Friday 16 May 2003

Pic of the day: For my Sim pastor, religion leads to love. For me, religion leads to breathing difficulties. What is the connection? Read on ...

Breathless religion

Already the first day (yesterday), I noticed there was something strange going on. I was reading the GURPS Religion compendium, with its very detailed considerations on fictional religions: Creation myths, deities, organized religion etc. Now, I am very interested in all these things. I have read heaps and heaps of mythology. But there was something strange going on with me while reading. My breathing was disturbed.

The last couple weeks I have had this feeling a lot, mostly at work, that it is hard to breathe, like my body is locked or constrained in its breathing movements. It is not so bad that I feel like I suffocate completely, just partially. I hate it. And it is all mental. I'm not entirely ready for the padded cell, it is just a simple neurosis, but it is still kinda disturbing.

Well, it gets worse when reading this book. There is an even stranger feeling, kind of like I don't really need to breathe, kind of like I don't really want to breathe. I end up doing it after all, of course, but it is still quite disturbing. So ... it seems we have got a thread to follow here. It seems to have something to do with religion.

***

I am not just curious, except when it comes to old and dead religions. When it comes to Christianity, I am a believer myself. Of sorts. In a way. Just not very typical. Then again, am I ever very typical anything? I am fairly tolerant, particularly when it comes to others. I expect more of myself, but sometimes I am disappointed. Then again, I guess that is the human condition. (I may not be a very typical human, but I am even less a typical god.)

Like the rest of me, my religion has changed a lot over time. But clearly it still has something it wants with me. Even writing this makes it harder to breathe. I don't know why, I don't know what's up, but it seems I am closing in on something.

***

It is not just me who associates religion with breath. The Bible says that God "breathed" life into Adam, and the word for spirit in Hebrew is said to be the same as breath (or a variant of it, i don't remember exactly). In Greek, we also have a connection: Pnevma (pneuma) means spirit, wind, air. In Hinduism and Buddhism, conscious breathing is important in meditation and yoga.

When we are excited, our breathing changes, even if we don't actually do any physical work. We may become breathless. Recurring readers will know that I sometimes quote the song Drowning (in your love) by Backstreet Boys, a song about human love although except for a few words it would have been equally well suited as a religious hymn! Rather than quote the whole song, I'll just point to the relevant expression this time: "girl, you leave me breathless (but it's okay)" ... "every time I breathe I take you in (and my heart beats again)" ... and of course:
Go on and pull me under
Cover me with dreams
Love me mouth to mouth now
You know I can't resist
'Cos you're the air that I breathe
...

Our breath is so essential to us, that it is our life. Physically, we can only last a few minutes without breathing, then our brain dies. We are, in effect, walking flames: Without air, the slow burning in our cells stops, and we flicker and fade.

Then to let someone else control our breath would be the ultimate submission, the ultimate trust, the ultimate giving up. Conversely, to not be able to control your own breath is the ultimate insecurity. Your life is no longer in your own hands. It is a nightmare to me, after all the years as a child when I woke up in the night struggling for air. And yet ... there is that other side to it too. Which is it? Friend or foe? Love or hate? I do not know, I must expect anything.