our visual breath, are seeking to remind us of our own Union with the Air, with the Water in the clouds, with the frosted Earth on the ground. They remind us of the Fire we still hold inherently sacred at our core -- a Fire that will not ever go out because it is the Source of our Soul's very Life and continuance.
So, next time you look out on a Winter Wonderland, where every branch of every tree and bush has been painted by the hand of Jack Frost, remember that this is the vapor of the Earth's Breath. Some of it is even your own -- or at least, it once passed through you. She is reminding you and all her associations and creatures that She is alive, that we're all alive -- no matter the cold -- because we're all breathing, together. She's reminding us that the life of Nature is imminent, it is One. She whispers that Her energies are stirring, and the Frost is Her Voice. She has not forgotten her connection to Everything -- every little, single, bud and branch.
Neither should you.
Vapor is a magic essence which can reveal some of the deepest secrets of the Earth, of Nature, and of Ourselves -- of the Divine.
And not to be forgotten: no matter how cold it may become in your mind, in your heart, in your nerves, your bones, your body -- when we see our breath, we are reminded that we are Alive.