Voice of Pneuma: The First Post

There is no perfect sentence to start off this post.

There is no perfect way to begin what I hope will be a long journey, a welcoming alcove, a faded series of letters read by candlelight.

I’ve been procrastinating for nearly a month, staring at this fresh space I’ve created, wanting so badly to make this first post brilliant. Well, it won’t be that. But it will be real, and real is the true goal anyway.

So, hi.

Almost a month ago, I made my first serious attempt at meditating. The simple act of just sitting or lying still, breathing in and out, has proven to be anything but simple. Sometimes my mind feels flooded like a basement during a hurricane. Sometimes I feel anything but stable, anything but peaceful.

The thing about meditation, though, is that the main activity involved — breathing — isn’t even something you have to learn how to do. It isn’t something you have to remember to do. You’re always, always doing it. You just have to pay attention to what you can’t help doing. Pay attention to what’s sustaining you when you’re busy doing other things.

2020 has been a ridiculous year, so much so that a cliche sentence like this doesn’t feel too out of place here. This year has been rough, in so many ways, for so many people. For the entire planet. I’ve been feeling all of it. Even though I live nowhere near California or Oregon, just seeing pictures of the red sky and the fires blazing on the West Coast makes me feel like there’s smoke in my own lungs. Makes it hard to breathe.

Racism makes it hard to breathe. Social and legislative discrimination and inequity make it hard to breathe. The fogged mirror through which we see everyone we know and love can make it hard to breathe. And of course, there's a deadly, global virus whose principle symptom is — you guessed it — finding it hard to breathe.

Breathing is always more difficult when you’re thinking about it, when you remember everything that has to be working properly just to make it possible.

For me, it’s been a rough year on a personal note as well. The now-infamous year 2020 has brought with it a good deal of loss and conflict, tough lessons learned. Difficult questions about what happens next, what’s even worth it to pursue, how to find an anchor to hold onto when it feels like everything is falling apart at once and I can do nothing but watch.

It’s hard not to sink into cynicism, or anger, or unbearable sadness. It’s hard not to develop a cold heart or a hard(er) shell. And at the same time, I know that I have to resist that urge, because if I let the quicksand swallow me I don’t know if I’ll be able to fight my way out again.

One thing has sustained me, especially in recent weeks. This one thing is what I’ve finally been paying attention to. It’s inspired this entire blog, and it’s inspiring me as I type this.

Pneuma.

Breath. Spirit. Being.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes it feels like the breath in my lungs is the only thing I have.

I was born with pneuma. That was my first gift. And even before I cried for the first time in that hospital room, signaling my vitality, my strength, I did the first thing I could do, the most raw, instinctual thing. I gasped for air. I breathed.

Pneuma was with me from my very first second. When I feel like I have nothing — and no one — else, pneuma is with me, now. And on my last day of life, whenever that may be, I guess it’s fitting that pneuma will be the very last thing I relinquish. My first and last friend. Always there. The least I can do is pay attention every once in a while.

I suppose this is what I want this blog to be — a place for me to breathe. A meditative space in which I attempt to regroup, to recover all I felt I’ve lost over the past year. Hopefully it can also help someone else remember to notice, and thank, their lungs every now and then.

For anyone who may be reading along, feel free to follow this journey as it takes me (or us) whistling through the weeds, weaving through the pathless forest of life. I’m sure this blog will change shape and mature multiple times throughout its existence; it’s full of pneuma as well, after all. It’ll go through modifications and seasons just like I will. Just like you will.

May we remember to breathe, in and out, together.

-D.