v. conspired, conspiring, conspires
v.intr.
1. To
plan together secretly to commit an illegal or wrongful act or accomplish a
legal purpose through illegal action.
2. To
join or act together; combine: "Semisweet chocolate,
cocoa powder, espresso, Cognac, and vanilla all conspire to intensify [the
cake's] flavor" (Sally Schneider).
v.tr.
To plan or plot
secretly.
Middle English conspiren, from Old French, from Latin cōnspīrāre : com-, com- + spīrāre, to breathe together.
conspirer n.
conspiringly adv.
--The
American Heritage Dictionary
“Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it
is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of
paradise.”
--Victor Hugo
““And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and the man
became a living soul.
Genesis
2:7
“
“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of
feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain
that a faithful hand
will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and
with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.”
--George
Eliot
In
Babylon, the strength of your conspiracy theories, seriously having the courage
of your convictions, will sink you or save you.
Now, I’m not talking about whether or not you believe Lee Harvey Oswald
acted alone, or if you only drink bottled water because you think fluoride is
eating your brain. I’m talking about
conspiracy theories in the strictest, old-school, deep and nerdy Latin meaning. Conspiracy means, most basically, to breath
together--like whispering, sighing, saying things just barely out loud enough
for the person right next to you to hear.
With whom you choose to conspire, to test your life theories—the breath
that backs up what you have to say about your life and the world, and what you
think God means, or what love feels like, or what to do about the hard hanging curveballs
that life throws…that, friends and neighbors, is what it’s all about.
Without
inviting you into the inner sanctum of our life, I can tell you when I wake up
in the middle of the night, sometimes scared or anxious or nervous about
whatever life stuff I or we are in the middle of processing, I put my ear up
against his back, and listen to the love of my life breathe, and try to match
my own respiration to that rhythm.
Usually, instead of dropping off to sleep, I’ll fight to stay awake just
a bit longer to kind of marinate in our shared breath. I may have laundry lists
of tasks to complete, and fight anxiety about my extended family, or jobs, or
selling my condo, or third world debt, or the climate change, but in those
breaths in the quiet hours of the night, I find myself really believing that all
things shall be well.
I
remember the night one of my besties came to my backdoor, weeping inconsolably
because some ridiculous asshole masquerading as a grown-ass man with his life
together had just broken her heart into about a million pieces. Before we could unpack the hurt, and find a
way forward, or go pick out new shoes, we breathed together for a long
time. At first, there were the wracking
sobs, you know the kind—you’ve breathed those breaths on your own, or with
someone.
They feel like they start at your feet, somewhere just behind the
cuticle on your big toe, and tear their way out of your insides, making your
throat and everything else in between burn and smolder, and even as deeply as
they are drawn, you never feel like you can really catch your breath. There are hiccups, there are shallow gasps,
and words to try and chew out, or explanations or apologies. And at some point,
you start to slow down, the thoughts slow from ludicrous-speed-plaid to warp-speed
silvery-white, and you start to hear the sounds you’re making, and begin to
compose yourself. The hot tears start,
rather than just the apex of emotion tear-quirts, rolling long and fat down
your face, and puddling in the well of your throat or on your pillow, or the
steering wheel, or the shirt of whoever is holding you. And mostly you’re not trying to talk, you’re
just trying to stop making noise, and you’re breathing a little bit deeper, a
little bit longer, and are starting to catch up with yourself. And you get better. And soon, you’re back to your breath, your normal breath, with just a
tremble, every now and then. And the
breath draws you back to yourself, to hear, and to now. You may be sobbing again, in another hour, or
in the morning, or over something stupid on tv or the radio, or because you
remember the sharpness of whatever it was that made you cry in the first place. And you’ll do it until you’re done. It was that way the night in my driveway,
with my bestie. Catching our breath, catching up to the hurt, catching up to the present moment was what
brought us back inside, and helped my darling friend figure out how to dust
herself off, and process, and move forward.
Breathing
is something that’s easily taken for granted.
Two experiences in my life have radically reformed the way I think about
breath, about the way I try to value my breath, to be connected to it, even as
I realize I don’t control it, my brain and God are in charge of that. One is really easy to talk about, easy to
share with you, and the other is one I’d rather not relate, because it’s a sad
story, and I don’t want to end up at the end of this paragraph sobbing. But, tell the truth and shame the Devil,
right?
Yoga…yoga
helped me to connect to my breath in a very…and I hate this word…spiritual
way. I was able to access the idea of
the Holy Spirit in a whole new way, to see around the corner of what grace
might look and feel like in that every day and sacramental banality of
breath. Breath, in yoga-speak, is known
as prana, or life-force. Your prana is
what connects you to everything in the Universe, it’s what connects you to the
Infinite Divine. It’s the way I came to
understand the story of Adam, and God’s animating breath. Learning to connect those dots, man…it
changed the way I pray, changed the way I calm myself down when I’m upset, how I
teach Sunday School…everything. When I am mindful of my breath, when I can lose
myself in breathing during my practice or during the Eucharist, or when I have
my ear pressed up against my husband’s precious back, I feel so deeply
connected to a well of love and mercy, to a source of comfort and compassion
that can only be called God. It is my life-force, it is what animates me and
empowers me in this experience of this life, this present and incredible life.
And in those breaths, I am never afraid, I never think about not taking another
breath, there is nothing but love and hope and light and good things. Such deep
breaths, and so restful.
The
night my father died, I learned some hard lessons about breath. All those days
before that day, over fifty of them, that last time in the hospital, all those
days, that last breath seemed like it was going to happen any minute. There’s a point at which I guess I just
became numb to that fact, to the exhausting inevitability of that last breath,
and not knowing whether to be relieved or horrified or both. Mostly, I just put my head down and went to
school, and prayed to God that I wouldn’t hear my name over the loudspeaker. I
remember being convinced that he would die while I was at the prom or Six Flags
Senior Day. He died on a Sunday, two
weeks after prom and the day after Six Flags.
And five days before I graduated.
Honest to God, I don’t remember if I was in the room when it happened,
or if I saw him after he died. If I was,
or if I did, I have no memory of it, and I am so thankful for that. I left the room, I know, at some point,
because I couldn’t stand the noise, couldn’t handle all the feelings I was
feeling, of how the walls felt like they were closing in and I knew there was
no way I could unsee or unheard anything that was happening.
I felt like a coward for the longest time
about that, about leaving that room when I did. But I forgave that 18 year old
girl a long time ago. I couldn’t stand how it made me feel to hear those
breaths. I wanted them to get better, to
clear up, for the last nine months to have been reconciled, but I also just
wanted them to stop, because I knew it wasn’t going to get better. And I
honestly could not conceive of a way for things to have gotten worse, unless it
was for him to just keep breathing like that for another…day, week…? And he stopped. For the first time in two weeks, he opened
his eyes, and focused on something at the far end of the room, and he stopped.
And that’s the day I learned in a concrete and visceral way that people really
do die. Even people you love the most in
the world, and it doesn’t matter how much you love them, or how much you pray,
eventually, we all die. That next breath,
however tortured or peaceful, will not come. And that is a hard thing to know,
on a bone-deep level, and not just in some philosophical blah-blah kind of way.
The yoga
story came after the part where my dad died, and I’m grateful for that. Coming to an understanding about how my
breath is borrowed from the mouth of God means that everyone else’s is too, and
that’s changed the way I treat people, how I love them, what I do with my
breath. And it makes me less afraid of
the day when I or someone I love stops breathing. I know it will be hard, harder than I can
imagine. And I don’t want to think about
those days. But this is real life, and
we can’t just pretend it’s all baby farts and rainbows. You have to hold that reality in both hands,
or go crazy.
End of
Part One
