Inspire
v. To breathe.Its noun is inspiration, an inspiring or animating influence.
From the Latin spirare, ‘breathe’, with the prefix in- denoting the direction. It’s related to spirit, also from the Latin spiritus, ‘breath’.
Remember what fresh air feels like.
It fills your lungs without effort. The intake causes your nerve pathways to fire, tingling right to the surface, ennervating parts of you that you seldom consider. Like your elbows, the sides of your hands, the edges of your forearms.
If your forearm can be said to have edges.
Fresh air lights up your eyes, and frees your mind. It shows you the shapes that are always in the sky; the ones that you ignore, looking down, scrolling over a backlight, comparing, thinking, needing rushing, working. Grasping.
Living?
That last time you were filled with fresh, clean air you felt spontaneously happy and didn’t really understand why. Not until you processed that event and understood how little of this feeling you get now. Don’t think back and wonder what happened to the air you used to breathe so effortlessly. You’ll start to wonder where those rolling hills went, why you don’t sit and smile at the magpies, puffed out and warbling into the late winter sun, why you aren’t outside, immersed, still. You’ll wonder what happened to the amazing people in the world that used to light you up, create new patterns of thought, inspire new approaches to philosophical thinking.
The fresh air inspires you to think differently, shows you the patterns you have Unseen as your vitality slipped away, from sleep to sleep. The prize is not your own bed at the end of the day, and it is not to endure. The prize is inspiration. The prize is an existence that allows you to enjoy and enrich, not to withstand.
Fresh air enriches the blood. As you breathe fresh air, it cleans your lungs. The increased oxygen results in higher brain function and clearer thinking. It improves your heart rate and blood pressure. Fresh air makes your immune system stronger, purifies your blood, makes your entire body work more effectively.
When you’re out in a paddock breathing in the fresh air, you take it in while feeling this energy course through you. You go with it, ignoring the rabbit holes puncturing the earth and threatening to break your ankle, draw you down to pain and misery. It’s easier to ignore them when you are revitalised with the breath of life, free from the shackles that bind you to the shallow, toxic intake of protons and electronics that you have begun to call Life. The fresh air reminds you that you are yourself, that you are powerful and amazing. It reminds you that the world is synchronous, that you and it are One. It reminds that you see the world upside-down; that your brain rights it, though often the truth of the world is the reverse of what you understand.
Breathe deeply while you can, and embed in your psyche that feeling. The feeling of fresh air filling your system with energy. Remind yourself of it during those times when the energy drains away from you as you sit and watch, compare and worry, grasp and strive.
When your path crosses those of the people who bring fresh air with them, grasp the opportunity to retain a connection. They’re the souls that force you to look up, that recreate the excitement you’d been missing, and they don’t steal anything from you. You both walk away richer: It’s an evenness of connection that the most exciting people in your life don’t leave you, a peaceful acknowledgement of mutual inspiration, rather than excitement or brilliance, or effort. They don’t steal your air. Your interaction creates it.
Remember this feeling. Remember the fresh air.
You need to remember it, because it fades over time and those who bring it are few and far between. Capture the essence while you can, and use it inspire you to reach the next peak, lest you let your personal mission fall by the wayside, forgotten, starving, and breathless, a state easy to fall into when you’re alone.
