BREATHING SPACES
Co-Creating Well Being of Body, Mind, Heart, and Planet …..One Breath At A Time
Trees Are The Lungs Of The Earth
“Don’t cut your trees, because the trees are the lungs of the earth. ”
-Milda Sebris , a resident at Ellen Memorial Health Care Center, turned 100 on 1/26/11.
To breathe is to live embodied. Without this exquisite process going on day after day, year after year, moment after moment we would not be functional – we would not be alive! Trees help the planet breathe by turning carbon dioxide into clean, pure oxygen. Plants are considered the lungs of the earth because plants produce oxygen, which is necessary for all life, so in essence, since our lungs keep us alive and trees keep our lungs alive we can consider trees to be a part of our lungs existence. This is all part of the deep interconnectedness of all life.
Our lungs are quite amazing actually. Did you know that there are about 300 million alveoli in the adult lung. The alveolar sacs consist of many alveoli and are composed of a single layer of epithelial tissue. If these alveoli were pressed flat and spread out they would take up the space of a football field. That is, a football field (including the two end zones) is 360 feet long and 160 feet wide for a total of 57,600 square feet!
The alveoli are considered the functional or foundational unit of the lung. In the spaces between the alveoli of the lungs is elastic connective tissue which is important for exhalation. It is here, surrounded by pulmonary capillaries, that gases are exchanged and we are enlivened with every inhale and exhale that we take.
“Each alveolus is lined with a thin layer of tissue fluid, which is essential for the diffusion of gases, because a gas must dissolve in a liquid in order to enter or leave a cell. This is called the “earthworm principle”. An earthworm will breathe through it’s moist skin and suffocate if it’s skin dries out.
The inner walls of the alveoli are covered with a lipid material known as surfactant. This surfactant helps to stabilize the alveoli preventing their collapse. Absence of surfactant would be similar to a plastic bag that is wet on the inside. It’s walls would stick together and not allow for complete expansion.”
This biological process goes on moment after moment for the entirety of our lives, yet in order to breathe fully we need the support of the natural world around us. As this world is tampered with by humans, the planet lets us know we are off balance with global climate change and other dramatic signs of imbalance. Just as if we tampered with the alveoli of our lungs by unhealthy practices that caused disease and imbalance in our systems.
Our Earth is like the alveoli of the lungs – if she dries out she will suffocate. Without the stabilization of the natural order of things there will be no expansion, no breath, no life – no Breathing Spaces.
Could it be that we need to pay closer attention to the smallest and most foundational parts of our Earth’s processes, and our own, before we tackle the larger things? Take yourself out into Nature this week and breathe.
Sergey Melnikoff – Breathing Nature – Selective Shots
Music by Zaza Marjanishvili, Produced by MediaGrail
OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT: www.WildlyFreeWoman.com
Most Recent Post: Falling In Love With The Journey – Being Utterly Alive!
Breathing Room – Our Homes As Sanctuaries
“The soul moves in circles” -Plotinus.
Have you ever thought about your living space and how much of a difference it makes on how you breathe and express in your life?
Rachel Ross of Mandala Custom Homes states that if what Plotinus said is true then – “Hence, our lives do not proceed in straight lines, but reverberate and reflect around and around like a beautifully patterned 
mandala. Perhaps this is why it feels so good to be in a round space.”
It also feels right and good to be in connection with nature within our homes from the materials that we build our homes with, to the way that they interface with nature. Having just spent a couple of weeks in my friends home at Dreaming Forest Farm housesitting with the sound of a stream nearby, and the presence of trees all around, calmed my being and allowed breathing spaces inside of me to expand and be nurtured.
Whether you are in the city, the country, on the coast, in the desert, or in the mountains the opportunity to create breathing room for all that live within is at your fingertips. Clear, clean, and sustainable spaces contribute to your well being and the environments.
EcoNest co-creator Paula Baker-Laporte says:
“Our dwelling is our interface with nature. The average person spends 90-95% of their time indoors. In order to enjoy optimum health and well being, we depend on this envelope not just to moderate our climate but also to embrace nature in its majesty and vitality. ….living in harmony with nature is essential to our physical, mental, and spiritual well being.” –
Sustainable homes that support the ecology of the environment that they are in, as well as our own inner ecology – and the creation of beauty and sanctuary in our home – makes certain that the environment one spends a great deal of time in is a true “breathing space”.
Our living spaces are vitally important for our vibrancy, well being and relationships to each other and the earth. I invite you to go to both Mandala Custom Homes page through Facebook, and EcoNest (links above) to start dreaming into expanding your breathing room and that of our planets!
OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT: WildlyFreeWoman
Most Recent Post: Contribution vs Making A Difference!
Everything You Need to Know About Life Is In One Breath
“Everything you need to know about life is in one breath.” 
–Dewitt Jones, Photojournalist
After listening to the recent interview with Dewitt done by Sheila Finkelstein of Picture to Ponder I was brought back again to what an important tool and a metaphor for life the breath is. You fill yourself up and then the biological imperative is that you must give it back out. We, at times, attempt to hold our breaths thinking that it will make us “safe”and nothing bad will happen. Amelia Earhart said “Who wants a life imprisoned in safety?”
That is what holding our breath is about. You can’t not breathe – but you can, if you choose to do so, contract away from your own life experience and the calling and relationships that may be asking you out to play, create, and experience life fully, by shallow breathing or holding the breath.
You have to breathe! Taking in a full breath fills you, gives energy, stimulates natural biological processes, and expands your potential for excitement about life and the contribution that you naturally have to bring.
Your contribution is then present in the exhale. A giving out of the fullness that you have just taken in from a place of enough – to sustain, support, and create new life. For within the exhale a space is created to bring in more.
There is always enough, and for most living things this process is on automatic. It is something that we can trust and relax into, especially during particularly difficult or stressful times. Can we use the breath as a tool for recognizing the wealth and potential that is our life now?
Soft belly, relaxed shoulders, face and mind at peace – take time NOW to enter a Breathing Space of fullness.
Take that full breath and move, breathe and listen to Words From The Hopi Elders:
( from the album Songs of the Earth – Majbritte Ulrikkeholm & Søren Frieboe) The music video was filmed by Majbritte Ulrikkeholm & Søren Frieboe . Listen to the album on www.majbritteulrikkeholm.dk)
OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT: www.WildlyFreeWoman.com
Beyond Our Own Boundaries
“If we want TRULY EXTRAORDINARY VISION then you have to continually expand your horizons, take risks. If we don’t push our edge we’ll never expand our view.. It’s not trespassing to go beyond your own boundaries.”
–Dewitt Jones, National Geographic Photojournalist
Going beyond our own boundaries is an expression of creativity as I see it. The expansive artist knows this well…and that artist is within all of us if we only let down the walls separating ourselves from the heart of our own unique vision. I never quite know what I am going to post for the week on this blog, but somehow it always appears. How does that happen? I stretch out and open to see what comes in….and then creation is born.
Last year I found an amazing photojournalist, Dewitt Jones, who works with National Geographic. For me he represents 
that wild, creative, and curious soul that isn’t afraid to wait for opportunity to present itself. He inhabits a breathing space of promise, possibility, vision, and the sacred in the practice of everyday creativity. I was so taken with him that I posted a video that left me inspired to tap my own deep well of creativity and see possibility everywhere. I give it here for you again in “Celebrate What Is Right With The World”.
http://www.viddler.com/explore/bethechange/videos/1/
- Visual Banquet
“Every evening nature sets before us a visual banquet.
How often do we join her at the table?” D.J.
My favorite part of finding Dewitt is that one of my readers, Sheila Finkelstein, who is an inspirational artist/photographer herself, was so excited about discovering this man and his work that she e-mailed him last year…and he responded back! Well to make a long story short she is now interviewing him at the end of this month and the information for that interview is below.
I invite you to join Dewitt and Sheila by clicking on the link below. On this call you will learn that “creativity is not 
about being artistic, but about an attitude! An attitude that can change our perspective, invite limitless opportunities, and help us see the extraordinary.” DJ
http://www.throughandfromthelens.com/dewitt111.html
This interview is Tuesday, January 11, 8:30-9:30 EST so please go to the link above to sign up soon. It is free of charge and an MP3 will be made available to you if you can’t be on the call. Even if you don’t consider yourself a photographer, or better yet wish that you knew more about it, the time with both of them will take you to an expanded breathing space of how you “see” the world around you!
OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT: www.WildlyFreeWoman.com
IGNITE! – New Beginnings
As I walked the nature path with my neighbors dog today seeing the smiling faces of many, I realized that my energy was low. The sun shining down upon me, the brisk air, and the contact with the Earth was enlivening me in a way that staying indoors and resting had not.
Allowing my shoulders to relax and my feet to make connection with the ground beneath me, I became aware of the earth supporting me as I breathed. Self- image, at times based on a sense of separation from others and from the objects that senses perceive, let go of its grip. It was at this moment that breath expanded lower into my belly and throughout my body. A new and vibrant energy pulsed through me.
These changes were not produced by any kind of “doing”, but instead experiencing the moment as it is with absolute presence. The sense of “being supported by the Earth” will shift your breath and your awareness, and when practiced on a regular basis will allow you to energize, ignite, and take action on the changes that will alter your life in the ways you dream and vision for this coming year.
With the coming of the New Year you may feel this need to renew, energize and shift into new awareness. The astrology for this first month of 2011 also brings with it opportunity to expand beyond our old patterns and beliefs, and energize life altering changes freeing us from perceived limitations.
Scott Wolfram of The Travelers Well www.travelerswell.com speaks on “igniting a vibrant explosion of energy” in your life now in the month of Janus. 
He says in his most recent newsletter:
“… as we move into the New Year, we move into the month of January, which is named for the Roman god Janus. Janus is the god of boundaries and transitions, of doorways and new beginnings. At each New Year, we all pass over a boundary of time and transition from one year to the next. From the perspective of Janus, the New Year is more than changing the calendar it is the crossing of the boundary between the past and the future.”
He goes on to say that “the first 2-3 weeks of this year are the best times to energize 2011 as Jupiter will conjunct Uranus (at 27 degrees of Pisces) – which will not happen again until the year 2024! The conjunction of these two forward-looking and powerful planets provides an opportunity to energize the future oriented perspective of Janus. Jupiter and Uranus provide one of the most powerful astrological combinations to energize life altering changes, freeing us from the limitations of the past and projecting us into the future.”
The beautiful video below reveals to us the vastness, light, mystery, and ever evolving Presence of all life – you included.
Time for a New Beginning
A spacey eclipse in the vacuum of space Nominee in the 1st Annual Firmament Video Awards Category. Music: ‘Dawn of a New Century’ by Secret Garden
Practice the breathing space of connection with the Earth this month. Feel the support, open the breath, and ignite your passions and creativity – freedom!
OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT: WildlyFreeWoman
BREATHING SPACES 
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