Whose breath is this?

There was a song (by Bryan Adams, I think?) with the line: "Every breath you took was mine."[And, no, I am not thinking of the Police hit, "Every Breath You Take."] The idea was basically that he and the girl were lip-locked and when he breathed out, she breathed that breath in, and when she breathed out, he breathed that breath in. It struck me because at the time I was pondering what theologians call the double spiration of the Holy Spirit, but no need to go into that. Now. Ever.

This morning while I was doing my meditation, Daniel was cooking bacon. I could smell it all the way down in my office. (Okay, so it distracted me. The important thing is that it led to an insight.) How did the smell get from the kitchen to my office? Via the air flow, of course. And the air flow meant all sorts of things from the kitchen got to my office. And vice versa. And things from outside got inside. And I breathed some of those things in. And out.

The average respiratory rate reported in a healthy adult at rest is usually given as 12–18 breaths per minute, but estimates do vary between sources.  With such a slow rate, more accurate readings are obtained by counting the number of breaths over a full minute. Average resting respiratory rates by age are:
    birth to 6 weeks: 30–60 breaths per minute
    6 months: 25–40 breaths per minute
    3 years: 20–30 breaths per minute
    6 years: 18–25 breaths per minute
    10 years: 15–20 breaths per minute
    adults: 12–20 breaths per minute

So what, Damien, is your point? Among other things, I figure I have breathed something over 25 million breaths. Probably well over, since I have not spent all that time (despite what Daniel might claim) at rest.

I literally am breathing some of the same air that Daniel breathed just a while ago. And that Spot and Rover breathed. And the air that our neighbors breathed out a little while ago and that has made its way down the corridor or out the window and into our apartment.

And where did that air come from, and who had breathed it? The people in the office, on the bus, in the Co-Op? Before that?

I am saying that we all literally breathe the same air. You breathe it out, I breathe it in. At some point. Clearly I don't breathe in all the air in the world, but it is a big mishmash, carried about by winds and weather fronts and in the lungs of airline passengers and migrating birds. We know this or we wouldn't worry about spreading germs by coughing and sneezing and just breathing. So we are breathing in air that others have already breathed, not just now but over the millenia. Whose breath am I breathing?

So some of the air I breathe -- which has been swirling around the planet for who knows how long and through who knows how many lungs -- was probably breathed by a homophobe, by a saint, by a rapist, by a murder victim, by a baby, by a dying man, by a president, by a pope, by a Log Cabin Republican, by a Communist, by a black man, by a North Korean woman, by someone whose opinions I despise, by someone who hates me ...

It's all in my lungs.  Literally IN me.

Maybe that doesn't cause you to pause and reflect.

But it did me.

Partly because that whole double spiration thing I mentioned earlier is (for those who believe in a Trinity) part of the mystery of how the one god is three persons.

BTW, when I looked for a graphic to illustrate this post and searched images for "breathing in and breathing out," I was amazed at how many of those the search engine pulled up were of couples kissing. Every breath you take is mine ...