No one really knows for sure. However, I like to dwell on the notion that we all share intimately in the vast ocean of air we call our earthly home. We are air breathers, and it suggests to me a close connection I have which I might otherwise never notice or might even ignore.
Air is made of so many molecules that they might be considered almost limitless, or certainly not measurable. Each breath I take brings in and sends out so many molecules of air that only an advanced theoretician might be able to estimate their number. Perhaps someone has actually done that, and I am sure that it is a very big number.
The breath I take in is also constantly mixing with the air around me. The shifting wind whisks those molecules of my breath off to many far and exotic places. The vast sea of air that forms earth’s atmosphere is constantly moving. The molecules of air are constantly being mixed with a turbulence that may be invisible to my eyes, but it is something I can nevertheless know and often feel with my skin.
The air I breathed yesterday might well be t in the nostrils of someone in Wisconsin today. Because of the constant movement of air, space puts no practical limits on my breath except for the upper limits of the atmosphere. Neither does time put many constraints. The breath I took a moment ago might well contain molecules I once encountered as a young boy.
That same breath might well contain molecules of air that were in the lungs of ancestors I have never known. Air is such a biological, real world connector. It brings all breathing beings together in one common encounter. We are all connected by the air we breathe. I cannot sustain an illusion of being separate as long as I breathe out and breathe in.
I have been told that I am constantly sharing the same air once inhaled by the likes of Julius Caesar and William Shakespeare. Just by breathing, I am connected with all the beings who have ever inhabited this earth and once drew molecules into their lungs.
This causes me to have a snarky thought. I wonder if the white supremacists are aware that every breath they take connects them intimately, inside their bodies, with countless People Of Color. Those they despise have shared breath with them countless times. They are so very connected. with those they would hold at a distance.
Air is but one way I know I am intimately connected with all beings, and ultimately to the stars from which we originate into which we return. However, it is a nearly tangible expression of the links of existence that joins me to everything. Air is just one expression of the network that joins all things, it is an example of the manner in which living things are connected. It is a connection that we ignore at our peril.
Besides the sharing of air, there is more to this network, but I like to remember frequently how each breath I take binds me intimately with every breath ever taken. I breathe in and I feel the intimate oneness with every being that has ever lived or ever will live on this planet of ours.