By Christine Kern
7-22-14
She sat by the heart, pumping the bellows automatically, matching the rhythms to those of her own breath. In and out she drew, breathing not only to sustain herself, but also to keep the glowing embers ablaze in the fireplace before her.
She let her mind wander, reflecting back over the past months, trying to make sense of the monumental and unexpected changes that her life had undergone. Where had things begun to unravel?
The coals in the grate glistened with molten heat, casting an orange glow over her face as she continued to feed the flames. Her green eyes glowed amber in the fire’s radiance.
In and out, she and the flames breathed together, connected by the invisible bonds of the universe that govern all things. Time ceased to exist, and she was suspended, motionless and moving faster than comprehension, all at the same moment.
She focused on the sound of her breath, feeling the gentle beating of her heart deep in her chest as the air moved through her lungs. She realized that in trying to keep up with the rhythms of the outside world, racing and tripping past her at precarious speeds and angles, somehow she had lost sight of her own precious meter.
One step forward and two steps back, in a tangled tango of actions, her life was slowly sliding down an unknown path. But as she stopped to feel the respiration of the bellows, so in tune with her own, she suddenly knew that she had to make a real change. The path was not the one of daily motions, carried out by rote and with no emotion, but rather would be determined by following the respiration of her soul.
Like the bellows that fanned the flames, or the regular respiration of her lungs, the bellows of life would fuel her new path. The give and take of emotion, through the helping of others and the opening up of what others could offer, should provide the necessary life-giving oxygen to sustain a real life, rather than the flat, cardboard cut-out it had become. If she could just listen to the natural psychic rhythms that enfolded her, she could find the proper balance of energy – just enough to sustain in a healthy way, without asphyxiating or suffocating the soul.
All is one with the universe, from fire to breath to soul. The universal laws work in the same way on all things. We must first discern the law, and then we must obey. A bellows cannot perform properly if the rhythm is erratic or forced; rather, the pacing of the beats can only be determined by closing out the surroundings and listening from within.
Balance. That is the key to all things, from birth to death. The yin and yang, the positive and the negative, the give and the take: each must exist in proper proportion to the other, and without each other, neither can survive, just as she could not survive without her bellows. The bellows are the lungs of her soul.
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