Body and Earth – Day 17: Air

In reading about the air and it impact on our bodies, I can not help but think how much the air truly affects us as humans. Air is always around us and always touching our skin, hair and feet, but it is also a very powerful tool in thinking that air helps us to function. Air provides a source that helps to energize our brain and provide nourishment for our muscle’s function. Any one air particle itself is the product of many different regions and many different areas as is illustrated in the text “because the atmosphere is a medium of connection, change in one area has distant as well as local effects” (page 122). In the discussion of the different layers of the atmosphere as well as the way the air moves from one region to another and also how it travels around the world it is interesting to think how connected our bodies are to the earth and also to each other. I could, for example, be breathing the same air that someone in Africa is breathing as well. Beyond just the changes in the air and the impact it has on our body, “climate, seasons, and the sun, moon, and stars affect our human moods and imagination, as well as our physical bodies – our environment” (page 124).

The Flute (page 125) exercise required me to feel the effect of all the different senses on my body and also feel the effects of air as it passes through the different regions and areas of my body. In this moment, I was able to feel air as it entered my body and was also able to focus the air as it moved to different areas of my body. When thinking about places in my body that were tired or hurt more (such as my tight hamstrings), I was able to feel how breathing in air to those specific areas helped me to release the tension that I was feeling in the respective areas. Empty spaces (page 125) allowed me to explore the spaces in my room through walking, then speed walking then running. I was able to feel the effect that air had as I became closer to and further away from different objects. I became aware of the objects around me because of the air that I felt passing over my body when I was near different objects. When visiting my place at night as required in Place visit: Attention to air (page 126), I was able to feel the air more vividly because it was cooler than other times I had been outside. There was a slight wind which moved my hair, so I was able to feel the effect of my hair’s movement to my scalp and its feeling. Additionally, I was able to feel the chills that appeared on my arm as a result of the cool breeze that went over my skin.


The above illustration is of "My Place" at night. The location I used for all the "My Place" exercises was my backyard. Even though I live in the middle of a busy town such as Seattle, when I am in my backyard, I feel like I am in a more quiet place when I am in my backyard because it is very calming and serene to me.