Breathe.

 

One thing that connects us all while living on this planet is that we all breathe.

The primary sign of life is our first breath until we take our last, at death. During our lives, research shows that we take 16 breaths per minute, 960 breaths an hour, 23,040 breaths a day and 8,409,600 a year, on average.

There are many types of breaths. We have short, long, shallow, hot, heavy, deep, rapid, hard, bated, laboured and even bad breath. We can catch it, hold it, struggle and fight for it, have it taken away, lose it and in some moments, experience breathlessness.

The latin word “to breathe” is Spirare. It is the origin of many derivatives of common words such as aspire, inspire and spirit among many that relate to our journey through this life.

In this short poem, I assembled these words in a somewhat meaningful order as a guide to breathing our way purposefully.